RCN: Synthesizing Deep Time and Recent Community Ecology

RCN：综合深度时间和近期社区生态

• 批准号: 1257625
• 负责人: Sara Lyons
• 金额: $ 40万
• 依托单位: Smithsonian Institution
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-04-01 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1257625&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RCN; Synthesizing; Deep; Time; Recent

Understanding the structure, function, and dynamics of ecosystems is a central goal of ecological research. Paleo-biologists are engaged in parallel efforts to reconstruct past ecological communities using associations of fossil plants and animals. Modern ecology knows a lot about how the individual components of ecological systems operate in the present day, but considerably less about the linkages that hold together communities and ecosystems over long periods of time. Paleo-ecological studies in deep time (from thousands of years to several hundred million years ago) can reveal how communities shift over evolutionary time and how they respond to major environmental changes. This project will establish a Research Coordination Network to bring together ecologists and paleo-biologists in an effort to bridge the gap between ecology and paleoecology and apply modern ecological theory to gain in-depth understanding of land-based faunas and floras over the past 400 million years. The network resources and expertise will focus on the following central question: What are the patterns and causal processes of animal and plant community assembly and disassembly over geological time and up to the present-day? This project will generate new perspectives on change in the planet's ecosystems before human impact, allow us to compare what is happening now, and give us some ideas about what may happen in the future.This Research Coordination Network will produce a more comprehensive model for community assembly and disassembly that uses both neo- and paleo-ecological data and insights. This project will also produce a new synthetic book, Foundations of Paleoecology, which will integrate ecological theory with the paleo-biology record, and a public database of ecological communities of different land plants and animals over different scales of space and time. Additional broader impacts from this network include research experience and training of undergraduates and graduate students, and outreach to the general public through the new National Museum of Natural History, Deep Time exhibit and through games and teacher manuals to promote the teaching of linkages between ecology and paleoecology in public schools.

了解生态系统的结构、功能和动态是生态学研究的核心目标。古生物学家也在努力利用动植物化石组合来重建过去的生态群落。 现代生态学对当今生态系统的各个组成部分如何运作有很多了解，但对长期以来将社区和生态系统结合在一起的联系知之甚少。古生态学研究在深时间（从数千年到数亿年前）可以揭示社区如何在进化过程中变化，以及它们如何应对重大的环境变化。该项目将建立一个研究协调网络，将生态学家和古生物学家聚集在一起，努力弥合生态学与古生态学之间的差距，并应用现代生态学理论深入了解过去4亿年来的陆地动植物。网络资源和专业知识将集中在以下中心问题上：从地质时期到当今，动植物群落组装和分解的模式和因果过程是什么？ 该项目将对人类影响之前地球生态系统的变化产生新的观点，使我们能够比较现在发生的事情，并为我们提供未来可能发生的事情的一些想法。该研究协调网络将使用新生态和古生态数据和见解，为社区组装和拆卸提供更全面的模型。该项目还将出版一本新的综合著作《古生态学基础》，其中将把生态学理论与古生物学记录结合起来，并将建立一个关于不同时空尺度上不同陆地植物和动物生态群落的公共数据库。该网络产生的其他更广泛的影响包括研究经验和对本科生和研究生的培训，以及通过新的国家自然历史博物馆“深时"展览和通过游戏和教师手册向公众宣传，以促进公立学校教授生态学与古生态学之间的联系。