Collaborative Research: Controls over Prairie Plant Range Distributions under Future Climate Change

合作研究：未来气候变化下草原植物分布范围的控制

• 批准号: 1340847
• 负责人: Scott Bridgham
• 金额: $ 232.16万
• 依托单位: University of Oregon Eugene
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-07-15 至 2021-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1340847&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Controls; over; Prairie

A key challenge for environmental science is to understand how climate change will interact with other disturbance agents, such as invasive plant species, to impact biodiversity through changes in the range of both native and invasive species. There is overwhelming evidence that many species have shifted their ranges in the past 30 years as the climate has changed. However, observed range shifts and the results of computer modeling based on the current climatic boundaries of species distributions, both fail to provide a strong enough theoretical foundation for making sound predictions of how future changes will affect these distributions. A mechanistic approach that fuses theory with field experimentation is required to truly understand controls over range distributions. In addition, how plants disperse has not been included in models of range shifts except in rudimentary ways. Yet dispersal may keep many species from responding to climate change, especially for those native species that occur in isolated pockets of the highly fragmented landscapes of today. This project will address this gap in understanding by using a novel climate change experiment at three prairie sites across a 300 mile climate gradient in the Pacific Northwest. It will also estimate historical and recent rates of dispersal of representative prairie plants using molecular genetics techniques, and computer models that include the effects of climate on the survival, reproduction, and rates of dispersal of these plants. A range of education activities will help high school, undergraduate, and graduate students to develop their professional skills. A web site will be developed to focus on the potential impacts of climate change on regional and global biodiversity. Several nongovernmental conservation organizations will be partners in the research.This research will be comprised of three coupled tasks. (1) An established manipulative warming and precipitation study that is embedded within a regional climate gradient will be used to experimentally examine the role of climate versus local factors in controlling the demography of a broad suite of 12 native grass and forb species that currently reach northern range limits in the Pacific Northwest. Demographic models will be used to quantitatively determine the relative effect sizes of local factors (e.g., plant community composition and soil variables), regional-scale climate differences, and interannual climate variability on the vital rates of the focal species. (2) Landscape population genetics will be used to determine dispersal probabilities of eight of the focal species in landscapes that face different barriers to dispersal due to both historical and contemporary land use and vegetation, geographic dispersal barriers, and distance between prairie habitat patches. (3) The first two components will be synthesized in a regional landscape simulation under three climate change scenarios within interior-valley prairies in the Pacific Northwest. The simulation model will then be used to predict whether the focal species are likely to go extinct in all or parts of their current ranges, where they are capable of surviving outside of their current ranges under future climatic conditions, and the probability of reaching these new favorable habitats, if they exist. The effects of increased or decreased landscape resistance to dispersal through loss (e.g., increased development pressure) or gain (e.g., increased prairie restoration) of prairie habitat in the future will also be examined.

环境科学的一个主要挑战是了解气候变化将如何与其他干扰剂（例如侵入性植物物种）相互作用，以通过天然和入侵物种的变化来影响生物多样性。有大量证据表明，随着气候的变化，许多物种在过去30年中改变了范围。但是，根据当前物种分布的当前气候界限，观察到的范围变化和计算机建模的结果，两者都无法提供足够强大的理论基础，以对未来变化如何影响这些分布做出合理的预测。需要一种与现场实验融合理论的机械方法，以真正理解对范围分布的控制。此外，除基本的方式外，植物如何分散尚未包括在范围移动模型中。 然而，分散可能会使许多物种无法应对气候变化，特别是对于那些在当今高度碎片景观的孤立口袋中发生的本地物种。该项目将通过在太平洋西北部300英里的三个大草原地点使用新的气候变化实验来解决这一差距。它还将使用分子遗传学技术以及包括气候对这些植物生存，生殖和分散率的影响的计算机模型估算代表性草原植物的历史和最新速率。一系列教育活动将帮助高中，本科和研究生发展其专业技能。将开发一个网站，以关注气候变化对区域和全球生物多样性的潜在影响。该研究将由三个耦合任务组成，这项研究将是一些非政府保护组织。 （1）嵌入在区域气候梯度中的已建立的操纵变暖和降水研究将用于实验检查气候与局部因素在控制西北太平洋西北部北部范围限制的12种本地草和福布物种的人口统计学中的作用。人口模型将用于定量确定局部因素（例如植物群落组成和土壤变量），区域尺度气候差异以及年间气候变化对焦点物种的重要率的相对效应大小。 （2）景观种群遗传学将用于确定景观中八个焦点物种的分散概率，由于历史和当代土地使用和植被，地理分散障碍以及Prairie栖息地斑块之间的距离，这些景观面临着不同的分散障碍。 （3）前两个组成部分将在西北太平洋西北部内部瓦利大草原的三种气候变化场景下在区域景观模拟中合成。然后，模拟模型将用于预测焦点物种是否可能在其当前范围的所有或部分地区都灭绝，如果它们存在，它们在未来的气候条件下能够在当前范围之外生存，如果存在，则可以在未来的气候条件下生存。将来还将检查通过损失（例如，发育压力增加）或增益（例如，将来的草原恢复）增加或减少景观对分散的影响。