CAREER: Measuring the thermal tolerances of individuals, populations, and species and predicting plant species' responses to climate change in the tropical Andes

生态学中最基本的问题之一是：每个物种都在哪里出现？接下来是：什么环境因素决定了一个特定物种的出现？ 尽管这些问题看起来很简单，但对于绝大多数物种来说，它们仍然没有答案。这种知识的缺乏尤其令人不安，因为了解物种将如何通过改变它们发生的地方或通过生理适应来应对气候变化。 这项研究将通过在秘鲁安第斯山脉进行的一系列实验和观察研究来解决这些问题和其他问题，那里的许多物种非常容易受到温度和降雨量微小变化的影响。 更具体地说，该项目将测量近24种云雾林树种的海拔范围和耐热性。研究人员还将确定每个物种的小种群在多大程度上紧密适应特定海拔（“局部适应”）以及每个物种改变其耐热性（“可塑性”）的能力。数据将被纳入模型，以预测物种目前出现的地方以及随着气候变化它们可能开始出现的地方。 该项目是第一个系统地测试几个关键假设的项目之一，这些假设对于评估气候变化将如何影响物种的生存环境至关重要。这将是有史以来第一次同时测量热带树木个体、种群和物种的耐热性的研究。这些结果将极大地扩展我们对决定物种出现地点的复杂因素的理解，并将加强我们预测物种对未来气候变化的反应的能力。该研究将与国内和国际环境教育组织合作，与广泛的教育，培训和推广计划相结合。推广计划旨在帮助增加美国少数民族和国际学生在生物科学的参与，并扩大公众对气候变化对世界各地热带森林的潜在影响的认识。

One of the most basic questions in ecology is: Where does each species occur? And following on that: What environmental factors determine where a particular species occurs? Despite the seeming simplicity of these questions, they remain unanswered for the vast majority of species. This lack of knowledge is especially troubling given the implications for understanding how species will respond to climate change through either shifts in where they occur or through physiological adaptations. This study will address these and other questions through a series of experimental and observational studies conducted in the Andean mountains of Peru, where many species are unusually vulnerable to small changes in temperature and rainfall. More specifically, the project will measure altitudinal ranges and thermal tolerances of nearly two dozen cloud forest tree species. The investigators will also determine the extent to which small populations of each species are tightly adapted to particular elevations ("local adaptation") and each species' ability to change its thermal tolerance ("plasticity"). Data will be incorporated into models designed to predict where species currently occur and where they might start to occur as climates change. This project is one of the first to systematically test several key assumptions critical to the assessment how climate change will impact where species are able to live. It will be the first-ever study to simultaneously measure the thermal tolerances of individuals, populations, and species of tropical trees. The results will greatly expand our understanding of the complex factors determining where species occur, and will strengthen our ability to predict species responses to future climate change.The research will be integrated with an extensive set of educational, training, and outreach programs in collaboration with established domestic and international environmental education organizations. Outreach programs are designed to help increase the participation of US minorities and international students in the biological sciences, and to broaden public awareness of the potential impacts of climate change on tropical forests around the world.