ECOLOGICAL AND EVOLUTIONARY RESILIENCE OF AQUATIC COMMUNITIES TO THE CLIMATE-MEDIATED EXPANSION OF AN APEX PREDATOR

水生群落对气候介导的顶级捕食者扩张的生态和进化适应力

• 批准号: 1555876
• 负责人: Mark Urban
• 金额: $ 82.37万
• 依托单位: University of Connecticut
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2022-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1555876&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: ECOLOGICAL; EVOLUTIONARY; RESILIENCE; AQUATIC; COMMUNITIES

An ongoing challenge in ecology is to understand how ecosystems respond to environmental disturbances. Climate change is one such disturbance that is expected to result in a re-organization of global biodiversity, including shifts in species geographic distribution and increases in rates of extinctions. Alterations in local species populations may impact the functioning of ecosystems and the services they provide for humans. However, natural ecosystems might prove more resilient that we think if species better adapted to new climates can immigrate or if local populations can adapt to the changes. In this project, researchers will manipulate entire ponds to understand the degree to which these ecosystems are resilient to the climate-induced expansion of a top aquatic predator. As winters warm, the marbled salamander is rapidly colonizing newly suitable temporary ponds in New England. Marbled salamanders are top predators in these ponds and can strongly reduce biodiversity and shift pond ecosystems to a state characterized by high algal production. The project will have broader impacts on society beyond contributing to fundamental science and conservation. The investigators will create a scientific internship for K-12 teachers and an undergraduate internship focusing on students from underrepresented groups. They will also develop a system of linked remote video cameras to record and broadcast the annual amphibian migration, as a means of public outreach.In a region where climate change is promoting the rapid expansion of a top predator, the investigators will quantify how immigration and adaptive evolution facilitate ecological and evolutionary rescue. The work will focus on ecological resilience originating from the immigration of species that can restore diversity and replace lost functional roles and the adaptive evolution of an intermediate consumer previously shown to mediate the impacts of the apex predator on community structure. The project advances fundamental and applied questions by 1) performing one of the first tests of resilience theory in parallel, repeated, whole-ecosystem experiments; 2) allowing a comparison of ecological versus evolutionary mechanisms of resilience; 3) challenging the existing paradigm that predictions about biotic responses can ignore landscape connectivity and adaptive variation; 4) initiating an important long-term study on evolution in wild vertebrates; and 5) developing a generalizable understanding of how apex predators alter freshwater systems as they expand in a warming world. The project takes a multi-tiered approach in order to develop insights about two fundamental responses to predator introductions across space and time to contribute to building a broader, more mechanistic understanding of eco-evolutionary resistance to food web changes.

生态学的一个持续挑战是了解生态系统如何应对环境干扰。气候变化就是这样一种扰动，预计将导致全球生物多样性的重组，包括物种地理分布的变化和灭绝率的增加。 当地物种种群的变化可能会影响生态系统的功能及其为人类提供的服务。然而，自然生态系统可能比我们认为的更具弹性，如果更好地适应新气候的物种可以移民，或者当地人口可以适应变化。在这个项目中，研究人员将操纵整个池塘，以了解这些生态系统对气候引起的顶级水生捕食者扩张的适应程度。随着冬天的变暖，大理石蝾螈迅速在新英格兰的临时池塘中定居。大理石蝾螈是这些池塘中的顶级捕食者，可以大大减少生物多样性，并将池塘生态系统转变为以高藻类生产为特征的状态。该项目将对社会产生更广泛的影响，超越对基础科学和保护的贡献。研究人员将为K-12教师创造一个科学实习机会，并为来自代表性不足群体的学生创造一个本科生实习机会。 他们还将开发一个远程视频摄像机连接系统，记录和广播两栖动物每年的迁徙，作为一种公共宣传手段。在一个气候变化正在促进顶级捕食者迅速扩张的地区，调查人员将量化移民和适应性进化如何促进生态和进化救援。这项工作将侧重于生态复原力，源于物种的移民，可以恢复多样性和取代失去的功能作用和适应性进化的中间消费者以前显示调解的影响，顶端捕食者对社区结构。该项目通过以下方式推进基本和应用问题：1）在平行的、重复的、全生态系统实验中进行复原力理论的首批测试之一; 2）允许比较生态与进化的复原力机制; 3）挑战现有的范式，即对生物反应的预测可以忽略景观连通性和适应性变化; 4）启动一项关于野生脊椎动物进化的重要长期研究; 5）对顶级捕食者在变暖的世界中扩张时如何改变淡水系统形成普遍的理解。该项目采取了多层次的方法，以发展对捕食者在空间和时间上引入的两种基本反应的见解，以有助于建立对食物网变化的生态进化抗性的更广泛，更机械的理解。

项目成果

Evolution and Community Assembly Across Spatial Scales

跨空间尺度的进化和社区组装

• DOI: 10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-102220-024934
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: and Systematics
• 作者: Leibold, Mathew A.;Govaert, Lynn;Loeuille, Nicolas;De Meester, Luc;Urban, Mark C.
• 通讯作者: Urban, Mark C.