DISSERTATION RESEARCH: How will eco-evolutionary dynamics contribute to the range shifts of plants under climate change?

如果气候对自然群落有很大的影响，气候变化应该会导致当地群落中适应寒冷的物种的损失，而适应温暖的物种则会受到损失。然而，这些可预测的结果并不总是发生。 有些社区并没有因气候变暖而改变。 该项目将比较两个太平洋西北国家公园的历史数据与当前的调查，以确定为什么一些植物群落抵抗气候变化的影响，而另一些则没有。 该项目将有助于我们了解气候变化的后果，并将此信息传达给国家公园服务和太平洋西北部的其他资源管理人员。 学生培训将加强科学工作者队伍。该项目将在预测植物群落在明显停滞的气候变化下的变化问题上取得进展，尽管区分具有类似预期结果的驱动因素存在固有挑战。 该项目将确定气候对太平洋西北部山区植物群落的影响有多强。 将使用30多年前在两个国家公园（北喀斯喀特国家公园和雷尼尔山国家公园）最初收集的植物群落组成的再调查数据集、新开发的联合物种分布模型和高分辨率气候数据，对关于群落组成和生物气候变量之间关系的假设进行检验。 将利用对历史数据和再调查数据的分析以及单独的播种试验来评估变化趋势是否表明对气候变化的适应能力或敏感性。 该项目将与国家公园管理局合作制定战略，将这一知识纳入资源管理人员的长期规划。 未来科学家的培训将在研究生和本科生两级进行。

If climate has a large effect on natural communities, climate change should result in the loss of cold-adapted species at the expense of warm-adapted species in local communities. These predictable results do not always occur, however. Some communities do not change in response to climate warming. This project will compare historical data from two Pacific Northwest National Parks with current surveys to determine why some plant communities resist the effects of climate change while others do not. The project will contribute to our understanding of the consequences of climate change and communicate this information to National Park Service and other resource managers in the Pacific Northwest. Student training will strengthen the scientific workforce.This project will make progress on the problem of predicting change in plant communities with climate change given apparent stasis, despite the inherent challenges of differentiating drivers with similar expected outcomes. The project will determine how strongly climate influences plant communities in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. Hypotheses on relations of community composition and bioclimatic variables will be tested using resurvey data sets of plant community composition originally collected over 30 years ago in two National Parks (North Cascades National Park and Mount Rainier National Park), newly developed joint species distribution models, and high resolution climate data. Analyses of historical and resurvey data and, separately, seeding experiments will be used to assess whether trends of change indicate resilience or sensitivity to climate change. The project will develop strategies in collaboration with the National Park Service to incorporate this knowledge into long-term planning for resource managers. Training of future scientists will occur at graduate and undergraduate levels.