Collaborative proposal: Combining NEON and remotely sensed habitats to determine climate impacts on community dynamics

环境变化对生物群落的影响将取决于当地栖息地和相互作用的物种之间的相互作用——由于每个物种直接对环境条件作出反应，它间接影响与之相互作用的所有物种。物种之间的相互作用使我们预测生物对环境变化的反应的能力复杂化，因为从不会飞的昆虫到大型脊椎动物，每个物种都经历着不同规模的栖息地复杂性。目前用于预测群落对气候反应的物种分布模型预测了物种彼此隔离的情况，忽略了相互作用。该研究方法将通过开发一种新的建模方法来分析物种对气候、栖息地和彼此的综合响应，从而推动生态预测方法的发展。该研究为综合国家生态观测网络（NEON）网络中的环境和生物数据提供了一个框架，科学界可以利用这个框架将其与自己的分析结合起来。该项目将通过公民协助识别动物图像来吸引公众。从NEON站点获得的关于大型哺乳动物和种子生产的新数据将提供给社区，并将通过一个网站提供社区对气候反应的预测。将举办一个讲习班，培训高级博士生、博士后、学术和机构科学家如何使用建模工具和NEON数据。这项研究将培养两名研究生，其中包括一个科学传播项目，并让四名本科生进行实地考察。本研究将把NEON中监测到的不同群落（地面甲虫、维管植物、小型哺乳动物、鸟类）与大型哺乳动物调查的新数据综合起来。Mast是与气候变化相互作用的几个栖息地变量之一。重点研究了从树木脉冲种子和果实生产的桅杆系统，包括脊椎动物的消费者，以及与节肢动物竞争对手和脊椎动物捕食者的间接相互作用。遥感图像和NEON机载观测站将用于表征生境多样性。在NEON站点进行大型哺乳动物和种子生产的新采样将增加关键成分，使我们能够在大范围内评估树木系统的群落动态。该分析结果将用于预测群落的变化和重组，包括物种和栖息地气候风险的预测和归因以及物种群之间的共享情况。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The impact of environmental change on biological communities will depend on interactions involving the local habitat and species that interact with one another - as each species responds directly to environmental conditions, it indirectly affects all of the species with which it interacts. Species interactions complicate our ability to predict organismal response to environmental change, because each species experiences habitat complexity at a different scale - from flightless insects to large vertebrates. Current species distribution models used to anticipate community responses to climate predict species in isolation from one another, ignoring interactions. This research approach will advance ecological forecasting methods by a developing a new modeling approach that analyzes the combined responses of species to climate, habitat, and one another. The study offers a framework for synthesizing environmental and biological data across the National Ecological Observation Network (NEON) network, one that can be exploited by the scientific community for integration with their own analyses. The project will engage the public through citizen-assisted identification of animal images. New data on large mammals and seed production from NEON sites will be made available to the community, and forecasts of community responses to climate will be made available through a web site. A workshop will be offered for training of advanced doctoral students, postdocs, and academic and agency scientists in the use of the modeling tools and NEON data. The study will train two graduate students, including a program in science communication, and involve four undergraduate students in fieldwork. This research will synthesize taxonomically diverse communities that are monitored in NEON (ground beetles, vascular plants, small mammals, birds) with new data on mast, and large mammal surveys. Mast is one of several habitat variables that interacts with climate variation. A focus on the mast system of pulsed seed and fruit production from trees includes vertebrate consumers, as well as indirect interactions with arthropod competitors and vertebrate predators. Remotely-sensed imagery and the NEON airborne observatory will be used to characterize habitat diversity. New sampling at NEON sites for large mammals and seed production will add key components that allow us to evaluate the community dynamics of masting tree systems at broad scales. Results of this analysis will be used to forecast community change and reorganization, including prediction and attribution of climate risk by species and habitat and how it is shared across species groups.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.