MSB-ECA: Phylogenetically-informed modeling of the regional context of community assembly

生态学家通过国家生态观测网络(NEON)等项目的观测取得了很大进展，以了解物种群落将如何适应环境变化。该项目以这一进展为基础，在物种进化史的背景下研究物种群落，询问近亲是否对环境变化做出类似(或不同)的反应。这项研究将首先专注于对在霓虹灯地点观察到的植物、哺乳动物和鸟类进行建模，利用这些信息来预测非本地物种可能入侵和破坏这些群落提供的宝贵生态系统服务的地区。在这些基础上，这个项目将对物种进行统计建模和预测？协会，让人们深入了解代价高昂的甲虫虫害暴发和可能携带疾病的扁虱。作为这项工作的一部分，将编写教材，帮助代表性不足的群体发展数据科学技能，并利用霓虹灯公开提供的数据。此外，该项目将为犹他州的美国原住民STEM导师计划开发一个数据科学课程，重点是霓虹灯数据的使用和分析。整合生物多样性分布的跨尺度驱动因素需要了解正在进行的生态学和历史演变。物种？共同的进化史反映了塑造它们的生物地理历史，并能告诉我们对物种的限制？当今的生态学。这一建议将把地方尺度的生态群落组装与宏观尺度的区域组装和特征进化结合起来。进化是发生生态过程的背景：如果不解决系统发育背景，就不可能有宏观的生态学综合。这将通过三个主要研究目标来实现：(1)开发和发布在霓虹灯地点及其周围发现的北美植物、鸟类、哺乳动物、甲虫和扁虱的新数据集；(2)扩展先前对物种进化的分析(系统发育广义线性混合模型；PGLMM)？环境容忍度，以测试霓虹灯场地植物、鸟类和哺乳动物内部局部规模竞争的宏观进化模型；以及(3)将这些模型扩展到包括跨行会互动，重点关注植物-甲虫和哺乳动物-扁虱协会。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Ecologists have made great progress using observations from projects such as the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) to understand how communities of species will adapt to environmental change. This project builds on this progress by examining communities of species within the context of their evolutionary history, asking whether close relatives respond similarly (or differently) to environmental change. This research will focus first on modelling the plants, mammals, and birds observed at NEON sites, using this information to predict regions where non-native species could invade and degrade the valuable ecosystem services that these communities provide. Building on these foundations, this project will statistically model and predict species? associations, giving insight into costly beetle pest outbreaks and ticks that can carry diseases. As part of this work, teaching materials will be developed to help under-represented groups develop data science skills and make use of the data publicly available from NEON. Additionally, the project will develop a data science class for the Native American STEM Mentorship Program at Utah State, focusing on the use and analysis of NEON data.Integrating the cross-scale drivers of the distribution of biodiversity requires an understanding of both ongoing ecology and historic evolution. Species? shared evolutionary history reflects the biogeographical history that shaped them, and can inform us of constraints on species? ecology in the present. This proposal will integrate local-scale ecological community assembly with macro-scale regional assembly and trait evolution. Evolution is the context within which ecological processes take place: there can be no macro-scale synthesis of ecology without addressing phylogenetic context. This will be achieved through three major research objectives: (1) develop and release new datasets of North American plants, birds, mammals, beetles, and ticks found at and around NEON sites; (2) extend previous analyses (Phylogenetic Generalized Linear Mixed Models; PGLMMs) of the evolution of species? environmental tolerances to test macro-evolutionary models of local-scale competition within the plants, bird, and mammals of the NEON sites; and (3) extend these models to incorporate cross-guild interactions, focusing on plant-beetle and mammal-tick associations.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.