RII Track-4: Ecological Community Responses to Global Change: Predicting Effects on Community Dynamics and Ecosystem Stability

RII Track-4：生态群落对全球变化的响应：预测对群落动态和生态系统稳定性的影响

• 批准号: 2033292
• 负责人: Lauren Shoemaker
• 金额: $ 18.01万
• 依托单位: University of Wyoming
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-02-01 至 2025-01-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2033292&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RII; Track; Ecological; Community; Responses

This Research Infrastructure Improvement RII Track-4 grant will explore how ecological communities respond to increased environmental change, with a focus on alpine ecosystems. Global change factors, such as increases in temperature and changes in precipitation represent severe threats to the stability of ecological communities. This is especially true in alpine ecosystems where the climate is changing at a rapid rate with high variability among years in both temperature and precipitation patterns. The project will examine how these global change factors alter ecological communities and their stability through time. The proposed work will yield transformative and sustained benefits in jurisdictional research capacity within Wyoming, positively transforming the career trajectory of the non-tenured investigator. The work will foster a new collaboration between the investigator, a PhD student, and the Niwot Ridge Long-Term Ecological Research Network in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The investigator and collaborators will host workshops at Niwot Ridge for Wyoming and Colorado scientists, spearheading cross-state collaborations. Additionally, the project will produce an educational module on data visualization and biological statistics that will be integrated into a newly developed course required for undergraduate biology majors. The module will be disseminated broadly through an open-source publication. Anthropogenic global change, such as increases in temperature, more variable precipitation regimes, and nitrogen deposition, have previously been demonstrated to have severe ramifications for species persistence, but how these factors may alter ecological communities, including their synchrony patterns and stability remains an open question. The proposed project will examine the effect of multiple, simultaneous global change drivers on alpine community dynamics and ecosystem stability. It will specifically address the following objectives: (1) determine if global change drivers yield increased synchrony of species’ fluctuations and decreased temporal stability of ecosystems; (2) quantify if locations that have historically experienced higher environmental variability are buffered in their responses to current anthropogenic changes; and (3) build a theoretical model for predicting community synchrony and ecosystem stability that incorporates multiple simultaneous global change factors and species interactions. The project will integrate the investigator’s expertise in ecological modeling with 50 years of alpine community monitoring at Niwot Ridge, including collecting and analyzing community composition data from several ongoing experiments. The investigator and PhD student will additionally conduct a species germination experiment and will create a new dynamical model of species fluctuations and ecosystem stability through time under global change. The model will be coupled with empirical results to create a predictive framework for future community dynamics. This project will enhance our ability to predict how community synchrony and ecosystem stability will change with increasing global change, especially in alpine ecosystems. The project is additionally expected to yield sustained jurisdictional benefits and enhanced research capacity at the interface of ecological theory and alpine ecology.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.

这项研究基础设施改善RII Track-4资助将探索生态群落如何应对日益增加的环境变化，重点是高山生态系统。气温升高和降水变化等全球变化因素对生态群落的稳定性构成严重威胁。在高山生态系统中尤其如此，那里的气候变化速度很快，温度和降水模式的年际变化很大。该项目将研究这些全球变化因素如何随着时间的推移改变生态群落及其稳定性。拟议的工作将在怀俄明州的司法研究能力中产生变革性和持续性的好处，积极地改变非终身研究员的职业轨迹。这项工作将促进研究者（一名博士生）与科罗拉多州落基山脉的Niwot Ridge长期生态研究网络之间的新合作。研究者和合作者将在Niwot Ridge为怀俄明州和科罗拉多州的科学家举办研讨会，引领跨州合作。此外，该项目将制作一个关于数据可视化和生物统计学的教育模块，并将其整合到新开发的生物学本科专业必修课程中。该模块将通过开源出版物广泛传播。人类活动引起的全球变化，如温度升高、降水变化和氮沉降，已经被证明对物种的持久性有严重的影响，但这些因素如何改变生态群落，包括它们的同步模式和稳定性，仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。该项目将研究多个同时发生的全球变化驱动因素对高山群落动态和生态系统稳定性的影响。它将具体解决以下目标：(1)确定全球变化驱动因素是否会增加物种波动的同步性，降低生态系统的时间稳定性；(2)量化历史上经历过较高环境变异性的地点对当前人为变化的响应是否得到缓冲；(3)建立了包含多个同时发生的全球变化因子和物种相互作用的群落同步性和生态系统稳定性预测理论模型。该项目将把研究者在生态建模方面的专业知识与在Niwot Ridge进行的50年高山群落监测结合起来，包括从几个正在进行的实验中收集和分析群落组成数据。此外，研究者和博士生还将进行物种萌发实验，并创建一个新的全球变化下物种波动和生态系统稳定性的动态模型。该模型将与实证结果相结合，为未来的社区动态创建一个预测框架。该项目将提高我们预测群落同步和生态系统稳定性如何随着全球变化而变化的能力，特别是在高山生态系统中。此外，该项目预计将产生持续的司法效益，并提高生态理论和高山生态学界面的研究能力。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。