Collaborative Research: Leveraging the power of ecological modeling and functional ecology to understand spatio-temporal variation in community assembly through the late Quaternary

合作研究：利用生态模型和功能生态学的力量来了解第四纪晚期群落聚集的时空变化

• 批准号: 2149416
• 负责人: Jessica Blois
• 金额: $ 32.17万
• 依托单位: University of California - Merced
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-07-01 至 2025-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2149416&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Leveraging; power; ecological

Biodiversity—the variety of all forms of life—serves many functions to humans and its loss is one of the most pressing environmental issues of our time. Understanding the processes that shape species within ecological communities is crucial to chart the future of biodiversity and ecosystems in the face of human impacts. To date, studies of processes that are responsible for composition of ecological communities have been largely restricted to small (local) spatial scales and contemporary (months to decades) time scales. But these processes are complex and take place across many different scales, from local to continental spatial scales and monthly to 1000-year time scales. To understand which processes are important to structuring ecological communities at longer time scales, the project will use the fossil record of small mammals from the past 21,000 years. Results from and data generated by the project will be freely available for use by the broader scientific and educational communities. The project will provide workforce development opportunities and broaden participation in science by training middle- and high-schoolers and postdoctoral researchers from groups typically underrepresented in STEM.To elucidate spatial and temporal non-stationarity of processes structuring communities, the project will leverage the fossil record of small mammals across the late Quaternary, simulations and species distribution modeling (SDM) techniques, and trait datasets. The team will first conduct a comprehensive chronological re-assessment of the existing fossil record and carry out a suite of simulation exercises to understand the sensitivity of SDMs to spatial and temporal uncertainty inherent in the fossil record. The knowledge gained through these steps will then guide the construction of near continental, dynamic (i.e., changing through time) species distributions using the empirical fossil record. These modeled range-wide distributions for small mammals will then be stacked to obtain evaluations of community functional and trait composition, which will inform the spatio-temporal variation in community assembly processes. Ultimately, the findings will have implications for understanding the impacts of environmental and biotic change on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.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.

生物多样性（各种形式的生活形式）为人类提供了许多功能，而其损失是当时最紧迫的环境问题之一。了解生态群落中塑造物种的过程对于面对人类影响的生物多样性和生态系统的未来至关重要。迄今为止，对负责生态社区组成的过程的研究主要仅限于小（本地）空间量表和当代（数十年）时间尺度。但是这些过程很复杂，并且发生在许多不同的尺度上，从局部到连续的空间量表以及每月至1000年的时间尺度。为了了解哪些过程对于在更长的时间尺度上构建生态群落很重要，该项目将使用过去21，000年来的化石记录。该项目产生的数据和数据将由更广泛的科学和教育社区免费使用。 The project will provide workforce development opportunities and broaden participation in science by training middle- and high-schoolers and postdoctoral researchers from groups typically underrepresented in STEM.To elucidate spatial and temporary non-stationarity of processes structuring communities, the project will leverage the fossil record of small mammals across the late Quaternary, simulations and species distribution modeling (SDM) techniques, and trait datasets.首先对现有化石记录进行全面的时间顺序评估，并进行一套模拟练习，以了解SDM对化石记录中固有的空间和临时不确定性的敏感性。然后，通过这些步骤获得的知识将指导使用经验化石记录的近连续，动态（即通过时间变化）物种分布的构建。然后将对这些对小型哺乳动物的范围范围范围的分布进行堆叠，以获得对社区功能和性状组成的评估，这将为社区组装过程中的时空变化提供信息。最终，这些发现将对理解环境和生物变化对生物多样性和生态系统功能的影响产生影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用基金会的知识分子和更广泛的影响审查标准来评估，被认为是宝贵的支持。