ORCC: Determining the synergistic effects of global warming on tropical insect herbivore fundamental vital rates, fitness, and predation

ORCC：确定全球变暖对热带昆虫草食动物基本生命率、适应性和捕食的协同影响

• 批准号: 2222328
• 负责人: Carlos Garcia-Robledo
• 金额: $ 60.61万
• 依托单位: University of Connecticut
• 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: 2022-08-01 至 2025-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2222328&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: ORCC; Determining; synergistic; effects; global

Predicting how organisms will respond to novel temperatures remains one of the main conceptual challenges in ecology. Identifying the principles involved in population persistence or extinction in novel temperature environments is also an urgent conservation issue, as all organisms on earth are facing rapidly changing climates. One group of organisms facing extinctions are tropical insects. Current extinction models are based on physiological responses, which invariably overestimate thermal tolerance. To more accurately estimate organismal responses to future temperatures, this study will determine the effects of temperature on insect survival, fecundity, and the speed at which populations will grow or decline. Using a well-studied group of insect herbivores in a tropical rain forest, this proposed research will determine the synergistic effects of diet and temperature on population growth in insects with generalist and specialist diets. An even more ambitious goal of this project is to determine the indirect effects of global warming on insect herbivore fitness through interactions with predators and parasitoids. This study will improve our knowledge on how global warming will indirectly affect populations by disrupting the connections among organisms in the web of life. A broader impact of this project is the integration of concepts and discoveries in two online educational modules. These modules will be used during workshops in the field, where undergraduate students will learn concepts and explore methodologies related to the estimation of biotic responses to global warming.Despite the fact that extinction is a demographic process, our understanding of the direct consequences of global warming on insect survival, longevity, fecundity, and fitness is extremely limited. An additional complexity is that warming most likely will concomitantly affect the abundance and composition of predators and parasitoids. Young leaves of plants in the order Zingiberales – the banana-like plants – form rolled-leaf habitats, which are colonized by herbivores in the genus Cephaloleia (Chrysomelidae: Coleoptera) and their associated predators and parasitoids. This research focuses on the direct and indirect effects of warming on fitness in generalist and specialist Cephaloleia herbivores associated with Zingiberales. Using an experimental demography approach for ten insect species, this study will determine if generalist herbivores are more resilient to warming than specialists. If this scenario is true, insect communities will become dominated by generalist species. Heating experiments in the field will determine if predators are less tolerant to increasing temperatures than their prey, and if warming will generate enemy free space for herbivores. If warming reduces prey abundance, warming will generate trophic cascades. Demographic models will integrate the effects of temperature and diet on fundamental vital rates, and the effect of predation on population growth for each herbivore species. This study addresses one of the least understood effects of global warming: the role of biotic interactions in organismal responses to climate change. The resulting models will increase our predictive power to determine at which temperatures insect populations will reach tipping points to extinction.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.

预测生物如何应对新的温度仍然是生态学的主要概念挑战之一。确定在新的温度环境中种群持续存在或灭绝的原则也是一个紧迫的保护问题，因为地球上所有的生物都面临着迅速变化的气候。面临灭绝的一类生物是热带昆虫。目前的灭绝模型是基于生理反应，这总是高估了耐热性。为了更准确地估计生物对未来温度的反应，这项研究将确定温度对昆虫生存，繁殖力以及种群增长或下降速度的影响。利用一组在热带雨林中的食草昆虫，这项拟议的研究将确定饮食和温度对昆虫种群增长的协同效应与通才和专科饮食。该项目的一个更雄心勃勃的目标是通过与捕食者和寄生虫的相互作用来确定全球变暖对食草昆虫适应性的间接影响。这项研究将提高我们对全球变暖如何通过破坏生命网络中生物体之间的联系来间接影响人口的认识。该项目的更广泛影响是将概念和发现整合到两个在线教育模块中。这些模块将在该领域的研讨会期间使用，本科生将学习概念，并探索与估计生物对全球变暖的反应相关的方法。尽管灭绝是一个人口统计过程，但我们对全球变暖对昆虫生存，寿命，繁殖力和健康的直接影响的理解是非常有限的。另一个复杂性是，变暖很可能会同时影响捕食者和寄生虫的丰度和组成。香蕉目植物的幼叶形成卷叶栖息地，被食草动物头叶蜂属（鞘翅目：叶蜂科）及其相关的捕食者和寄生蜂殖民。本研究的重点是直接和间接的影响，变暖的健身通才和专业Cephaloleia草食动物与Escherberales。使用十种昆虫的实验人口统计学方法，这项研究将确定通才食草动物是否比专家更能适应气候变暖。如果这种情况是真的，昆虫群落将由多面手物种主导。野外的加热实验将确定捕食者是否比猎物对温度升高的耐受性更差，以及变暖是否会为食草动物产生无敌人的空间。如果气候变暖减少了猎物的数量，那么气候变暖将产生营养级联。人口模型将整合温度和饮食对基本生命率的影响，以及捕食对每种草食动物种群增长的影响。这项研究解决了全球变暖最不了解的影响之一：生物相互作用在生物体对气候变化的反应中的作用。由此产生的模型将提高我们的预测能力，以确定在什么温度下昆虫种群将达到灭绝的临界点。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

项目成果

Characterizing biological responses to climate variability and extremes to improve biodiversity projections

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000226
• 发表时间: 2023-06
• 期刊: PLOS Climate
• 作者: Lauren B. Buckley;E. Carrington;M. Dillon;C. García‐Robledo;S. Roberts;J. Wegrzyn;M. C. Urban