ORCC: Evaluating the effect of predation on thermal adaptation in response to climate change

自然环境为地球上的生命提供了条件。气候的关键组成部分，如温度和降水，决定了什么生物可以在哪里出现，这些因素的变化可以驱动从植物、昆虫到鱼类和树木等一切生物的分布和丰度的变化。温度变化，包括人为向大气输入的温度变化，正在挑战生物体并改变物种生存的物理环境。目前尚不清楚物种是否能适应这些温度变化，或者我们是否能预测温度变化的结果。然而，这种理解和预测气候变化后果的能力是重要的，因为气候变化可能破坏生态系统服务的提供，如可收获鱼类的生产，或促进经济上重要物种的出现，如农业害虫或蚊子。这些过程在一定程度上取决于对气候变化的适应，而我们及时应对变化的能力取决于我们预测变化的能力。我们的研究直接考察了物种如何/是否可以通过适应不同的温度来应对气候变化的问题，以及我们是否可以使用热生态学中最广泛接受的工具（热性能曲线）来预测这种变化。我们将与广泛的基础和应用研究人员接触，以批判性地评估该工具的使用，并尝试对我们将在实验室进行的实验结果做出我们自己的预测。气候变化研究的一个关键问题是，生物相互作用是否会改变热性能曲线（TPC），从而改变生态进化对变暖的反应。本项目的目标是：1)评估捕食对热适应背后的多变量特征响应的影响；2)确定捕食和热适应如何共同改变捕食者-猎物动态；3)在气候变化和生物相互作用的背景下，批判性地评估tpc作为预测和管理工具的效用。我们将通过将草履虫种群的遗传多样性置于捕食风险和变暖的环境中，并测量潜在的性状和热生态位在这些选择压力下的进化，来实现这些目标。我们将评估这种进化如何影响捕食者-猎物动态，并评估在实验开始时测量的tpc是否能准确预测我们的变暖处理的总体结果。实验将通过评估从我们的群落最初建立到进化后500代，捕食者-猎物系统的稳定性如何变化来评估进化的群落水平后果。通过对比不同基因型的热生态位和进化前后不同气候情景下的捕食者-猎物动态，该研究有望显著推进我们对气候变化如何与捕食相互作用驱动热适应和影响生态系统稳定性的理解。该项目将在数据和理论的界面上推进培训，扩大研究参与，并建立一个工作组来评估TPC框架在预测生物对气候变化的反应方面的有效性。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 physical environment sets the stage for life on Earth. Key components of climate such as temperature and precipitation determine what organisms can occur where, and change in those factors can drive changes in the distribution and abundance of everything from plants and insects to fish and trees. Changes in temperature, including that caused by anthropogenic inputs to the atmosphere, are now challenging organisms and changing the physical environment in which species live. It is not clear whether species can adapt to these shifts in temperature, or whether we can predict the outcomes of changing temperature. Such understanding and ability to forecast the consequences of climate change, however, are important because climate change could undermine the provisioning of ecosystem services, such as the production of harvestable fish, or promote the emergence of economically important species, such as agricultural pests or mosquitos. These processes depend, in part, on adaptation to changes in climate, and our ability to respond to change in time depends on our ability to anticipate the change. Our research directly examines both the question of how/whether species can respond to changing climates by adapting to different temperatures and whether we can predict such change using the most widely embraced tool in thermal ecology (the thermal performance curve). We will engage with a wide range of basic and applied researchers to critically assess the use of this tool and try to make our own predictions for the outcomes of experiments we will conduct in the laboratory.A critical question for climate change research is whether biotic interactions alter thermal performance curves (TPC) and thereby alter eco-evolutionary responses to warming. The goals of this project are to: 1) evaluate the effect of predation on the multivariate trait response underlying thermal adaptation, 2) determine how predation and thermal adaptation combine to alter predator-prey dynamics, and 3) critically evaluate the utility of TPCs as a forecasting and management tool in the context of climate change and biotic interactions. We will achieve these goals by subjecting genetically diverse populations of Paramecium spp. to predation risk and warming and measuring underlying trait and thermal niche evolution in response to these selective pressures. We will assess how this evolution affects predator-prey dynamics and evaluate whether TPCs measured at the beginning of the experiments can accurately predict the overall outcomes of our warming treatments. The experiments will evaluate the community-level consequences of evolution by evaluating how the stability of the predator-prey system changes from the initial establishment of our communities to 500 generations post-evolution. By contrasting thermal niches across genotypes and predator-prey dynamics in different climate scenarios pre- and post-evolution, the research is expected to significantly advance our understanding of how climate change interacts with predation to drive thermal adaptation and impact the stability of ecological systems. The project will advance training at the interface of data and theory, broaden research participation, and establish a working group to assess the efficacy of the TPC framework for predicting organismal responses to climate change.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.