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

物理环境为地球上的生命奠定了基础。温度和降水等气候的关键组成部分决定了哪些生物体可以在哪里出现，这些因素的变化可以驱动从植物和昆虫到鱼类和树木的所有生物的分布和丰度的变化。温度变化，包括人为大气输入引起的温度变化，现在正在对生物体提出挑战，并改变物种生存的物理环境。目前尚不清楚物种是否能够适应这些温度变化，或者我们是否可以预测温度变化的结果。然而，这种对气候变化后果的了解和预测能力非常重要，因为气候变化可能会破坏生态系统服务的提供，例如可收获鱼类的生产，或促进经济上重要物种的出现，例如农业害虫或蚊子。这些过程部分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/是否能够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采用的工具（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合作，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。该项目的目标是：1）评估捕食对热适应背后的多变量性状反应的影响，2）确定捕食和热适应如何结合起来改变捕食者-被捕食者的动态，3）批判性地评估TPC作为气候变化和生物相互作用背景下的预测和管理工具的效用。我们将通过对草履虫属的遗传多样性种群进行研究来实现这些目标。捕食风险和变暖，并测量潜在特征和热生态位演化以应对这些选择压力。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 是否可以准确预测我们变暖处理的总体结果。这些实验将通过评估从群落最初建立到进化后 500 代期间捕食者-被捕食者系统的稳定性如何变化，来评估进化的群落层面的后果。通过对比进化前后不同气候情景下基因型的热生态位和捕食者-猎物动态，这项研究预计将显着增进我们对气候变化如何与捕食相互作用以驱动热适应并影响生态系统稳定性的理解。该项目将推进数据和理论界面的培训，扩大研究参与，并建立一个工作组来评估 TPC 框架预测气候变化的生物反应的有效性。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并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，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.