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。气候的关键组成部分，如温度和降水量，决定了什么样的生物可以在哪里出现，这些因素的变化可以推动从植物和昆虫到鱼类和树木的分布和丰富度的变化。温度的变化，包括人类活动对大气层的影响，正在对生物体构成挑战，并改变着物种生存的自然环境。目前尚不清楚物种是否能够适应这些温度变化，或者我们是否能够预测温度变化的结果。然而，这种了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，或促进农业害虫或蚊子等具有重要经济意义的物种的出现。这些进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。我们的研究直接探讨了物种如何/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进行合作，严格评估该工具的使用，并尝试对我们将在实验室进行的实验结果进行我们自己的预测。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）评估捕食对热适应下的多变量性状反应的影响，2）确定捕食和热适应联合收割机如何改变捕食者-猎物动态，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实用性。我们将通过对草履虫属物种的遗传多样性种群进行研究来实现这些目标。捕食风险和变暖和测量潜在的特性和热生态位的演变，以应对这些选择压力。我们将评估这种演变如何影响捕食者-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捕食者-猎物系统的稳定性如何从我们社区的最初建立到进化后的500代变化来评估进化的社区水平后果。通过对比进化前后不同气候情景中基因型和捕食者-猎物动态的热生态位，该研究有望显着推进我们对气候变化如何与捕食相互作用以推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，以评估TPC框架预测生物体对气候变化的反应的有效性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为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来支持。

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.