BII: Evolving Meta-Ecosystems in the Arctic

演化的元生态系统研究所将研究全球气候变化对北极生态系统的影响。生态系统是复杂的物种群落，它们在很长一段时间内相互进化并共享环境。了解这些系统如何随时间变化是生物学中的一个重大挑战，由于气候的快速变化，这一挑战变得紧迫起来，并与政策相关。在北极尤其如此，北极的变暖速度至少是全球平均速度的三倍。北极生态系统独特地适应其极端环境，并为人类社区提供食物和生计。了解物种和生态系统是否能够进化以适应变化的速度，或者它们是否会分崩离析或在减少的状态下混日子，这是至关重要的。EvoME将汇集来自各个生物学科的专家，从基因到景观，在每个尺度上产生新的见解。它将记录河流和河边冻土带环境中多种物种的自然反应，并对生态系统之间的能量和基因流动进行大规模实验。EvoME将通过跨学科和跨机构的课程、学生研究基金和研究员项目，培养具有跨学科思考和工作能力的新一代生物学家，特别关注增加和留住来自代表性不足背景的研究人员。最后，它将使记者参与到研究过程中，通过博客、社会媒体和广播故事，创造并帮助研究人员创造创新的媒体和故事，将EvoME的综合理解带给公众受众，包括农村和阿拉斯加土著社区。EvoME研究所整合了生物学科和组织规模，以了解适应进化如何维持和塑造生态系统，这些生态系统是由不断进化的生物体和能量（元生态系统）的流动联系在一起的，以应对气候变化。新的证据表明，进化可以迅速发生，这需要对长期以来的范式进行重大重新评估，即生态系统和元生态系统的恢复能力可以在没有进化的情况下被理解。EvoME通过整合从基因到元生态系统来了解每个生物水平如何相互作用，从而推进了生态进化理论和理解。在此过程中，该研究所解决了基因组学、分子遗传学、进化、生理学、行为、人口和社区生态学以及地球上最迅速变暖地区的生态系统生物学等基本问题。EvoME将评估阿拉斯加北部沿纬度梯度整合北极生态系统的关键物种的当前适应能力，包括利用生活在北极温泉中的种群的见解。EvoME将进行元生态系统实验，以操纵河流/河岸系统中的能量（凋落物和昆虫迁移的包含/排除）和基因（移植和普通花园）流动。它将把这些信息与强大的全基因组评估和模型相结合，以解开食物网反应与进化相互作用的过程，并改变潜在的性状和生态系统反应。EvoME还将开发新的生物监测设备、计算算法和新的建模技术，以开发灵活和适应性强的预测工具。通过这些方式，EvoME将有助于对地球元生态系统对气候变化的联合生态和进化反应有更广泛、机制和预测性的理解。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 Evolving MetaEcosystems (EvoME) Institute will study the effects of global climate change on Arctic ecosystems. Ecosystems are complex communities of species that have evolved with each other and their shared environment over long periods of time. Understanding how these systems change over time is a Grand Challenge in Biology that is made urgent and policy-relevant by rapid climate change. This is particularly true in the Arctic, which is warming at least three times faster than the global average. Arctic ecosystems are uniquely suited to their extreme environment, and they provide food and livelihoods for human communities. It is critical to know whether species and ecosystems can evolve to match the pace of change, or whether they might fall apart or muddle along in a reduced state. EvoME will bring together experts from across biological disciplines to generate new insights at every scale, from genes to landscapes. It will document natural responses of multiple species in rivers and streamside tundra environments and conduct large-scale experiments on the flow of energy and genes between ecosystems. EvoME will foster a new generation of biologists trained to think and work across disciplines, with special attention to increasing inclusion and retention of researchers from underrepresented backgrounds, by a cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional course, a research fund for students, and a Fellows program. Finally, it will bring journalists into the research process to create—and help researchers create—innovative media and stories through blogs, social media, and radio stories that bring EvoME’s integrated understanding to public audiences, including rural and Alaska Native communities.The EvoME Institute integrates across biological disciplines and scales of organization to understand how adaptive evolution maintains and shapes ecosystems linked by the flow of evolving organisms and energy (the meta-ecosystem) in response to climate change. New evidence that evolution can occur rapidly necessitates a major reappraisal of the longstanding paradigm that ecosystem and meta-ecosystem resilience can be understood without evolution. EvoME advances eco-evolutionary theory and understanding by integrating from genes to meta-ecosystems to understand how each biological level interacts with the others. In doing so, this institute addresses fundamental questions in genomics, molecular genetics, evolution, physiology, behavior, population and community ecology, and ecosystem biology in the most rapidly warming place on Earth. EvoME will evaluate the current adaptive capacity of key species that integrate Arctic ecosystems along a latitudinal gradient in northern Alaska, including leveraging insights from populations living in hot springs in the Arctic. EvoME will conduct metaecosystem experiments that manipulate energy (litter and insect migration inclusion/exclusion) and gene (transplant and common garden) flow in river/riparian systems. It will combine this information with powerful whole-genome assessments and models to disentangle the processes through which food web responses interact with evolution and alter underlying trait and ecosystem responses. EvoME also will develop novel bio-monitoring equipment, computational algorithms, and new modeling techniques to develop flexible and adaptable forecasting tools. In these ways, EvoME will contribute to a broader, mechanistic, and predictive understanding of the joint ecological and evolutionary responses of Earth’s meta-ecosystems 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.