Collaborative Research: BoCP-Implementation: Integrating Traits, Phylogenies and Distributional Data to Forecast Risks and Resilience of North American Plants

标题：合作研究：BoCP-实施：整合特征、系统发育和分布数据以预测北美植物的风险和复原力北美约38,000种种子植物被组合成一系列反映地质和气候多样性的群落，它们具有动态的进化历史。这些物种约占世界种子植物区系的22%，具有广泛的生态和特性。尽管做出了相当大的努力，我们仍然缺乏对为什么某些谱系和地区在应对气候和土地利用加速变化方面似乎比其他谱系和地区更具弹性的理解。通过这项研究，我们将在整个大陆范围内检查种子植物的多样性，以及它们的分布模式-过去、现在和未来。由此产生的信息对于预测和模拟谱系和社区在面对快速全球变化时的复原力将是必不可少的。这项研究的核心将是对植物特征及其进化史的审查，这些共同提供了新的手段，以评估是什么塑造了群落，并确定在我们不断变化的地球上，哪些谱系可能是赢家或输家。这项工作还将为植物生物界提供资源，并将通过高度重视培训、与保护成果相联系以及集中努力与传统生态知识相联系来帮助建设能力。此外，该项目的一个主要组成部分是提高生物多样性科学、社区资源开发、将基础科学转化为整个北美的保护政策以及扩大对科学的参与方面的能力。该项目还将包括为高中生、教师、本科生和更广泛的研究社区提供资源开发、培训和参与。北美的植物多样性是由数千年来运作的力量塑造的，决定植物区系现在和未来状态的生态进化动态只能在这个更大的背景下才能理解。我们的科学目标有三个，都与开发一个框架有关，以整合生物多样性动态的关键方面，并将其用作预测北美植物未来对环境变化的反应的一种手段。首先，我们将汇集历史和当前特征多样性的详细视图，以及整个大陆的地方性。这些措施将使我们能够测试在更长的时间尺度上运行的导致整个大陆的谱系和性状多样化分布模式的潜在机制；它们可以进一步与气候稳定作为多样性的互动驱动因素联系在一起；其次，我们将审查过去75年来采样充分的物种亚集的分布趋势，这些物种子集全面涵盖北美植物的特征，以便测试性状与分布的关系，并发现哪些性状与面对气候和土地利用变化等压力因素的应变能力有关。最后，我们将把前两个目标联系在一起来预测植物多样性的变化，我们将使用这些预测来为关于谱系和地理区域的保护优先顺序的数据驱动的决策提供信息。这些对北美植物区系的关键见解也将有助于理解依赖这些植物群落的许多动物和真菌群落背后的生态进化过程。该项目的大范围和规模创造了解决一些关于北美植物区系的最重要和最紧迫的问题的可能性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Title: Collaborative Research: BoCP-Implementation: Integrating Traits, Phylogenies and Distributional Data to Forecast Risks and Resilience of North American PlantsApproximately 38,000 species of seed plants in North America are assembled into an array of communities that reflect diversity in geology and climate, and which have dynamic evolutionary histories. These species represent approximately 22% of the world’s seed plant flora and an enormous range of ecologies and traits. Despite considerable effort, we lack an understanding of why some lineages and regions seem to be more resilient than others in response to accelerating climate and land use changes. With this study, we will conduct a continent-wide examination of the diversity of seed plants, along with their patterns of distribution - past, present, and future. The resulting information will be essential for predicting and modeling the resilience of lineages and communities in the face of rapid global change. Central to this research will be an examination of plant traits and their evolutionary histories, which together will provide new means to assess what has shaped communities and to identify which lineages are likely to be winners or losers on our changing planet. This work will also provide resources for the plant biology community and will help build capacity through a strong focus on training, connecting to conservation outcomes, and a focused effort to link to traditional ecological knowledge. Furthermore, a major component of the project is to increase capacity in biodiversity science, community resource development, translation of fundamental science to conservation policy across North America, and broadening participation in science. The project will also include resource development, training, and engagement for high schoolers, instructors, undergraduates, and the broader research community.Plant diversity in North America has been shaped by forces operating over millennia, and eco-evolutionary dynamics determining the present and future state of the flora can only be understood in this larger context. Our scientific goals are threefold, all relating to the development of a framework for integrating key facets of biodiversity dynamics, and to use those as a means to predict future response of North American plants to environmental change. First, we will assemble a detailed view of historical and current trait diversity, as well as endemism across the continent. These measures will allow us to test potential mechanisms, operating over longer time scales, that have led to diverse continent-wide distributional patterns of lineages and traits; they can be further linked to climatic stability as an interacting driver of diversity Second, we will examine distributional trends over the last 75 years for a well-sampled subset of species that comprehensively cover the traits of North American plants in order to test trait-distribution relationships and to discover which traits are linked to resilience in the face of stressors such as changes in climate and land use. Finally, we will link the first two aims together to forecast changes in plant diversity, and we will use these forecasts to inform data-driven decisions regarding conservation prioritization of both lineages and geographic regions. These key insights for the flora of North America will also aid in understanding the eco-evolutionary processes underlying the many animal and fungal communities that depend on these plant communities. The large scope and scale of this project creates the potential to address some of the most important and pressing questions regarding the flora of North America.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.