Disentangling the effects of demography, dispersal and biotic interactions on population and community response to global change (BIOPIC)

减缓生物多样性的迅速丧失是21世纪世纪最重要的挑战之一。为了设计和测试适当的政策和管理战略，我们需要改进的生物多样性模型，以便对潜在物种和社区对全球环境变化的反应进行定量估计。物种范围主要受物种的生理（非生物）耐受性限制，由其基本生态位描述。此外，人口统计过程，扩散和生物与其他物种的相互作用正在塑造物种分布，从而实现生态位。了解这些驱动因素之间复杂的相互作用对于对新环境进行强有力的生物多样性预测至关重要。相关物种分布模型已被广泛用于预测生物多样性的反应，但也仍然受到批评，因为它们不能正确地解开非生物和生物驱动因素塑造物种生态位。因此，最近的发展集中在（一）整合人口和扩散到物种分布模型，并（二）整合生物相互作用。然而，这些模型的许多方面仍然没有得到充分的探索，例如，所需的过程细节，将被纳入模型，以及规模的依赖性和空间和时间的变化，其中包括所代表的过程。此外，我们仍然缺乏一个框架，以通用的方式充分整合所有这些过程，使其适用于并适应于大量物种。在这里，我建议成立一个研究小组，开发一个综合的建模框架，能够解开复杂的角色，人口，扩散和生物相互作用，在塑造物种生态位，并评估其对人口和社区的影响，以应对全球环境变化。该框架及其单一组成部分将使用模拟和经验数据的组合进行验证，并将在鸟类群落中进行操作和测试，其中将使用贝叶斯推理以新颖的方式合成多个数据源。特别是，该项目将侧重于五个关键研究目标，旨在（1）提高我们对生活史和环境如何塑造扩散的理解，（2）提高我们对生活史和人口统计学如何塑造物种生态位的理解，（3）提高我们对生物相互作用如何塑造物种生态位的理解，（4）开发和操作多物种动态分布模型，（5）为欧洲鸟类开发新的生物多样性情景。总的来说，拟议项目将改进基于模型的生物多样性评估的科学基础，并通过提供理论和概念上的进步以及通过确定开发和应用生物多样性模型的实际要求和准则，提高大空间尺度生物多样性预测的可靠性。

Mitigating rapid biodiversity loss is one of the most vital challenges of the 21st century. For designing and testing adequate policy and management strategies, we need improved biodiversity models that allow deriving quantitative estimates of potential species and community response to global environmental change. Species ranges are primarily limited by the physiological (abiotic) tolerance of the species, described by their fundamental niche. Additionally, demographic processes, dispersal, and biotic interactions with other species are shaping species distributions, resulting in the realised niche. Understanding the complex interplay between these drivers is vital for making robust biodiversity predictions to novel environments. Correlative species distribution models have been widely used to predict biodiversity response but also remain criticised, as they are not able to properly disentangle the abiotic and biotic drivers shaping species niches. Recent developments have thus focussed on (i) integrating demography and dispersal into species distribution models, and on (ii) integrating biotic interactions. Yet, many aspects of these models remain under-explored, for example, the required process detail to be incorporated in the models as well as the scale dependence and the spatial and temporal variation of the represented processes among others. Also, we are still missing a framework that fully integrates all these processes in a generic way, such that it is applicable and adaptable to a large number of species. Here, I propose setting up a research group that develops an integrated modelling framework able to disentangle the complex roles of demography, dispersal and biotic interactions in shaping species niches, and assess their effects on population and community response to global environmental change. The framework and its single components will be validated using a mix of simulated and empirical data, and it will be operationalized and tested for avian communities, for which multiple data sources will be synthesized in a novel way using Bayesian inference. In particular, the project will focus on five key research objectives aimed at (1) improving our understanding how life history and environment shape dispersal, (2) improving our understanding how life history and demography shape species niches, (3) improving our understanding how biotic interactions shape species niches, (4) developing and operationalizing multi-species dynamic distribution models, and (5) developing new biodiversity scenarios for European birds. Overall, the proposed project will improve the scientific basis for model-based biodiversity assessments and increase reliability of biodiversity predictions for broad spatial scales by providing both theoretical and conceptual advancements and by defining practical requirements and guidelines for the development and application of biodiversity models.