Food webs at the landscape level: are we missing the wood for the trees?

景观层面的食物网：我们是否只见树木不见森林？

• 批准号: NE/K00459X/1
• 负责人: Simon Potts
• 金额: $ 6.32万
• 依托单位: University of Reading
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2013 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FK00459X%2F1
• 关键词: Food; webs; landscape; level; missing

Many conservation organisations have initiatives for protecting plants and animals which operate at the landscape scale. For example there are currently 110 Living Landscape Initiatives (Wildlife Trusts), 40 Futurescapes (RSPB), and 8 Integrated Biodiversity Delivery Areas (Natural England), plus the Nature Improvement Areas (Defra). Food webs are very useful tool for studying communities of plants and animals and over a decade they have developed from simple descriptions of communities, to tools that can predict the results of environmental changes, such as global warming or species loss. Despite the strong move to landscape-level conservation though, food web studies are almost invariably conducted in small plots (e.g. 100 m2) in single habitats, to investigate, for example, pests and their natural enemies in a crop field, or pollinators and their nectar plants in a meadow. Our aim here is to initiate a major change in the way we study food webs by working at the scale of the landscape (defined as a mosaic of different habitats). This proposal will allow us for the first time to understand how food webs interact in real world landscapes and how the various habitats (e.g. woodlands vs heathland vs salt marsh) affect the structure of landscape food webs, and delivery of ecosystem services such as pest control and pollination. Our pilot data suggest that a mosaic of habitats is likely to be more resilient in to environmental damage than individual habitats. Similarly we predict better delivery of ecosystem services if a mixture of habitats are conserved. There is considerable opportunity for win : win scenarios here - better conservation of wildlife and better provision of pollination and pest control, the latter being critical for food security. There are five objectives in our proposal:Objective 1: Time is money in practical conservation biology, and networks which are more efficient to construct (i.e. cheaper!) are more likely to be used by conservation biologists. We will test whether food webs based on reduced sampling can still be used to identify the functionally most important species (i.e. those that support the most other species).Objective 2: We will test whether landscapes composed of multiple habitats are more resilient to species loss than landscapes composed of fewer habitats. Objective 3: Species that move between habitats are rarely considered in practical conservation, but could be critical for ecosystem resilience as they effectively "glue" the various habitats together. We will develop new mathematical tools to calculate how separate the various habitats are in a landscape, and conversely, how well they are glued together.Objective 4: If nature reserves are adjacent to farmland, there is potential for the former to provide ecosystem services to the latter via mobile pollinators and parasitoids. We will test whether pollination and pest control improve in patches of strawberry plants as the number of adjacent natural habitats increases. Objective 5: We will publish our findings in scientific journals and convey them to a wider audience, by: a) running three workshops for 90 nature reserve managers; b) working with the Bee Guardian Foundation to turn five towns in England into Bee Guardians; c) commissioning final year students to write reports for practitioners; d) running a blog; e) communicating findings to influential policy-makers. The research team has the skills and experience to conduct research which will improve landscape conservation projects significantly. Led by Memmott, the team consists of ecologists and computer scientists, museum taxonomists and conservation ecologists. The latter all have long-term interests and influence in multiple landscape conservation projects and as can be seen from the letters of support, our project will provide the information that practitioners need for evidence-based landscape conservation.

许多保护组织都有保护在景观范围内运作的动植物的倡议。例如，目前有110个生物景观倡议(野生动物信托基金)、40个未来景观(RSPB)和8个综合生物多样性交付区(自然英格兰)，外加自然改善区(Defra)。食物网是研究动植物群落的非常有用的工具，十多年来，它们已经从简单的群落描述发展到可以预测全球变暖或物种丧失等环境变化结果的工具。尽管大力转向景观层面的保护，但食物网研究几乎总是在单一生境的小块土地(例如100平方米)内进行，以调查例如农田中的害虫及其天敌，或草地中的传粉者及其花蜜植物。我们在这里的目的是通过在景观(定义为不同栖息地的马赛克)的尺度上工作来启动我们研究食物网的方式的重大变化。这项建议将使我们第一次了解食物网在现实世界景观中是如何相互作用的，以及不同的生境(例如林地、石南地和盐沼)如何影响景观食物网的结构，以及提供病虫害防治和授粉等生态系统服务。我们的试点数据表明，与单个栖息地相比，马赛克栖息地对环境破坏的适应能力更强。同样，我们预测，如果保护各种栖息地的混合，生态系统服务的提供会更好。这里有相当大的机会：双赢--更好地保护野生动物，更好地提供授粉和虫害防治，后者对粮食安全至关重要。我们的建议有五个目标：目标1：在实用的保护生物学中，时间就是金钱，以及构建更有效的网络(即更便宜的网络！)更有可能被保护生物学家使用。我们将测试基于减少采样的食物网是否仍然可以用来识别功能上最重要的物种(即那些支持最多其他物种的物种)。目标2：我们将测试由多个生境组成的景观是否比由较少生境组成的景观更能抵御物种丧失的影响。目标3：在栖息地之间迁徙的物种在实际保护中很少被考虑，但可能对生态系统的弹性至关重要，因为它们有效地将不同的栖息地粘合在一起。我们将开发新的数学工具来计算不同栖息地在景观中的分离程度，以及它们相互粘合的程度。目标4：如果自然保护区毗邻农田，则前者有可能通过移动传粉者和寄生蜂为后者提供生态系统服务。我们将测试随着邻近自然栖息地数量的增加，草莓地块的授粉和病虫害防治是否会有所改善。目标5：我们将在科学期刊上发表我们的发现，并通过以下方式将其传达给更广泛的受众：a)为90名自然保护区管理者举办三次研讨会；b)与蜜蜂守护者基金会合作，将英格兰的五个城镇变成蜜蜂守护者；c)委托大四学生为从业者撰写报告；d)运营博客；e)向有影响力的政策制定者传达研究结果。研究团队拥有进行研究的技能和经验，这将显着改善景观保护项目。由Memmott领导的团队由生态学家和计算机科学家、博物馆分类学家和保护生态学家组成。后者在多个景观保护项目中都有长期的利益和影响，从支持信中可以看出，我们的项目将为实践者提供以证据为基础的景观保护所需的信息。