A Novel Framework for Predicting Emerging Chemical Stressor Impacts in Complex Ecosystems

预测复杂生态系统中新兴化学应激影响的新框架

• 批准号: NE/S000348/1
• 负责人: Guy Woodward
• 金额: $ 179.8万
• 依托单位: Imperial College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FS000348%2F1
• 关键词: Novel; Framework; Predicting; Emerging; Chemical

Freshwater ecosystems provide critical ecosystem services that underpin human societies and wellbeing: including water purification, carbon capture, and the maintenance of sustainable fisheries. However, these ecosystems are under an increasing array of threats, both in the UK and worldwide, especially from a wide range of new and emerging chemical stressors (e.g. novel antibiotics and pesticides). Freshwater biosciences and applied ecology are under-equipped for dealing with these new threats: the evidence base is lacking, there is often little or no mechanistic understanding, or predictive capacity for anticipating how these novel chemicals will operate in the real world. This is particularly true for the ecosystems of the future that are being reshaped and constructed by climate and other environmental changes. Our project will address all these shortcomings by taken a radically different approach from the classical biomonitoring and ecotoxicology tools that have dominated for many decades. We aim to unearth the general rules by which emerging chemical stressors operate through, and alter, networks of interacting species - from microbes at the base of the food web, through to apex predators in the fish community at the top. This will involve the development of indicators of both proximate pollution, as the chemical first enters the biological system (commonly as a new food source for microbes), and also of its indirect effects as its impact propagates through the food web. For instance, we will be able to answer questions such as: if a new insecticide wipes out the invertebrates in the middle of the food web, does this trigger blooms of nuisance algae as they are no longer kept in check? To achieve this, we will develop a new suite of methods at the ecosystem level that combine lab and field experiments to detect the causal mechanisms that we currently do not understand. The experiments will be combined with mathematical modelling to predict ecosystem-level impacts. We will address both, contemporary ecosystems that could be under imminent threat from new chemical stressors, and ecosystems of the future that will emerge under different scenarios of land-use and climate change.This will provide a completely new paradigm in chemical stressor monitoring, based on using first principles to derive a novel means of predicting "ecological surprises" that commonly arise due to the inadequacies of our current simplistic approaches when dealing with the true biocomplexity of natural systems. Our scope is for our approach to serve as a diagnostic tool for management, with research findings, for example, supporting the selection of mitigation options that deliver reduction of ecological effects. This paradigm shift will allow far more robust predictions and therefore more informed management decisions about the freshwaters of the future.The work will bring together the field of pure and applied ecological science, to the mutual benefit of both sets of disciplines. Our proposal represents the first steps along this path to the more multidisciplinary perspective that is going to be critical for dealing with future threats to our ecosystems - from emerging chemical stressors in freshwaters to the growing list of other environmental threats looming on the horizon. Because the approach is general, it will not only pave the way for the next generation of ecological assessment in freshwaters, but it can also be adapted for applications in marine and terrestrial ecosystems.

淡水生态系统提供了支撑人类社会和福祉的关键生态系统服务：包括水净化、碳捕获和维持可持续渔业。然而，无论是在英国还是在世界范围内，这些生态系统都面临着越来越多的威胁，特别是来自各种新的和正在出现的化学压力源（例如新型抗生素和杀虫剂）。淡水生物科学和应用生态学在处理这些新威胁方面装备不足：缺乏证据基础，通常很少或根本没有机制理解，或者预测这些新化学物质在现实世界中如何运作的预测能力。对于正在被气候和其他环境变化重塑和构建的未来生态系统来说尤其如此。我们的项目将通过采取一种与几十年来主导的经典生物监测和生态毒理学工具截然不同的方法来解决所有这些缺点。我们的目标是揭示新出现的化学压力源在相互作用的物种网络中运作和改变的一般规律——从食物网底部的微生物，到顶端鱼类群落的顶级捕食者。这将涉及制定近距离污染指标，因为化学物质首先进入生物系统（通常作为微生物的新食物来源），以及其间接影响指标，因为其影响通过食物网传播。例如，我们将能够回答这样的问题：如果一种新的杀虫剂消灭了食物网中间的无脊椎动物，这是否会引发有害藻类的大量繁殖，因为它们不再受到控制？为了实现这一目标，我们将在生态系统层面开发一套新的方法，将实验室和现场实验相结合，以检测我们目前尚不了解的因果机制。这些实验将与数学模型相结合，以预测生态系统水平的影响。我们将解决这两个问题：可能面临新化学压力源威胁的当代生态系统，以及在不同土地利用和气候变化情景下出现的未来生态系统。这将为化学压力源监测提供一个全新的范例，基于使用第一性原理推导出一种预测“生态意外”的新方法，这种方法通常是由于我们当前处理自然系统真正生物复杂性的简单方法的不足而产生的。我们的范围是将我们的方法作为管理的诊断工具，例如，研究结果支持选择减少生态影响的缓解方案。这种模式的转变将允许对未来的淡水进行更有力的预测，从而做出更明智的管理决策。这项工作将把纯生态科学和应用生态科学领域结合起来，使两套学科相互受益。我们的建议代表了沿着这条道路迈出的第一步，这将是处理未来生态系统威胁的关键——从淡水中新出现的化学压力源到地平线上日益增长的其他环境威胁。由于这种方法是一般性的，它不仅将为下一代淡水生态评价铺平道路，而且还可以加以调整，适用于海洋和陆地生态系统。

项目成果

Reconciling the Size-Dependence of Marine Particle Sinking Speed

协调海洋颗粒下沉速度的尺寸依赖性

• DOI: 10.1029/2020gl091771
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Geophysical Research Letters
• 影响因子: 5.2
• 作者: Cael B

Overcoming the Obstacles Faced by Early Career Researchers in Marine Science: Lessons From the Marine Ecosystem Assessment for the Southern Ocean

• DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2020.00692
• 发表时间: 2020-08-28
• 期刊: FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE
• 影响因子: 3.7
• 作者: Brasier, Madeleine J.;McCormack, Stacey;Weldrick, Christine K.
• 通讯作者: Weldrick, Christine K.

Thermodynamic constraints on the assembly and diversity of microbial ecosystems are different near to and far from equilibrium.

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009643
• 发表时间: 2021-12
• 期刊: PLoS computational biology
• 影响因子: 4.3
• 作者: Cook J;Pawar S;Endres RG
• 通讯作者: Endres RG

Thermodynamic constraints on the assembly and diversity of microbial ecosystems are different near to and far from equilibrium

微生物生态系统的组装和多样性的热力学约束在接近和远离平衡时是不同的

• DOI: 10.1101/2021.04.19.440392
• 发表时间: 2021
• 作者: Cook J

Predicting catchment suitability for biodiversity at national scales.

预测国家范围内生物多样性的流域适宜性。

• DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2022.118764
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Water research
• 影响因子: 12.8
• 作者: Dobson B