Multigenerational Trophic Responses to Coupled Short- and Long-term Environmental Change

对短期和长期环境变化耦合的多代营养反应

• 批准号: NE/W006731/1
• 负责人: Michael Fowler
• 金额: $ 82.43万
• 依托单位: Swansea University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FW006731%2F1
• 关键词: Multigenerational; Trophic; Responses; Coupled; Short

The negative effects of climate change on biodiversity are already being felt on a global scale, disrupting numerous natural ecosystem services that human societies depend upon, like biological pest control, the pollination of agricultural crops and the provision of clean water and food. The vast majority of experiments investigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity have used an indirect, "step-change" type approach, where biological responses (like maturation times) to current environmental conditions are compared simultaneously in independent experimental populations, to projected future conditions, with no gradual transition between the conditions. E.g., experiments will record how organisms behave under 20 C conditions at the same time as other organisms from the same species are exposed to 25 C. Differences in their responses are then used as evidence of how climate change will affect biodiversity. However, this approach excludes the potential for populations to adapt and evolve across multiple generations to gradual, directional environmental changes - foundational concepts in population biology. Climate change is happening gradually, albeit rapidly, over time, and while current rates are faster than historical changes, we do not expect to see an instantaneous, dramatic change in conditions in most cases. This disparity creates gaps in understanding between what these experiments predict and what is actually happening in the real world.We will address these fundamental knowledge and evidence gaps by investigating how a moth (the 'Host' species) a pest species whose caterpillars consume and spoil stored food products worldwide (including simple grains like wheat, as well as biscuits and chocolate), and a wasp (the 'Parasitoid') that attacks and kills the moth by laying eggs in the moth's juvenile caterpillar stage, respond to long-term temperature increases across multiple generations. Parasitoids play a key role in controlling plant and animal populations across all land-based, and many aquatic, food webs, therefore understanding how they respond to climate change gives us extremely useful information that is applicable around the world. We will examine these responses in a carefully integrated system of computer models and carefully controlled laboratory experiments, in this globally important Host-Parasitoid interaction. We will assess how key biological features of the two species, such as the length of time they remain as juveniles, which is highly sensitive to temperature, affect how their population sizes change over time and whether they can continue to live together, or at least one or both species go extinct. We will test if and how these responses change under temperatures that gradually increase by either 1.5 or 3 C over 2-years, spanning ~18 Host generations. We will further increase biological realism by investigating whether short-term (daily) fluctuations around the long-term temperature trend can mask, or even reverse, the ability of these populations to adapt to climate change and coexist across multiple generations. We will apply our findings to other species and climate scenarios using mathematical models that are based on measurements from hundreds of other species, available from publicly available databases.Our combined work enables us to move beyond describing simple climate change-biodiversity relationships in hindsight - based on data that was often collected for other reasons, by providing a deeper understanding of precisely how natural-enemy systems will respond to future climate change. This will transform our understanding of how we can predict how ecosystems will respond to future, uncertain climate change, vastly improving our understanding of major global challenges, such as pest and disease outbreaks, threats from invasive species and the accelerating loss of biodiversity.

气候变化对生物多样性的负面影响已经在全球范围内显现，破坏了人类社会所依赖的许多自然生态系统服务，如生物害虫控制、农作物授粉以及提供清洁的水和食物。绝大多数研究气候变化对生物多样性影响的实验都采用了间接的“阶梯变化”型方法，即在独立的实验种群中同时比较对当前环境条件的生物反应（如成熟时间）与预测的未来条件，而在条件之间没有逐渐过渡。例如，实验将记录生物在20℃条件下的行为，同时同一物种的其他生物暴露在25℃条件下，它们的反应差异将被用作气候变化如何影响生物多样性的证据。然而，这种方法排除了种群在多代之间适应和进化逐渐的、定向的环境变化的可能性——这是种群生物学的基本概念。随着时间的推移，气候变化是逐渐发生的，尽管速度很快，虽然目前的速度比历史变化快，但我们预计在大多数情况下，情况不会发生瞬间的剧烈变化。这种差异造成了这些实验预测和现实世界实际情况之间的理解差距。我们将通过调查蛾子（“寄主”物种）和黄蜂（“寄生蜂”）如何应对跨越多代的长期温度升高，来解决这些基础知识和证据差距。蛾子（“寄主”物种）是一种害虫物种，其幼虫消耗并破坏世界各地储存的食品（包括小麦等简单谷物，以及饼干和巧克力），寄生蜂（“寄生蜂”）通过在蛾子的幼虫阶段产卵来攻击和杀死蛾子。拟寄生物在控制所有陆基和许多水生食物网的动植物种群方面发挥着关键作用，因此了解它们如何应对气候变化为我们提供了非常有用的信息，适用于全球。我们将在一个精心整合的计算机模型系统和精心控制的实验室实验中检查这些反应，在这个全球重要的宿主-拟寄生虫相互作用中。我们将评估这两个物种的关键生物学特征，比如它们作为幼体的时间长度，这对温度非常敏感，如何影响它们的种群规模随时间的变化，以及它们是否能继续生活在一起，或者至少有一个或两个物种灭绝。我们将测试在2年内，跨越18代宿主，温度逐渐升高1.5或3摄氏度时，这些反应是否以及如何变化。我们将通过调查长期温度趋势的短期（每日）波动是否会掩盖甚至逆转这些种群适应气候变化和多代共存的能力，进一步提高生物学的真实性。我们将利用基于数百种其他物种的测量数据的数学模型，将我们的发现应用于其他物种和气候情景，这些数据可以从公开的数据库中获得。我们的联合工作使我们能够超越事后描述简单的气候变化-生物多样性关系-基于通常出于其他原因收集的数据，通过更深入地了解天敌系统将如何应对未来的气候变化。这将改变我们对如何预测生态系统将如何应对未来不确定的气候变化的理解，极大地提高我们对重大全球挑战的理解，如病虫害爆发、入侵物种的威胁和生物多样性的加速丧失。