How do anthropogenic threats reorganise insect communities?

人为威胁如何重组昆虫群落？

• 批准号: 2547082
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2547082
• 关键词: How; do; anthropogenic; threats; reorganise

Insects play crucial roles in natural and managed ecosystems. They have been in rapid decline in some places around the world, but the extent of and reasons for this decline are not yet fully understood. This project aims to understand how selected threats reshape insect communities - structurally as well as in terms of overall diversity - thereby improving understanding of where declines would be expected and the ecological impacts they are likely to have. The PREDICTS database, which has collated site-level data on many thousands of terrestrial insect communities facing threats relating to land-use change, allows detailed modelling of how land use and related pressures affect different taxonomic and functional groups of insects. GLiTRS, a large NERC-funded collaboration to develop and validate a threat-response model for insects, is broadening the approach in developing a database that also considers other threats. However, because most of the data sources in those databases have sampled only single groups using single sampling methods, analyses cannot consider linked responses among groups, restricting the development of more mechanistic models. This is a problem because mechanistic models can provide a much richer ecological understanding than purely correlational models, which tend to be more descriptive. By collating and then synthesising datasets that have sampled multiple interacting insect (and even non-insect) functional groups in sites facing threats, this project will deliver deeper insights into how and why insect communities are changing. Correlational models such as general linear mixed-effects models (GLMMs) can test whether different taxa or functional groups respond differently to threats, and even to determine which ways of grouping species maximise explanatory power. Approaches such as Structural Equation Modelling can go further towards testing among alternative possible impact pathways, including both direct and indirect effects plus, where data permit, interactions among multiple threats. This work will be facilitated by access to the data (including functional trait data) from the GLiTRS and PREDICTS projects and the breadth and depth of entomological expertise at NHM.

昆虫在自然和管理的生态系统中发挥着重要作用。在世界上一些地方，它们迅速下降，但下降的程度和原因尚不完全清楚。该项目旨在了解选定的威胁如何重塑昆虫群落-结构以及整体多样性-从而提高对预期下降的地方及其可能产生的生态影响的理解。PREDICTS数据库整理了数千个面临与土地使用变化有关的威胁的陆地昆虫群落的实地数据，可以详细模拟土地使用和相关压力如何影响昆虫的不同分类和功能群体。GLiTRS是一个由NERC资助的大型合作项目，旨在开发和验证昆虫的威胁响应模型，它正在扩大开发一个也考虑其他威胁的数据库的方法。然而，由于这些数据库中的大多数数据源仅使用单一抽样方法对单个群体进行抽样，因此分析无法考虑群体之间的关联反应，从而限制了更机械模型的开发。这是一个问题，因为机械模型可以提供更丰富的生态理解比纯粹的相关模型，这往往是更具描述性。通过整理和合成数据集，这些数据集在面临威胁的地点采样了多个相互作用的昆虫（甚至非昆虫）功能组，该项目将更深入地了解昆虫群落是如何以及为什么发生变化的。相关性模型，如一般线性混合效应模型（GLSMODEL），可以测试不同的类群或功能群是否对威胁有不同的反应，甚至可以确定哪些物种分组方式最大限度地提高解释力。结构方程模型等方法可以进一步测试其他可能的影响途径，包括直接和间接影响，并在数据允许的情况下测试多种威胁之间的相互作用。这项工作将通过访问GLiTRS和PREDICTS项目的数据（包括功能性状数据）以及NHM昆虫学专业知识的广度和深度来促进。