In from the cold: how are winter plankton communities changing with the climate?

湖泊生态系统承载着不同的生物群落，这些生物群落在季节、年度和十年的时间尺度上表现出很大的变化。越来越多的证据表明，这些群落已经受到气候变化的影响，但现有的许多研究都集中在春季和夏季群落的生态学上，冬季群落受到的关注较少。我们知道冬天正在变得越来越温和，因此了解冬季群落如何变化非常重要，因为这些变化可能会“延续”到随后的季节并产生持久的影响。该项目以生态上重要的湖泊浮游生物群落为重点，将解决这一知识差距，结合：1）审查当前气候变化研究的最新进展，重点关注冬季湖泊生态系统2）使用来自野外和大型户外实验系统的样本，对功能重要的浮游动物消费者的丰度、多样性和大小结构进行显微镜和图像分析。3）使用通过国际合作提供的湖泊网络数据，将这些分析扩展到全球范围。4）使用稳定同位素分析进行有针对性的调查，冬季营养食物网结构特性的变化，以应对环境变化。您将与英国生态与水文中心和兰开斯特大学的专家团队合作，共同位于兰开斯特环境中心。实地考察将在英国湖区进行;联合国教科文组织世界遗产。在项目期间，您将成为长期数据分析，生物样品图像分析和稳定同位素分析的专家，并有机会将您的科学与其他研究人员和更广泛的公众交流

Lake ecosystems host diverse communities of organisms which show great variation over seasonal, year-to-year and decadal timescales. Growing evidence demonstrates that these communities are already being impacted by climate change, but much existing research has focused on the ecology of spring and summer communities, with winter communities receiving less attention. We know that winters are becoming milder and so it is important to understand how winter communities are changing, as these changes may "carry over" into subsequent seasons and have lasting effects. Focusing on ecologically-important lake plankton communities, this project will address this knowledge gap, combining:1) Review of the current state-of-the-art in climate change research focused on lake ecosystems in winter2) Combined microscopic and image analysis of the abundance, diversity and size structure of functionally-important zooplankton consumers using samples from the field and large outdoor experimental systems.3) Extending these analyses to a global extent using data from a network of lakes, provided through international collaboration.4) Targeted investigation, using stable isotope analysis, of changing structural properties of winter planktonic food webs in response to environmental change.You will work with a team of experts based at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and Lancaster University, co-located within the Lancaster Environment Centre. Fieldwork will be conducted in the English Lake District; a UNESCO World Heritage Site. During the project you will become expert in the analysis of long-term data, image analysis of biological samples, and stable isotope analysis, with opportunities to communicate your science to other researchers and the wider public