Understanding the dynamics of predator-prey populations dispersing in heterogeneous habitat

我的研究计划的目标是扩大目前的理解捕食者-猎物系统动力学的高度相关的新情况下，目前的气候变化和栖息地破碎化增加的压力。 我的重点是在空间上明确的系统，捕食者与猎物的相互作用，加上运动在斑块景观。 资源的空间变化对人口动态有很强的影响，在当前的景观重构压力下，了解异质景观对人口动态的影响是非常重要的。 当人类的利益决定了需要通过例如采用害虫管理策略或收获资源来扰乱生态系统时，常住人口就会从其平衡分布中迁移出来。 然后，这些种群必须进行调整，这些短暂的动态可能导致恢复初始平衡状态，也可能导致一个全新的状态。例如，相对稳定的昆虫群落在施用杀虫剂后可能变得非常不稳定。 在这种情况下，控制害虫的努力最初确实减少了害虫种群，但也消除了害虫的捕食者。 由于害虫的生长速度比其捕食者快得多，因此害虫种群首先恢复并呈指数增长。 在这种情况下，虫害控制的意外后果是造成虫害爆发。这些次要后果可以通过系统行为的先验知识来预防或减轻。

The goal of my research program is to expand current understanding of predator-prey system dynamics to novel situations of high relevance under the current pressures of climate change and increased habitat fragmentation. My focus is in spatially-explicit systems where predator-prey interactions are coupled with movement across patchy landscapes. Spatial variation in resource availability has a strong effect on population dynamics, and under current landscape reconfiguration pressures, an understanding of the effect of heterogeneous landscapes on population dynamics is highly relevant. When human interests dictate the need to disturb an ecosystem by, for example, applying pest management strategies or harvesting a resource, resident populations are displaced from their equilibrium distributions. These populations must then adjust, and these transient dynamics can lead either to a restoration of the initial equilibrium state, or to an entirely new state. For example, relatively stable insect communities can become wildly unstable after the application of insecticide. In this case, efforts to control an insect pest do initially reduce the pest population, but also remove the pest's predators. Because the pest has a much higher growth rate than its predators, the pest population recovers first and can grow exponentially. The unintended consequence of pest control, in this case, is creation of a pest explosion. Such secondary consequences can be prevented, or mitigated, with prior knowledge of system behaviour.