Nutritional Ecology of Lake Foodwebs

营养被广泛认为是陆地和水生生态系统中生态动态的一个重要决定因素。营养不良会减缓消费者的生长和繁殖速度，并改变他们生理的许多方面，包括代谢率和营养排泄。通过对个人的这些影响，食物质量差可以限制人口增长率，改变社区的相互作用。我们对动物营养在生态学中的作用的理解主要是基于对现有食物的观察和对动物消费者的假定代谢需求的观察。虽然水产消费者的营养成分各不相同，但不同的饮食需求如何影响生态相互作用的直接研究很少。通过这个项目，我将系统地研究不同水生消费者对营养限制的代谢反应，并确定这些反应在环境中的变化。这些数据将用于开发新的营养压力指标，这将改善动物营养及其在食物网和生态系统中的作用的研究。此外，我将研究营养不良如何影响不同的水生消费者的种群动态和它们在多物种群落中的竞争相互作用。我的研究将展示食品质量如何影响不同的水生消费物种，并为其研究提供新的定量方法。这项工作将通过提供量化营养压力的改进方法来帮助其他参与动物养殖（如水产养殖）的人。此外，我的研究将有助于解释在不同生产力的生态系统中观察到的食物网之间的差异。通过这样做，我的研究将加深我们对营养生态学及其环境控制的理解。

Nutrition is widely acknowledged to be an important determinant of ecological dynamics in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Poor nutrition slows the growth and reproductive rates of consumers and alters many aspects of their physiology including metabolic rates and nutrient excretion. By way of these effects on individuals, poor food quality can constrain population growth rates and alter community interactions. Our understanding of this role of animal nutrition in ecology has largely been based on observations of available food and that of presumed metabolic needs of animal consumers. While aquatic consumers are known to vary in their nutrient content, how different dietary requirements affect ecological interactions has received little direct study. With this program, I will systematically study the metabolic responses of different aquatic consumers to nutrient limitation and determine how these responses vary among environments. These data will be used to develop novel indicators of nutritional stress, which will improve the study of animal nutrition and its role in foodwebs and ecosystems. In addition, I will examine how poor nutrition affects population dynamics of different aquatic consumers and their competitive interactions in multi-species communities. My research will demonstrate how food quality affects different aquatic consumer species and provide new quantitative approaches to its study. This work will aid others involved in animal culturing, such as aquaculture, by providing improved approaches in quantifying nutritional stress. In addition, my research will help explain differences between foodwebs that are observed in ecosystems of different productivity. By doing so, my research will deepen our understanding of nutritional ecology and its environmental controls.