Bioenergetic approaches for understanding and forecasting ecological and epidemiological impacts of climate change

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Climate change, land use change, and other large-scale disturbances are altering ecosystems globally at an accelerating rate. Ecological forecast models that can outline the scope, timeline and manner of future impacts are needed to allow for proactive management strategies, for example, in the conservation of endangered species and the control of diseases. However, unlike the climate sciences, where mechanistic models are routinely used to predict climate changes, ecology does not yet offer a comprehensive framework for predicting ecosystem response to these changes. This proposal integrates physiological, ecological and epidemiological principles to develop, test, and apply mechanistic models for understanding and forecasting climate change impacts in two key areas of conservation and public/wildlife health.****First, we develop climate change impact models for polar bears and the Arctic marine food web. By focusing on energy as the common currency linking ecosystem processes, these models explicitly account for the mechanisms by which climate change disrupts the system, from changes in marine productivity to the links between sea ice loss, polar bear food stress, and polar bear population declines. The models will provide an unprecedented understanding of the dynamic processes shaping this food web, and will ultimately be used to develop risk assessments for polar bear populations worldwide. In particular, our research will provide the tools and analyses to update the latest Canadian status assessment of polar bears, which did not account for climate change impacts and thus resulted in overly optimistic assessments and likely unsustainable management strategies.***Second, also using a bioenergetic approach, we develop a mechanistic framework for understanding and forecasting climate change impacts on parasitic diseases, including, for example, changes to the geographic ranges of parasites and the health consequences for wildlife, livestock, and human hosts. By establishing and leveraging systematic patterns on the temperature-sensitivity of parasites, the approach will allow for disease forecasts and proactive disease prevention programs worldwide, even for poorly studied parasite species. As one example, we will apply our framework to understand the role of climate change in recent parasite range expansions in the Canadian Arctic and evaluate the risk of future disease spread and health consequences for caribou and muskoxen, thus also contributing to the conservation of these species and the food security of Northerners who depend on healthy populations. ***In the long-term, the generality of the bioenergetic approach will allow my group to apply the concepts of this proposal to other species and diverse global change related conservation and public health issues, such as the ecological and epidemiological consequences of land use change, pollution, and invasive species.**