Biodiversity and consumer-resource interactions in fractal landscapes

分形景观中的生物多样性和消费者资源相互作用

• 批准号: RGPIN-2014-04842
• 负责人: Nielsen, Scott
• 金额: $ 1.75万
• 依托单位: University of Alberta
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2018-01-01 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=660943
• 关键词: Biodiversity; consumer; resource; interactions; fractal

A central question in ecology is how scale and environmental heterogeneity affect populations, trophic interactions and biodiversity. Answering this question partly requires knowing the scale at which species sample their resources (food) and how this affects the behaviour of consumers (minimum patch size requirements or giving up density) or the assemblage of species in a community (biodiversity). Heterogeneity in the distribution of resource patches can be described by fractal geometry and scales with body size of consumers as well as foraging behaviour and patch occupancy since organisms sample their environment at a perceptual grain that relates to their foraging efficiency. Scales at which organisms perceive and use a resource also helps explain patterns of coexistence of species in a community since they may not directly compete for the same resource.**A number of neutral theories of biodiversity, including island biogeography (IBG), ignore these trait-based explanations of community assembly, as well as interactions with disturbance in fragments. When disturbances are positively related to fragment (patch) size, local extinction rates can increase resulting in a paradox in IBG theory since biodiversity under these conditions may be inversely related to fragment (island) size. Little is known about how common this paradox is, how different taxa respond relative to life history traits (body size, longevity, etc.) and whether regional metacommunity and metapopulation or source-sink dynamics can compensate for higher extinction rates via a `rescue effect'. **My long-term research objective is to understand processes relating to the distribution, dynamics and interactions of species and ecosystems and to use this to inform biodiversity conservation. Specifically, I am interested in how scale and heterogeneity in space and time affect populations, behaviours of individuals, plant-animal (trophic) interactions and species assemblages (biodiversity). I propose to address this research objective by examining the following two complimentary research questions: *1. How does the spatial and temporal heterogeneity in a key resource (buffaloberry) affect a consumer dependent on that resource (grizzly bears)? *2. How do disturbances (fires) interact with fragmentation (scale) to affect biodiversity patterns?**Research on these two questions will be carried out as a series of related research projects resulting in the training of 2 PhD, 3 MSc, numerous undergraduate students (~10), and 1 post-doctoral fellow. These projects will provide training opportunities in experimental design, field research (taxonomy, sampling, safety and logistics, etc.), use of novel and emerging research tools (i.e. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles [UAVs] for high resolution remote sensing and 3D modeling), analysis (modeling and statistics) and hypothesis testing. This work will also add knowledge about how heterogeneity and scale affects consumer-resource interactions and biodiversity. Both themes have real-world applications to the management of threatened species and biodiversity in Canada, including management of a locally threatened high profile species (grizzly bears) and biodiversity conservation in the western boreal forest which is being increasingly fragmented by resource development and threatened by rapid environmental change. Understanding and mitigating these effects are needed to support sustainable resource management and Canada's environmental reputation.

生态学的一个核心问题是规模和环境异质性如何影响种群、营养相互作用和生物多样性。回答这个问题部分需要了解物种对其资源（食物）进行采样的规模，以及这如何影响消费者的行为（最小斑块大小要求或放弃密度）或群落中的物种组合（生物多样性）。资源斑块分布的异质性可以通过分形几何和消费者体型的尺度以及觅食行为和斑块占用来描述，因为生物体以与其觅食效率相关的感知颗粒对环境进行采样。生物体感知和使用资源的规模也有助于解释群落中物种共存的模式，因为它们可能不会直接竞争相同的资源。 **许多中立的生物多样性理论，包括岛屿生物地理学（IBG），忽略了这些基于特征的群落组装解释，以及与碎片干扰的相互作用。当干扰与碎片（斑块）大小呈正相关时，局部灭绝率可能会增加，导致 IBG 理论中的悖论，因为这些条件下的生物多样性可能与碎片（岛屿）大小呈负相关。人们对这种悖论有多普遍、不同类群相对于生活史特征（体型、寿命等）如何反应以及区域元群落和集合种群或源库动态是否可以通过“救援效应”补偿更高的灭绝率知之甚少。 **我的长期研究目标是了解与物种和生态系统的分布、动态和相互作用相关的过程，并利用它为生物多样性保护提供信息。具体来说，我感兴趣的是空间和时间的规模和异质性如何影响种群、个体行为、动植物（营养）相互作用和物种组合（生物多样性）。我建议通过检查以下两个补充研究问题来解决这一研究目标：*1。关键资源（水牛莓）的空间和时间异质性如何影响依赖该资源（灰熊）的消费者？ *2.干扰（火灾）如何与破碎（规模）相互作用以影响生物多样性模式？**对这两个问题的研究将作为一系列相关研究项目进行，从而培训 2 名博士、3 名硕士、众多本科生（约 10 名）和 1 名博士后。这些项目将提供实验设计、实地研究（分类、采样、安全和物流等）、新型和新兴研究工具（即用于高分辨率遥感和 3D 建模的无人机 [UAV]）的使用、分析（建模和统计）和假设检验等方面的培训机会。这项工作还将增加有关异质性和规模如何影响消费者-资源相互作用和生物多样性的知识。这两个主题在加拿大受威胁物种和生物多样性的管理中都有实际应用，包括当地受威胁的重要物种（灰熊）的管理和西部北方森林的生物多样性保护，该森林因资源开发而日益支离破碎，并受到快速环境变化的威胁。需要了解并减轻这些影响，以支持可持续资源管理和加拿大的环境声誉。