Eco-evolutionary dynamics of population spread and plant demography in a changing world

不断变化的世界中人口传播和植物种群的生态进化动态

• 批准号: RGPIN-2020-04643
• 负责人: Williams, Jennifer
• 金额: $ 4.01万
• 依托单位: University of British Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=716332
• 关键词: Eco; evolutionary; dynamics; population; spread

Two major threats to biodiversity are climate change and land use changes. In western North America, not only will temperatures likely increase by 2 - 4 ºC in the next century, but precipitation patterns will shift. Understanding how such changes drive the dynamics of individual populations, that is the extent to which they are increasing or decreasing through time, is critical for conserving threatened species and managing invasive ones. Scientists now recognize that evolution on contemporary time scales can influence not only traits of individuals, but also population dynamics. A current challenge in ecology is thus to integrate the role of evolution in population dynamics with the major environmental changes the world currently faces. To tackle this challenge, I seek to understand how environmental changes influence the ecological and evolutionary processes that influence where species occur, how abundant they are and how the abundance of individual populations changes through time. Over the next 5 years, my research program will integrate development of theoretical models with field and greenhouse experiments in two complementary areas. First, recent studies show that evolution can be the driving mechanism behind the range expansion of plants and animals, and that scientists may be underestimating how quickly species can shift their ranges. However, despite recent advances, making predictions about the speed of range expansions is inherently difficult. My research will include an ambitious set of experiments to evaluate new theoretical predictions for the factors that influence how evolution influences the predictability of expansion speed. The results will play an important role in the advancement of this field and contribute to more effective conservation and management strategies. Second, predicting how climate change influences which species are most vulnerable due to their evolutionary responses is key to disentangling the factors that drive changes in biodiversity, and to decision making to manage risks and reduce or avoid costs associated with climate change. I will examine how variability in climate affects the timing of when plants flower and how much energy they allocate to making flowers and seeds, capitalizing on a field experiment I established in the endangered Garry oak ecosystem that manipulates rainfall. We will make predictions for how changes to both mean and variability in rainfall will influence optimal reproductive strategies and the ability of populations to persist. Our results will evaluate long-standing theory and highlight characteristics of species that make them more vulnerable to climate change, allowing us to articulate how changes to individual species will drive changes in biodiversity now and in the future.

生物多样性面临的两大威胁是气候变化和土地利用变化。在北美洲西部，不仅气温可能在下个世纪上升2 - 4 ºC，而且降水模式也将发生变化。了解这些变化如何驱动个体种群的动态，即它们随时间增加或减少的程度，对于保护受威胁物种和管理入侵物种至关重要。科学家们现在认识到，当代时间尺度上的进化不仅会影响个体的特征，还会影响种群动态。因此，生态学目前的挑战是将进化在人口动态中的作用与世界目前面临的主要环境变化相结合。为了应对这一挑战，我试图了解环境变化如何影响生态和进化过程，这些过程影响物种的出现，它们的丰富程度以及个体种群的丰富程度如何随着时间的推移而变化。在接下来的5年里，我的研究计划将在两个互补领域将理论模型的开发与田间和温室实验相结合。 首先，最近的研究表明，进化可能是动植物活动范围扩大的驱动机制，科学家们可能低估了物种改变活动范围的速度。然而，尽管最近取得了进展，但对范围扩展的速度进行预测本质上是困难的。我的研究将包括一系列雄心勃勃的实验，以评估影响进化如何影响膨胀速度可预测性的因素的新理论预测。研究结果将在这一领域的进步中发挥重要作用，并有助于制定更有效的养护和管理战略。 其次，预测气候变化如何影响哪些物种由于其进化反应而最脆弱，是解开推动生物多样性变化的因素的关键，也是管理风险和减少或避免与气候变化相关成本的决策的关键。我将研究气候的变化如何影响植物开花的时间，以及它们分配多少能量来制造花朵和种子，利用我在濒临灭绝的加里橡树生态系统中建立的一个控制降雨的实地实验。我们将预测降雨量的平均值和变化将如何影响最佳的繁殖策略和种群的持续能力。我们的研究结果将评估长期存在的理论，并突出物种的特征，使它们更容易受到气候变化的影响，使我们能够阐明单个物种的变化将如何推动现在和未来生物多样性的变化。