Ecological Network Conundrum

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In natural ecosystems, apex predators are decreasing around the world, altering species interactions as they are often replaced by meso-predators and human overexploitation. At the other end of the spectrum in urban ecosystems, specialist species are declining and being replaced by generalists and pest species that promote the spread of pathogens and disease. Species are therefore facing a suite of simultaneous direct and indirect threats from climate change and land-use change that homogenize ecosystems. Such global change results in the uncoupling of trophic links due to phenological change and species range shifts resulting in species non-analog interactions. Hence, the fabric of species persistence and the ecosystem services that they provide is precarious to say the least. To respond to these rapid changes, several conservation strategies have been proposed such as the establishment of protected areas. Unfortunately, there is a conundrum about the positive and negative effects of connectivity and how to implement such connectivity to optimize species persistence. My proposed research will model species ecological networks dynamics under global change. I will determine which species traits influence the dynamics of network topology and functions, and which traits promote adaptable network properties. A major goal is to understand how the spatio-temporal dynamics of landscapes may affect ecological network topology promoting the potential rewiring of species interactions in response to global change. Hence, my research team and I will test the potential synergetic effects of species traits, demographic vital rates, and species interactions. We will develop hypotheses and frameworks to better understand the trade-offs in landscape spatial structure that affect the spatio-temporal dynamics of ecological networks and identify spatial network generalities to inform conservation management strategies. We will perform a sensitivity analysis of alternative hypotheses about the importance of network topology at the node level and the link level as well as the network strength on species spatial distribution responses to spatio-temporal dynamic landscapes. These research projects will set the foundation for several future research avenues and analytical developments for ecological networks and spatial ecology studies. To do so, we will combine online databases on ecological data about species traits, species dispersal abilities, and spatio-temporal patterns of genetic variation. The findings of these research projects will help to determine in which ways space and species interactions matter to maintain metacommunities and ecosystems' functions. The ecological network modeling and analytic tools could also be extended to other ecosystems and species for the purpose of land use decision-making including the location of roads and transmission corridors, the development of forest management plans and the establishment of protected areas.