Linking species form, function and adaptations to freshwater habitats: implications for global change in aquatic systems.

将物种形式、功能和适应与淡水生境联系起来：对水生系统全球变化的影响。

• 批准号: RGPIN-2022-03376
• 负责人: Iversen, Lars
• 金额: $ 2.11万
• 依托单位: McGill University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=745750
• 关键词: Linking; species; form; function; adaptations

Freshwater ecosystems are of worldwide importance for maintaining biodiversity and the provision of a myriad of ecosystem services. Anthropogenic pressures are creating global shifts in freshwater permanency, increasing droughts in tropical and temperate regions and consequently species extinction rates and freshwater ecosystem degradations are increasing. Predicting freshwater ecosystem responses across landscapes and continents will be key in our ability to understand how these systems will develop under land-use and climate change. Functional biogeography is emerging as a promising field to develop such predictions, where the diversity of organismal forms and functions are put into a spatial-explicit context by linking responses of small and large-scale patterns of biodiversity to the environment. In the terrestrial realm, functional biogeography has bridged the gap between biodiversity gradients and biogeochemical cycles, providing a framework for underlying mechanisms driving ecosystem and biodiversity change. However, it is still unclear to what extent such a framework to aquatic organisms and how unique adaptations to life in water shape the functional biogeography of freshwater organisms. The long term goal of my research program is to understand and predict how freshwater ecosystems responses the global change, via their functional adaptations to life in water. Over the next 5 years, my research program will explore this goal through two complementary short-term objectives. Objective 1 is to develop a macroecology overview of aquatic plant form and function, both in an abstract functional trait space and across global environmental gradients. Objective 2 is to enhance our mechanistic understanding of the biogeographic constraints on trait variation when species undergo an abrupt ontogenetic change between an aquatic and terrestrial life form. Together, these objectives support the long-term goal of developing a conceptual understanding of how functional adaptations to life in water are distributed within and across landscapes. Describing the functional restrictions and uniqueness of freshwater species will allow us to specify when, why and how unique system specific approaches are needed when developing conservation priorities and action plans for freshwater ecosystems. Thereby, it will be possible to describe and quantify the actions needed if we are to reduce human impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in freshwater systems worldwide.

淡水生态系统对于维持生物多样性和提供各种生态系统服务具有世界范围的重要意义。人为压力正在造成淡水持久性的全球变化，热带和温带地区的干旱加剧，因此物种灭绝率和淡水生态系统退化正在增加。预测不同景观和大陆的淡水生态系统反应，将是我们理解这些系统在土地利用和气候变化下如何发展的关键。功能生物地理学正在成为开发这种预测的一个很有前途的领域，通过将生物多样性的小规模和大规模模式的响应与环境联系起来，将生物形式和功能的多样性置于空间显性背景中。在陆地领域，功能生物地理学弥合了生物多样性梯度和生物地球化学循环之间的差距，为驱动生态系统和生物多样性变化的潜在机制提供了一个框架。然而，目前还不清楚这种框架在多大程度上适合水生生物，以及对水中生命的独特适应如何影响淡水生物的功能生物地理学。我的研究计划的长期目标是了解和预测淡水生态系统如何通过它们对水中生活的功能适应来应对全球变化。在接下来的5年里，我的研究计划将通过两个相辅相成的短期目标来探索这一目标。目标1是在抽象的功能特征空间和全球环境梯度上，对水生植物的形态和功能进行宏观生态概述。目标2是加强我们对当物种经历水生和陆地生命形式之间的个体发育突变时，生物地理对性状变异的制约的机制的理解。总而言之，这些目标支持长期目标，即发展对水中生命的功能性适应如何在景观内和景观之间分布的概念性理解。描述淡水物种的功能限制和独特性将使我们能够具体说明在为淡水生态系统制定养护优先事项和行动计划时，何时、为什么以及如何采取独特的系统具体办法。因此，如果我们要减少人类对全球淡水系统生物多样性和生态系统功能的影响，就有可能描述和量化所需的行动。