cross-ecosystem linkages

最近的估计表明，80%的世界人口面临着水安全的高度威胁。在世界各地，人口增长转化为对粮食和自然资源的需求增加，威胁到水生生态系统的多样性和服务。这种情况导致了一种矛盾，即需要更多生态系统服务的密集人口威胁到支持这些服务的水生生态系统的稳定。保护生物学中一个长期存在的问题是，我们如何在陆地土地利用不断增加的情况下保护水生生态系统？预测陆地人为干扰对水生生态系统的影响需要更好地了解生态系统间的动态。从本质上讲，人们需要能够理解：i）干扰是否以及如何从陆地生态系统通过水生食物网传播; ii）这些社区结构变化如何转化为生态系统过程规模的功能变化; iii）这些功能变化最终如何在空间上级联影响整个流域的多样性，功能，以及为人类社区提供生态系统服务。这最后一点强调了一个非常本地化的干扰，受影响的生物群落的结构，以及流域的空间配置，这将必然限制？这种干扰的影响。因此，我的研究计划的目的是预测人为干扰对生物多样性和生态系统功能的影响，在流域尺度上使用的概念工具提供的元生态系统和元生态系统理论。在主席计划的支持下，该实验室将通过实施实验和监测方法的独特组合来扩大其研究能力，以更好地了解人类扰动如何通过景观传播，并最终影响与水质有关的一些基本支持水生生态系统服务的获得或损失，以及二次生产和能源回收。因此，这项研究计划将有助于我们了解元生态系统，以及它们如何影响生物多样性和生态系统功能，同时解决与全球变化（资源采集，农业径流）对水生生态系统的影响相关的政策制定者和资源管理者面临的重要保护挑战。

Recent estimates indicate that 80% of the world's population is exposed to a high level of threat to water security. Across the world, population growth translates into increased needs for food and natural resources that threaten the diversity and services produced by aquatic ecosystems. This situation leads to a paradox where denser populations that require more ecosystem services threaten the stability of aquatic ecosystems that support those services they need. A long-standing question in conservation biology is, how can we conserve aquatic ecosystems in the context of intensifying terrestrial land use? Predicting the impacts of anthropogenic terrestrial disturbances on aquatic ecosystems requires a better understanding of inter-ecosystem dynamics. Essentially, one needs to be able to understand i) if and how disturbances propagate from terrestrial ecosystems through aquatic food webs ii) how these community structural changes translate into functional changes at the scale of ecosystem processes and iii) ultimately how these functional changes cascade in space to affect an entire watershed in terms of diversity, functioning, but also the provision of ecosystem services for human communities. This last point emphasizes the probable interaction between a very localized disturbance, the structure of the affected biotic community as well as the spatial configuration of the watershed which will necessarily constrain the area of ??influence of this disturbance. My research program therefore aims to predict the impacts of anthropogenic disturbances on biodiversity and the functioning of ecosystems at the watershed scale by using the conceptual tools offered by metacommunity and metaecosystem theories. With support from the Chair program, the lab will expand its research capacity by implementing a unique combination of experimental and monitoring approaches to better understand how human perturbations can spread through the landscape and eventually influence the gain or loss of some essential supporting aquatic ecosystem services related to water quality, but also secondary production and energy recycling. This research program will thus contribute to our understanding of metaecosystems and how they can influence biodiversity and ecosystem functioning while also addressing important conservation challenges facing policy makers and resource managers related to the effects of global changes (resource harvesting, agricultural runoff) on aquatic ecosystems.