SGER: Towards a New Functional Approach for Comparing Stream Ecosystems

溪流生态学中一个新兴的理论框架试图描述物理干扰如何在多个空间尺度上调节生态系统的结构和功能。这个新兴框架的一个主要目标是基于地貌学和水文学知识来预测生态系统的生态属性，这些属性可以共同描述底栖生物栖息地的稳定程度或频繁受到干扰的程度。PI将从功能方面（例如，生活史、流动性、大小光谱和形态-行为属性）描述动态无脊椎动物群落的特征，这些特征应该代表生物体对物理干扰的综合反应。利用这些非分类学指标，PI将从数量上验证群落结构与生境稳定性和干扰相关的假设。研究将在东部落叶生物群系中精心挑选的10条溪流中进行，以分离出解释无脊椎动物群落结构变化的假设机制（生境干扰）。

An emerging theoretical framework in stream ecology attempts to describe how physical disturbance regulates ecosystem structure and function at multiple spatial scales. A major goal of this emerging framework is to predict ecological attributes of lotic ecosystems based on knowledge of geomorphology and hydrology, which together can describe how stable or frequently disturbed benthic habitats are. The PI will characterize lotic invertebrate communities in functional terms (e.g., life history, mobility, size spectra, and morpho-behavioral attributes) that should represent integrated organism responses to physical disturbance. Using these non-taxonomic indices, The PI will test the hypothesis that community structure is quantitatively related to habitat stability and disturbance. Research will be conducted on 10 carefully- selected streams in the Eastern Deciduous Biome to isolate the mechanism (habitat disturbance) hypothesized to explain much variability in invertebrate community structure.