U.S.-France Cooperative Research: Theoretical Studies on the Conservation Implications of Predator Removal and Introductions

这个为期三年的奖项将支持美国堪萨斯大学的Robert D. Holt和法国巴黎高等师范学院生态学实验室的Michael Hochberg在理论群落生态学方面的合作研究。该项目将美国国家科学基金会资助的环境生物学长期项目与法国国家科学研究中心（CNRS）支持的生物多样性研究项目联系起来。该研究项目的动机是保护生物学中由于本地捕食者从群落中移除和外来捕食者进入群落而产生的问题。研究者建议通过对群落模型的详细分析来研究捕食者操纵的后果。这些群落由少数以规定方式相互作用的物种组成。在他们对这些模型的分析中，研究人员将解决诸如不相连的食物链、捕食者捕食竞争和非竞争猎物、成对捕食者攻击成对猎物等问题。这位美国研究人员在一般生态学理论方面为这次合作带来了相当多的专业知识。这位法国研究者对保护生物学中针对实证人口研究量身定制的模型进行的研究补充了这一点。该提案的重点是清除和增加捕食者，具有保护和生物控制的意义。其结果可能导致改善环境管理的做法。

This three-year award will support U.S.-France cooperative research in theoretical community ecology between Robert D. Holt of the University of Kansas and Michael Hochberg of the Ecole Normale Superieure's Ecology Laboratory in Paris, France. The project links an NSF-funded Long-Term Project in Environmental Biology to the biodiversity research program supported by the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). The research project is motivated by problems in conservation biology arising from removal of native predators from communities and the introduction of exotic predators into communities. The investigators propose to study the consequences of predator manipulation from detailed analyses of community models. These communities consist of a small number of species interacting in a prescribed manner. In their analyses of these models, the investigators will address issues such as unlinked food chains, predators feeding on competing and non competing prey, and pairs of predator species attacking pairs of prey. The U.S. investigator brings to this collaboration considerable expertise in general ecological theory. This is complemented by the French investigator's research on models tailored to empirical population studies in conservation biology. The proposal's focus on predator removals and additions has conservation and biological control implications. Its results may lead to improved practices in environmental management.