DISSERTATION RESEARCH: How will climate change affect trophic interactions?

全球气候变化被认为对生态系统构成巨大威胁。 但是，物种之间的相互作用将如何受到影响，以及这些物种为人类提供的环境服务将如何改变，这方面存在很大的不确定性。这项研究通过实验评估物种适应气候变化的能力来减少这种不确定性。 使用一个实验系统的草原植物，蝗虫草食动物，蜘蛛捕食者，这项研究将评估捕食者的能力，以适应气候变暖，并继续控制系统中的草食动物。 为了做到这一点，实验将评估蜘蛛在控制蝗虫方面的表现，沿着反映气候变化模型预测的变化的温度梯度。这项研究对关心生态和农业系统将如何受到气候变化影响的纳税人和决策者特别相关。 蝗虫等昆虫物种对农作物的破坏性很大，需要政府援助来弥补经济损失。 全球变暖可能会增加这一结果的可能性。 另一方面，这项研究将评估蝗虫的天敌能在多大程度上适应气候变化，从而控制食草动物的破坏。

Global climate change is believed to pose a huge threat to ecological systems. But there is much uncertainty about the way interactions among species will be affected and, consequently, how the environmental services these species provide to human kind are going to be altered. This study reduces this uncertainty by experimentally evaluating the capacity of species to adapt with a changing climate. Using an experimental system of grassland plants, grasshopper herbivores, and spider predators, this study will evaluate the ability of predators to adapt with warming and continue to control the herbivores in the system. To do this, the experiment will evaluate spider performance in controlling grasshoppers along a gradient of temperature reflective of the changes predicted by climate change models.This research is especially relevant to tax payers and policy makers concerned with how ecological and agricultural systems are going to be affected by climate change. Insect species like grasshoppers can be quite destructive to agricultural crops, requiring government aid to cover monetary losses. Global warming may enhance the likelihood of this outcome. This study, on the other hand, will evaluate the extent to which natural enemies of grasshoppers can adapt to climate change and thereby keep damage from herbivores in check.