DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Effects of matrix habitat on metacommunity dynamics and ecosystem function

了解景观中栖息地的空间安排如何影响生物多样性，以及由此产生的生态系统服务后果，是生态学家面临的一个持续挑战。微观世界提供了一个在更小、更容易处理的尺度上研究景观尺度过程的机会。土壤和凋落叶的缩影将用于研究凋落叶的大小和空间排列如何影响其中所含生物的多样性，以及观察到的物种多样性差异如何影响重要的生态系统服务：凋落叶分解。这个项目的结果将使科学家和土地管理者能够更有效地管理自然资源，同时保护生物多样性。对小而关键的土壤生物进行研究是具有挑战性的，因为它们很难、耗时，甚至无法从视觉上识别。该项目将使用最先进的DNA分析方法来快速准确地识别目标生物。DNA技术的使用和改进对群落生态学和一般科学领域都很重要，因为采用基于最新技术的新方法提供了开辟新领域的机会，并使以前无法收集数据的领域能够进行研究。

Understanding how the spatial arrangement of habitats in a landscape affects biodiversity, and the resulting consequences for ecosystem services, is a continuing challenge for ecologists. Microcosms provide an opportunity to study landscape-scale processes on a smaller, more tractable scale. A microcosm of soil and leaf litter will be used to examine how the size and spatial arrangement of leaf litter influence the diversity of organisms contained within, and how observed differences in species diversity affects an important ecosystem service: leaf litter decomposition.The results from this project will enable scientists and land managers to manage natural resources more effectively and efficiently, while conserving biodiversity. Conducting research on small, yet critical, soil organisms is challenging because they can be difficult, time consuming, or even impossible to identify visually. This project will use a state-of-the-art method of DNA analysis for rapid and accurate identification of the target organisms. The use and refinement of DNA technology is important for the field of community ecology, and science in general, since adoption of new methods based on the latest technology offers the opportunity to break new ground and to enable research in areas where data collection was previously not practical.