Collaborative Research: Modeling the Tradeoffs within Food-, Fear-, and Thermal-Scapes to Explain Habitat Use by Mammalian Herbivores

由于自然景观正在迅速变化，了解决定生物如何选择栖息地和资源的因素仍然是生态学的核心问题。理论预测动物可以平衡食物数量或质量、捕食风险和物理环境所带来的成本，但很少有研究充分评估与觅食动物功能相关的多重变量在空间和时间尺度上如何相互作用。该研究为理解生境特征与生境利用之间的功能联系提供了一种新的综合方法。结合行为生态学、营养生态学、化学生态学、空间生态学和生理生态学，综合评价影响草食动物和专业草食动物栖息地利用的因素。将在实验室和自然野外条件下测量四种栖息地特征（食物中的营养物质、食物中的毒素、安全覆盖和热覆盖）之间的权衡，以模拟和比较这些特征对专业和通用物种的功能重要性。当生物在自然环境中面临复杂的决策时，研究人员将整合结果来预测资源选择和推断栖息地质量。本研究开发了一种量化相对简单系统中栖息地价值的新方法，该方法将增强对更复杂系统中环境变化后果的预测。它包括一个新的教育模式，培养研究生、本科生和高中生，他们将在三所大学合作进行研究，参加分层指导计划，并与社区和地区生物学家合作。这个研究和教育项目旨在拓宽学生的科学经验，促进学术界、土地管理机构和公众之间的合作，并通过提供模型来预测动物如何在快速变化的生态系统中改变它们对栖息地的利用，从而为社会做出贡献。

Because natural landscapes are changing rapidly, understanding the factors that determine how organisms select both habitats and resources remains a central question in ecology. Theory predicts that animals can balance the costs posed by food quantity or quality, predation risk, and the physical environment, but few studies have adequately assessed how multiple variables interact at spatial and temporal scales that are functionally relevant to a foraging animal. This research offers a new and synthetic approach to understand functional links between habitat features and habitat use. It combines behavioral, nutritional, chemical, spatial, and physiological ecology to evaluate comprehensively the factors that influence habitat use by both a generalist and specialist herbivore. Tradeoffs among four habitat features (nutrients in food, toxins in food, security cover, and thermal cover) will be measured in the laboratory and under natural field conditions to model and compare the functional importance of these features to both specialist and generalist species. The investigators will integrate results to predict resource selection and infer habitat quality when organisms are faced with complex decisions in natural environments. This research develops a new method for quantifying habitat value in a relatively simple system that will enhance predictions of the consequences of environmental change in more complex systems. It includes a novel educational model that trains graduate, undergraduate, and high school students who will conduct research collaboratively across three universities, participate in a tiered mentoring program, and engage with the community and regional biologists. This research and educational program is designed to broaden the scientific experience of students, to foster collaborations between academia, land management agencies and the public, and to contribute to society by providing models that predict how animals will alter their use of habitats in rapidly changing ecosystems.