Collaborative Research: Linking biotic interactions and environmental change to understand range dynamics of montane mammals over the past century

以人类为基础的活动正在从局部到全球范围内迅速改变自然环境，随着生境的变化和物种范围的崩溃或在整个景观中移动，生态系统的可持续性受到质疑。物种范围变化的预测通常仅基于气候变化的直接影响。但这种方法被广泛认为过于简单化，排除了对其他非生物和生物因素的考虑。需要了解环境变化和当地生态过程之间的复杂相互作用，以改进预测。成对的现代和历史数据集提供了一种方法，通过这种方法，可以在多个生态和空间和时间尺度上对影响过去距离响应的一整套相互作用的因素进行建模和验证。该项目整合了群落生态学、生物地理学和生物地球化学，以解决一个世纪以来环境变化对大盆地小型哺乳动物的影响，大盆地是北美一个高度受威胁的生物区。该项目强调了博物馆藏品作为生态档案的价值，并将在犹他州自然历史博物馆开发一个新的互动多媒体展览，以突出老标本在生态和保护方面的新用途。最后，该项目支持科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)领域的妇女，以及本科生和研究生以及博士后研究员的跨学科培训。利用大盆地山脉的成对调查数据(间隔80多年)，该项目将确定是什么因素促成了小型哺乳动物的活动范围边界变化。关于资源利用、物种相互作用、土地覆盖和气候变化在当地尺度上的直接和间接影响如何塑造景观尺度的物种范围动态，将评估替代假说。这种机械性的理解将在时间段内和跨时间段发展，并综合结果以确定提高物种对环境变化敏感性的特征和背景。结构方程模型将研究生物和非生物因素影响物种在局部地点的出现和丰度以及景观尺度上的范围动态的直接和间接途径。物种分布模型将被用来追踪气候变化时过去的物种范围。稳定同位素分析将被用来推断饮食和栖息地随着时间的推移、山脉之间以及有没有竞争对手的情况下的差异。哺乳动物的稳定同位素分析将用博物馆标本进行。该项目将促进一名博士后研究人员和学生的培训以及博物馆外展。这些方法和发现将高度推广到其他群体和系统，并将产生关于物种和群落可能如何应对未来气候和土地利用情景的可靠和可转移的预测。因此，项目成果将与生物相互作用和资源需求在协调对环境变化的反应方面的作用的保护和管理直接相关。

Human-based activities are rapidly changing natural environments on local to global scales, calling into question the persistence of ecosystems as habitats shift and species ranges collapse or move across the landscape. Species range shift predictions are routinely based on the direct impacts of climate change alone. But this approach is widely acknowledged as overly simplistic, excluding consideration of other abiotic and biotic factors. Understanding the complex interplay between environmental change and local ecological processes is needed to improve predictions. Paired modern and historical datasets provide a means by which suites of interacting factors affecting past range responses can be modeled and validated over multiple ecological and spatial and temporal scales. This project integrates community ecology, biogeography and biogeochemistry to address the impact of a century of environmental change on small mammals in the Great Basin, a highly threatened bioregion in North America. This project underscores the value of museum collections as ecological archives and will develop a new interactive multi-media exhibit at the Natural History Museum of Utah to highlight new uses for old specimens in ecology and conservation. Finally, this project supports women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), as well as the interdisciplinary training of undergraduate and graduate students and a post-doctoral researcher. Using paired survey data (80+ yrs separation) in Great Basin mountains, this project will determine what factors have mediated range boundary changes of small mammals. Alternate hypotheses will be evaluated regarding how the direct and indirect effects of resource use, species interactions, landcover, and climate change at the local scale have shaped landscape-scale species range dynamics. This mechanistic understanding will be developed within and across time periods, and results synthesized to identify the traits and contexts that heighten a species' sensitivity to environmental change. Structural equation modeling will investigate direct and indirect pathways through which biotic and abiotic factors affect species occurrence and abundance at local sites and range dynamics at landscape scale. Species distribution models will be used to hindcast past species ranges in altered climates. Stable isotope analysis will be used to infer differences in diet and habitat use over time, between mountain ranges, and in the presence/absence of competitors. Mammal stable isotope analyses will be done with museum specimens. This project will facilitate the training of a post-doctoral researcher and students as well as a museum outreach exhibit. The methods and findings will be highly generalizable to other groups and systems and will generate robust and transferrable predictions of how species and communities are likely to respond to future climate and land-use scenarios. Consequently, project results will be directly relevant to conservation and management regarding the role of biotic interactions and resource requirements in mediating responses to environmental change.