OPUS: Historical contingency in community assembly

当地的动植物群落，如在岛屿或湖泊中发现的，包含许多物种。这些物种通过各种类型的相互作用相互影响，包括捕食、竞争和各种类型的互利关系。尽管在过去的一个世纪里进行了广泛的研究，生态学家仍然很难解释这些相互作用是如何影响哪些物种能够在当地社区中共同生活的。一个被忽视的因素可能是群落聚集的历史——物种到达一个新的可用栖息地的顺序。越来越多的证据表明，物种在群落中相互影响的方式往往取决于它们进入群落的顺序。提高对这些历史影响的认识将有助于解决一系列紧迫问题。例子包括环境挑战，如气候变化下的生态系统恢复；农业解决方案，如生物防治与多种物种相互作用的害虫；以及医疗问题，如管理影响人类健康的肠道微生物群落。研究人员将写一本书，把他在过去15年里对这一主题的研究成果整合在一起。在这本书中，一个新的概念框架将被开发出来，可以用来对物种到达当地群落的顺序什么时候重要，什么时候不重要做出一般性预测。为了在书中实现新的综合，研究者将整合四种新兴的观点，以取代传统的关于群落聚集的假设：(1)可能在新出现的当地群落中定居的区域物种池应被视为动态的，而不是静态的；(2)历史偶然性不仅影响社区的结构，也影响社区的功能；(3)在许多情况下，群落处于与最终稳定状态有质的不同的长期短暂状态；(4)生态和进化过程在同一时间尺度上共同作用，影响当地种群动态。这本书将是这个项目产生更广泛影响的主要产品。第二个更广泛的影响将是学生培训。在过去的6年里，研究者设计并教授了一门集研究和教育于一体的新的本科课程。在这门每年约有120名学生参加的课程中，研究者使用居住在花蜜中的微生物群落作为研究性教育的研究系统。除了作为本教学的重点外，这些微生物群落一直是研究者提出有关群落聚集和历史偶然性问题的主要研究对象。因此，这种研究-教育一体化的努力与本书的主题密切相关。有机会在广泛的背景下综合当前关于社区集会的知识，将有助于研究者改进和扩大他可以在教学中使用的知识库。

Local communities of plants and animals, such as those found on islands or in lakes, contain many species. These species affect one another through various types of interactions, including predation, competition, and various types of mutually beneficial relationships. Despite extensive research over the past century, ecologists still find it hard to explain how these interactions influence which species are able to live together in a local community. An overlooked factor may be the history of community assembly -- the order in which species arrive into a newly available habitat. Growing evidence suggests that, indeed, the way species affect one another in communities often depends on the order in which they arrive into the community. Improved knowledge of these historical effects will be useful for solving a range of pressing issues. Examples include environmental challenges such as ecosystem restoration under climate change, agricultural solutions such as biological control against pests that interact with multiple species, and medical problems such as the management of gut microbial communities influencing human health. The researcher will write a book that integrates findings from his work on this topic over the past 15 years. In this book, a new conceptual framework will be developed that can be used to make general predictions about when the order in which species arrive in a local community matters and when it does not.To achieve a new synthesis in the book, the investigator will integrate four emerging views that replace traditional assumptions about community assembly: (1) the regional pool of species that can potentially colonize newly available local communities should be viewed as dynamic, not static; (2) historical contingency influences not just the structure, but also the functioning of communities; (3) in many cases, communities are in long-lasting transient states that are qualitatively different from their final stable states; and (4) ecological and evolutionary processes operate at the same time scale to influence local population dynamics. The book will be the main broader impact product of this project. A secondary broader impact will be student training. Over the past 6 years, the investigator has designed and taught a new undergraduate course that integrates research and education. In this course, which is taken by about 120 students each year, the investigator uses communities of nectar-inhabiting microorganisms as a study system for inquiry-based education. In addition to being the focus of this teaching, these microbial communities have been the investigator's primary research subject to ask questions about community assembly and historical contingency. Therefore, this research-education integration effort is closely linked to the subject of the book. The opportunity to synthesize current knowledge on community assembly in a broad context will help the investigator to improve and widen the knowledge base that he can use in teaching the course.