Collaborative proposal: Combining NEON and remotely sensed habitats to determine climate impacts on community dynamics

环境变化对生物群落的影响将取决于涉及当地栖息地和相互作用的物种的相互作用--因为每个物种直接对环境条件做出反应，它间接影响与其互动的所有物种。物种间的相互作用使我们预测生物对环境变化反应的能力变得复杂，因为从不会飞的昆虫到大型脊椎动物，每个物种都经历了不同规模的栖息地复杂性。目前的物种分布模型用于预测群落对气候的反应，预测物种是相互孤立的，忽略了相互作用。这一研究方法将通过开发一种新的建模方法来推动生态预测方法的发展，该方法分析物种对气候、生境和彼此之间的综合响应。这项研究为在国家生态观测网络(NEON)网络上综合环境和生物数据提供了一个框架，科学界可以利用这个框架与他们自己的分析相结合。该项目将通过公民协助识别动物图像来吸引公众。将向社区提供关于大型哺乳动物和霓虹灯站点种子生产的新数据，并将通过一个网站提供社区对气候反应的预测。将为高级博士生、博士后、学术和机构科学家提供使用建模工具和霓虹灯数据的培训。这项研究将培养两名研究生，包括一个科学交流项目，并让四名本科生参与实地考察。这项研究将综合在霓虹灯(地面甲虫、维管植物、小型哺乳动物、鸟类)中监测到的分类多样化的群落，以及关于桅杆和大型哺乳动物的新数据。Mast是与气候变化相互作用的几个生境变量之一。对树木脉冲种子和水果生产的桅杆系统的关注包括脊椎动物消费者，以及与节肢动物竞争对手和脊椎动物捕食者的间接相互作用。遥感图像和霓虹灯空中观测站将用于表征栖息地的多样性。在霓虹灯现场对大型哺乳动物和种子生产进行新的采样将增加关键组件，使我们能够在大范围内评估丰胸树木系统的群落动态。这项分析的结果将被用来预测群落的变化和重组，包括按物种和栖息地预测和分配气候风险，以及如何在物种群体中分担气候风险。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The impact of environmental change on biological communities will depend on interactions involving the local habitat and species that interact with one another - as each species responds directly to environmental conditions, it indirectly affects all of the species with which it interacts. Species interactions complicate our ability to predict organismal response to environmental change, because each species experiences habitat complexity at a different scale - from flightless insects to large vertebrates. Current species distribution models used to anticipate community responses to climate predict species in isolation from one another, ignoring interactions. This research approach will advance ecological forecasting methods by a developing a new modeling approach that analyzes the combined responses of species to climate, habitat, and one another. The study offers a framework for synthesizing environmental and biological data across the National Ecological Observation Network (NEON) network, one that can be exploited by the scientific community for integration with their own analyses. The project will engage the public through citizen-assisted identification of animal images. New data on large mammals and seed production from NEON sites will be made available to the community, and forecasts of community responses to climate will be made available through a web site. A workshop will be offered for training of advanced doctoral students, postdocs, and academic and agency scientists in the use of the modeling tools and NEON data. The study will train two graduate students, including a program in science communication, and involve four undergraduate students in fieldwork. This research will synthesize taxonomically diverse communities that are monitored in NEON (ground beetles, vascular plants, small mammals, birds) with new data on mast, and large mammal surveys. Mast is one of several habitat variables that interacts with climate variation. A focus on the mast system of pulsed seed and fruit production from trees includes vertebrate consumers, as well as indirect interactions with arthropod competitors and vertebrate predators. Remotely-sensed imagery and the NEON airborne observatory will be used to characterize habitat diversity. New sampling at NEON sites for large mammals and seed production will add key components that allow us to evaluate the community dynamics of masting tree systems at broad scales. Results of this analysis will be used to forecast community change and reorganization, including prediction and attribution of climate risk by species and habitat and how it is shared across species groups.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.