OPUS: Linking species traits, community change and environmental change across scales to forecast how animal declines impact ecosystem function

人类对环境的改变导致动物数量迅速减少，特别是在淡水栖息地。当动物消失时，它们在生态系统中扮演的重要角色也就失去了。要了解这些生物多样性下降对它们所提供的自然服务的影响，需要长期的数据。淡水贻贝就是一个很好的例子。很少有人知道它们曾经很丰富，现在却很稀少。它们以过滤水中的藻类和其他物质为食。这种“生物过滤”有助于营养循环，并为人类提供改善水质等生态系统服务。这个项目将综合30年来俄克拉荷马州和阿肯色州瓦奇塔高地河流上贻贝的分布、丰度和群落组成的数据。有关物种生物学特征的信息，如耐温性、体型和滤过率，将被用来估计贻贝如何帮助环境和造福人类。这将与气候变化预测相结合，以预测这些功能在未来可能会如何变化。该项目的产品将包括期刊文章，一本关于贻贝生态学的书，以及一个关于俄克拉荷马贻贝的教育网站和海报。需要长期的数据来理解人类世动物生物多样性和丰度的下降如何影响它们执行的生态系统功能，这是物种功能特征、环境和群落组成相互作用的结果。该项目将综合30年来有关贻贝特性(耐热性、成体大小、生活史策略)、贻贝群落结构(物种丰富度、丰富度和生物量)、贻贝群落变化、环境梯度(温度和流量)以及生态系统功能(生物过滤和营养循环和储存)的30年数据，以：(1)估计贻贝对空间尺度(贻贝床、河流、生物地理区域)生态系统功能的贡献；(2)确定贻贝损失和环境变化如何改变这些贡献，以及这与物种功能特征的关系；以及(3)使用物种特征和对未来河流流量和温度的预测，这些预测来自缩小尺度的气候模型，以预测这些贡献在未来将如何变化。所有数据将在一个基于网络的永久档案中公开。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。

Human alteration of the environment has led to rapid declines in animal populations, particularly in freshwater habitats. When animals are lost, the important roles they play in ecosystems are also lost. Understanding the consequences of these biodiversity declines for the natural services they provide requires long-term data. Freshwater mussels are a good example. Few people know that they were once abundant and are now rare. They feed by filtering algae and other material from the water. This “biofiltration” helps with nutrient cycling and provides ecosystem services such as improved water quality for humans. This project will synthesize 30 years of data on mussel distribution, abundance, and community composition across rivers in the Ouachita Highlands of Oklahoma and Arkansas. Information on species biological traits, such as temperature tolerance, body size, and filtration rates, will be used to estimate how mussels help the environment and benefit humans. This will be combined with climate change projections to predict how these functions may change in the future. Products from this project will include journal articles, a book on mussel ecology, and an educational web site and poster on the mussels of Oklahoma.Long-term data are needed to understand how Anthropocene declines in animal biodiversity and abundance affects the ecosystem functions they perform, which are a product of interactions among species’ functional traits, the environment, and community composition. This project will synthesize 30 years of data on mussel traits (thermal tolerance, adult body size, life history strategy), mussel community structure (species richness, abundance, and biomass from 8 rivers in one biogeographic region, the Ouachita Highlands), mussel community change, environmental gradients (temperature and flow), and ecosystem function (biofiltration and nutrient cycling and storage) to: (1) Estimate mussel contributions to ecosystem function across spatial scales (mussel bed, river, biogeographic region); (2) Determine how mussel losses and environmental change have altered these contributions, and how this is related to species functional traits; and (3) Use species traits and projections for future stream flows and temperatures derived from downscaled climate models to forecast how these contributions will change in the future. All data will be made publicly available in a web-based, permanent archive.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.