URoL:EN - Rules of Resilience: Predicting transformation of emergent freshwater networks under variable climate regimes

人类健康和福祉与地表淡水的供应和质量密切相关。提供充足和安全的淡水需要对湖泊、河流和池塘等淡水系统进行管理。日益增加的环境变异性使管理更加困难，并且需要了解自然生物群落如何对变化作出反应。恢复力，或抵御气候变化的能力，可能是由于物种多样性和个体特征。物种包含的个体彼此之间可能非常不同，我们认为这种特征（表型）的多样性与物种多样性在建立气候适应能力方面同样重要。这个想法很少通过实验或跨越空间和时间进行评估。这个多机构、多学科的团队将测试气候条件变化对淡水生态系统的影响。这项合作将技术（人工智能和分布式计算）与生物学理论相结合，通过观察、实验和建模方法来了解淡水系统。这个跨学科团队将测试生态框架并探索对环境变化的适应能力。在池塘和湖泊中，体型是表现型的一个方面，可以决定捕食者或竞争对手的成功，体型较大的生物通常更成功。体型也会随着环境条件的变化而变化，有些动物在有利的条件下能够更好地调节体型。我们假设物种多样性和个体变异有限的群落将具有较低的恢复力，而能够保持物种多样性和个体变异的群落将保持较高的恢复力和生态系统服务。我们假设，维持多样性和变异的群落将通过物种和个体如何相互作用的转变来实现，而这种转变部分是由体型的变化控制的。除了预测淡水生态系统在气候变化下的恢复能力外，本研究的结果将为管理者和政策制定者提供对生态系统变化范围的更深入了解，以预测和实现有针对性的管理行动和资金应用，以保护生态系统为人类福祉提供的服务。这项研究将通过提供利用不同领域的技能和信息来解决共同问题的科学合作经验，提高俄勒冈州立大学、冈萨加大学和惠特沃斯大学STEM（科学、技术、工程和数学）学生的学习和研究经验。该团队将开展外联和招募工作，通过课程开发、研究参与和双语儿童书籍的制作，突出太平洋西北地区的淡水生态系统，吸引代表性不足的群体，特别是部落和移民社区。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Human health and well-being are intimately tied to surface freshwater availability and quality. Providing adequate and safe freshwater requires management of freshwater systems like lakes, rivers, and ponds. Increasing environmental variability makes management more difficult and requires an understanding of how natural biological communities respond to change. Resilience, or the ability to withstand changes to climate, is likely due to both diversity in species and individual characteristics. Species contain individuals that can be very different from one another, we suggest this diversity in characteristics (phenotype) is as important as the diversity of species in building climate resilience. This idea has rarely been evaluated experimentally or across space and time. This multi-institution, multi-disciplinary team will test the effects of changing climatic conditions on freshwater ecosystems. This collaboration combines technology (artificial intelligence and distributed computing) with biological theory to understand freshwater systems using observational, experimental, and modeling approaches. This interdisciplinary team will test ecological frameworks and explore resilience to environmental change. In ponds and lakes, body size is an aspect of phenotype that can determine the success of a predator or a competitor, where larger organisms are often more successful. Body size can also change in response to environmental conditions, and some animals are better able to adjust body size under favorable conditions. We hypothesize that communities with limited species diversity and individual variation will be less resilient, while communities that can maintain species diversity and individual variation will maintain high resilience and ecosystem services. We hypothesize that communities that maintain diversity and variation will do so by shifts in how species and individuals interact, controlled in part by changes in body size. In addition to predicting resilience of freshwater ecosystems under a changing climate, results of this study will provide managers and policy makers with a deeper understanding of the range of ecosystem changes to anticipate and enable targeted application of management actions and dollars to preserve ecosystem services for human well-being. The study will enhance the learning and research experience of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) students at Oregon State University, Gonzaga University, and Whitworth University by providing an experience in scientific collaboration using skills and information from different fields to solve a common problem. The team will conduct outreach and recruitment efforts to engage underrepresented groups, particularly tribal and migrant communities, via curriculum development, research participation, and the production of bilingual children's books that highlight Pacific Northwest freshwater ecosystems.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.