EAGER: Using museum specimens to disentangle the impacts of climate change on body-size across species in freshwater fish communities.

预计气候变化将缩小体型，从而改变物种与其环境之间的相互作用，对生存、繁殖和生态系统服务（包括营养物质运输和食物供应）产生影响。有证据表明，并非所有物种都受到气候变化的同等影响。但我们对鱼类大小变化和潜在生长过程的理解主要来自渔业记录，并不能代表鱼类多样性的范围。该项目旨在研究几十年来环境变化和一组具有不同特征和生态作用的淡水鱼物种的生长模式，以阐明气候变化脆弱性的驱动因素。该项目的推广和教育内容包括开展K-12课程活动和建立一个在线故事地图，以分享研究成果。该项目还包括指导本科生的研究，旨在培养和留住博物馆科学、数据分析和建模以及生态研究方面的不同学生。这项研究将结合博物馆标本、历史渔业数据和调查来提高我们对气候对鱼类生长影响的理解。研究人员将重点关注北温带湖泊中常见的物种，研究人员将研究上个世纪的生长模式，以及温度和生长季节长度的梯度，同时考虑其他影响鱼类生长的因素，包括水的清晰度、生产力、依赖密度的物种相互作用和捕捞压力。鱼类的生长记录在坚硬的结构中，包括鳞片，鳞片上有年轮来划分生长周期。因此，博物馆标本保存着跨越时间和空间的生长速率变化的证据。在这个项目中，将使用数千个博物馆标本的非破坏性比例样本来估计捕获尺寸的年龄（年龄长度，生长的量度）。估计将通过不同老化结构和新鲜标本的比较来验证。通过研究物种在进化史、最大尺寸、热行会、生活史和摄食特征上的变化，研究人员将确定哪些特征与气候相关的生长变化有关。最后，统计模型将用于测试生命各阶段的生长变化，并将气候影响与其他环境条件、依赖于密度的生态相互作用或抽样偏差区分开来。通过确定使物种处于危险中的特征以及推动鱼类种群和群落变化的条件，这项研究将为淡水鱼的保护和管理提供信息。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。

Climate change is predicted to shrink body sizes and in doing so alter interactions between species and their environment with implications for survival, reproduction, and ecosystem services (including nutrient transport and food provisioning). Evidence suggests that not all species are equally impacted by climate change. But our understanding of changes in fish size and the underlying process of growth are primarily from fisheries records and do not represent the range of fish diversity. This project aims to examine patterns of growth across decades of environmental change and across a group of freshwater fish species with different traits and ecological roles in order to clarify the drivers of vulnerability to climate change. Outreach and education components of the project include developing K-12 activities and building an online Story Map to share research findings. The project also incorporates mentored undergraduate research aimed at training and retaining diverse students in museum science, data analysis and modeling, and ecological research.The research will use a combination of museum specimens, data from historical fisheries and surveys to improve our understanding of the impacts of climate on fish growth. Focusing on species which are common in northern temperate lakes, the researchers will examine patterns of growth across the last century and across gradients in temperature and growing season length, while accounting for other factors which can influence fish growth including water clarity, productivity, density-dependent species interactions, and fishing pressure. Fish growth is recorded in hard structures, including scales, which have rings delimiting growth periods between years. Therefore, museum specimens hold evidence of changes in growth rates across time and space. In this project, age at capture size (length-at-age, a measure of growth) will be estimated using non-destructive scale samples of thousands of museum specimens. Estimates will be validated by comparisons across different aging structures and from fresh specimens. By examining species which vary in evolutionary history, maximum size, thermal guilds, life history, and feeding characteristics, researchers will identify which traits are associated with climate-related changes in growth. Finally, statistical models will be used to test for changes in growth across life stages and disentangle climate effects from those of other environmental conditions, density-dependent ecological interactions, or sampling biases. By identifying the characteristics that put species at risk and the conditions driving changes in fish populations and communities, this research will inform the conservation and management of freshwater fishes.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.