OPUS: A Computational Theory of Biodiversity

生物多样性可以定义为地球上物种、基因和生态系统的分布模式。有充分的证据表明，人类社会的活动正在大大增加物种的灭绝速度，遗传变异的丧失和生态系统的退化。这种损失危及生物多样性提供的许多服务，如授粉、虫害控制、水的净化、促进土壤健康以及为工业和卫生创新提供资源。因此，预测物种的分布如何随着时间的推移而变化，对于保护地球上剩余的生物多样性至关重要。该项目将通过综合公开可用的数据和数十年的先前研究来开发新的计算模型，以实际预测物种，群落和生态系统分布的变化，从而为这一目标做出重要贡献。这些模型的应用将提供深入了解入侵物种的扩张，人类和农业疾病的出现，以及气候变化对受威胁和濒危物种的影响。该项目的成果包括视觉和动态地图，将形成互动显示在堪萨斯大学自然历史博物馆。一个重要的培训组成部分是研究生参与物种分布的动态数学模型的开发以及书籍和软件的编写。几十年的研究和数据的综合将最终形成一本书和一个软件，将可供进化和生态学研究界使用，以便该项目中开发的新模型可以广泛应用于世界各地的许多物种和生态群落。目前，大多数物种分布模型是静态的，并基于存在-不存在数据;本项目将纳入其他数据源，如生理学和物种相互作用，以生成这些物种的动态分布模型。此外，该项目将使用这些来自多个物种的模型来代表整个社区和环境随时间的生态变化，并预测整个景观的生物多样性模式。该奖项反映了NSF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。

Biodiversity can be defined as the patterns of distribution of species, genes, and ecosystems on the planet. It is amply documented that the activities of human societies are substantially increasing the extinction rate of species, the loss of genetic variation, and the degradation of ecosystems. This loss imperils many of the services that biodiversity offers such as pollination, pest control, cleansing of water, promoting soil health, and providing resources for innovation in industry and health. Thus, forecasting how the distribution of species change through time is of urgent and critical importance to conserve the remaining biodiversity on this planet. This project will make important contributions to this goal by synthesizing publicly-available data and decades of previous research to develop novel computational models that will realistically predict changes in the distributions of species, communities, and ecosystems. Applications of these models will provide insight into the expansion of invasive species, emergence of human and agricultural diseases, and the impacts of climate change on threatened and endangered species. Results of this project include visual and dynamic maps that will form interactive displays at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum. An important training component is the involvement of a graduate student in the development of the dynamic mathematical models of species distributions as well as the writing of the book and software. The synthesis of decades of research and data will culminate in a book and software that will be accessible to the evolution and ecology research community so that the new models developed in this project can be used broadly and extensively across many species and ecological communities around the world. Currently, most models of species distributions are static and based on presence-absence data; this project will incorporate additional data sources such physiology and species interactions to generate dynamic distribution models for those species. Furthermore, this project will use these models from multiple species to represent ecological changes of whole communities and environments through time and to predict biodiversity patterns over entire landscapes.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.