NSFGEO-NERC: VERTEBRATE FUNCTIONAL TRAITS AS INDICATORS OF ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION THROUGH DEEP AND SHALLOW TIME-Jason Head -NSF-NERC (NSF is the lead)

动物通过一系列特定的特征与环境相互作用。它们牙齿的结构使动物能够有效地处理食物。它们的脚的方向使动物能够在景观中移动以获得食物并避免捕食者。这些特质与环境的关系在很长一段时间内共同进化。然而，栖息地的改变和现代气候变化有可能迅速破坏这种平衡。拥有一整套与环境条件功能匹配的特征的动物群落维持着生态系统的进程。然而，栖息地丧失、气候变化和物种灭绝从根本上改变了物种特征与环境的契合度。生态特征组成和多样性的变化可能预示着生态系统即将崩溃，接近生态临界点。现代生态学面临的一个重要挑战是确定哪些特征是维持生态系统功能所必需的。然而，由于性状-环境相互作用在很长的时间尺度上表现出来，推断生态系统退化需要化石记录提供的独特的历史视角。我们将分析整个非洲以及过去750万年中性状与环境的关系。在此过程中，我们将解开人类进化和环境变化对生态系统功能的影响，并确定特征的关键丧失导致生态系统崩溃的点。我们将采用一种新颖的多性状和多分类方法来捕捉陆生脊椎动物生态系统的摄食、运动和生理功能方面。我们的努力将产生一个广泛的数据库，从非洲博物馆的标本中收集难以收集的功能特征，并将公开重新安置。该提案将通过与国际生物科学联盟的非洲保护古生物学项目合作，为项目人员提供将研究成果转化为学习模块、博物馆展品和保护规划的国际合作经验。我们将开发学习模块，培训东非学生进行基于收藏的研究。我们将创建博物馆展览，突出和解释肯尼亚和英国的性状-环境关系，每年吸引近100万游客。为了将我们的研究转化为可行的保护措施，我们将在研究规划的各个阶段让保护团体参与进来，从而依靠知识的共同生产。我们还将在最后举行一个保护行动研讨会，讨论成果和直接应用。

Animals interact with their environments via specific sets of traits. The structure of their teeth allows animals to process food efficiently. The orientation of their feet allows animals to move across the landscape to attain food and avoid predation. These trait-environment relationships have co-evolved over long timespans. However, habitat alteration and modern climate change has the potential to rapidly disrupt the balance. Animal communities that possess a full suite of traits that are functionally matched to environmental conditions maintain ecosystem processes. However, habitat loss, climate change, and extinction fundamentally alter the fit of traits to their environments. Changes in the composition and diversity of ecometric traits can signal the imminent collapse of an ecosystem toward the approach of ecological tipping points. An important challenge in modern ecology is to identify which traits are necessary to maintain ecosystem functions. However, because trait-environment interactions manifest over long timescales, inferring ecosystem degradation requires the historical perspective uniquely provided by the fossil record. We will analyze trait-environment relationships across Africa and through time over the past 7.5 million years. In doing so, we will disentangle the effects of hominine evolution and environmental change on ecosystem function and determine the point at which the critical loss of traits results in ecosystem collapse. We will do this with a novel multi-trait and multi-taxonomic approach to capture feeding, locomotor, and physiological functional aspects of terrestrial vertebrate ecosystems. Our efforts will produce an extensive database of hard-to-gather functional traits from African museum specimens that will be publicly reposited. This proposal will provide project personnel international collaborative experiences in the translation of research findings into learning modules, museum exhibits, and conservation planning through partnering with the Conservation Paleobiology in Africa Program of the International Union of Biological Sciences. We will develop learning modules for training East African students in collections-based research. We will create museum exhibits highlighting and explaining trait-environment relationships in Kenya and the UK, reaching nearly 1 million visitors per year. To translate our research into actionable conservation initiatives, we will rely on the co-production of knowledge by involving conservation groups at all stages of research planning. We will also hold a conservation action workshop at the end to discuss outcomes and direct applications.