The Ecological and evolutionary consequences of tropicalisation

气候变暖正在创造新的生态群落，物种组成和相互作用与历史基线不同。值得注意的是，热带海洋物种正在温带海洋地理区域记录，而温带物种的范围正在向极地转移。这种现象被称为“热带化”，但很少有人知道它的生态和进化后果。例如，我们不知道温带被捕食物种是否能够抵御热带海洋捕食者，也不知道热带捕食者的涌入如何影响群落组成（“自上而下”效应）。热带化也可能有遗传/进化的后果。例如，范围缩小的温带物种可能会经历遗传多样性的全面丧失和独特遗传分支的消失-这反过来又可能对物种适应气候变暖和未来进化轨迹的能力产生影响（即灭绝风险）。该博士学位将借鉴各种学科和理论，从捕食者诱导防御/捕食者-猎物相互作用/社区生态学到分子生物地理学和生物遗传学，以解决热带化的生态和进化后果的关键知识差距。该项目将侧重于热带和温带地理区域之间的过渡区，那里的热带化已被初步记录，但其后果尚未确定。

Climate warming is creating novel ecological communities whereby species compositions and interactions differ from a historical baseline. Notably, tropical marine species are being documented in temperate biogeographic regions, while the ranges of temperate species are shifting poleward. This phenomenon is known as 'tropicalisation'; yet very little is known of its ecological and evolutionary consequences. For instance, we do not know if temperate prey species are able to defend themselves against tropical marine predators nor how the influx of tropical predators affects community composition ("top-down" effects). Tropicalisation may also have genetic/evolutionary consequences. For example, range contracting temperate species may experience an overall loss of genetic diversity and disappearance of unique genetic clades - which in turn may have consequences on the capacity for species to adapt to climate warming and future evolutionary trajectories (i.e. extinction risk). This PhD will draw from a wide variety of disciplines and theory, ranging from predator induced defenses/predator-prey interactions/community ecology to molecular phylogeography and phylogenetics to address key knowledge gaps on the ecological and evolutionary consequences of tropicalisation. The project will focus on a transition zone between tropical and temperate biogeographic regions where tropicalisation has been preliminarily documented but its consequences have not been established.