How do biotic interactions shape the response of species to climate change across temperate and tropical biomes? A global study on damselflies (Odona

淡水栖息地覆盖了地球上相对较小的区域，但却拥有不成比例的高生物多样性。气候变化目前正通过更极端的干旱和洪水、雪融化模式的改变以及气温和水温的上升，对淡水系统产生重大影响。这些因素的共同影响，加上其他人为压力，使淡水生态系统成为全球所有生态系统中受到最大威胁的生态系统之一。因此，当务之急是了解淡水群落及其生物多样性对持续气候变化的适应能力。生物相互作用的作用，特别是竞争，预计将强烈影响物种对气候变化的反应。鉴于大多数淡水(和其他)生物群的生物多样性最近发生了大规模变化，现在是时候对竞争与应对气候变化之间的关系进行一般性预测了。然而，很少有大规模调查来确定竞争与气候适应演变的相互作用和反馈的条件。特别令人感兴趣的是，气候变化和生物相互作用如何影响群落的复原力，以及这种影响在热带和温带地区可能有何不同。在这个全额资助的研究项目中，学生将调查全球气候耐受性和生态群落聚集的驱动因素，背景是一种有魅力的淡水分类群--蜻蜓。我们将使用Odonates(http://www.odonatephenotypicdatabase.org/shiny/shinyTree/)最近可用的系统发育资源，结合比较方法和关于蜻蜓分布的公民科学数据，以及额外的田野工作来描述和比较温带和热带淡水生境中的蜻蜓群落。这项工作还有更多的实验组件的潜力。这些数据将用于解决全球范围内气候容忍度和社区组装过程的生态和演变方面的主要悬而未决的问题。这些结果将提供关于物种如何以及为什么在它们所在的地方分布的基本知识，最终为改进对淡水群落将如何应对正在进行的气候变化的预测奠定基础。该项目由阿伯丁大学(苏格兰)、贝尔法斯特皇后大学(北爱尔兰)、隆德大学(瑞典)和哥斯达黎加大学的顶尖淡水生态学家共同监督，提供了一支强大的监督团队，在温带和热带淡水系统以及尖端分析、统计和实地方法方面拥有广泛的专业知识。学生将接受各种系统发育比较方法、物种分布和群落组合模型方面的培训。在温带和热带地区有充足的资金和机会进行合作访问和实地考察，在印度尼西亚、厄瓜多尔、哥斯达黎加、苏格兰、瑞典和美国建立了实地考察地点。该职位提供项目期间的全额学费、杂费和生活费，并支付所有旅行和研究费用。学生将加入跨机构的样方博士培训计划，该计划提供严格的通用科学技能培训，并有机会融入一大批学习生物多样性和环境管理的学生和工作人员，带来丰富的团队建设和合作机会。

Freshwater habitats cover a relatively small area of the globe, yet harbour disproportionally high biodiversity. Climate change is currently dramatically impacting freshwater systems via more extreme drought and flooding, altered patterns of snowmelt, and via increasing air and water temperatures. The combined influences of these factors, along with other anthropogenic pressures, have put freshwater ecosystems among the most threatened of all ecosystems globally. Therefore, it is of priority to understand the resilience of freshwater communities and their biodiversity to ongoing climate change. The role of biotic interactions, particularly competition, is predicted to strongly affect species' responses to climate change. Given recent, large scale changes in biodiversity in most freshwater (and other) biomes, it is timely to generate general predictions for the relationship between competition and response to climate change. However, there have been few large-scale investigations to determine the conditions under which competition interacts with and feeds back on the evolution of climate adaptations. Of particular interest is how changing climates and biotic interactions can influence community resilience, and how such effects might differ between tropical and temperate areas. In this fully funded research project, the student will investigate global drivers of climatic tolerances and ecological community assembly in the context of a charismatic freshwater taxon, the damselflies. We will use recently available phylogenetic resources for Odonates (http://www.odonatephenotypicdatabase.org/shiny/shinyTree/) in combination with comparative methods and citizen science data on damselfly distributions and additional fieldwork to characterise and compare damselfly communities across temperate and tropical freshwater habitats. There is additional potential for experimental components to the work. These data will be used to address major outstanding questions in the ecology and evolution of climatic tolerances and community assembly processes on a global scale. The results will provide fundamental knowledge about how and why species are distributed where they are, ultimately laying the foundation for improved predictions regarding how freshwater communities will respond to ongoing climate change. The project is co-supervised by leading freshwater ecologists at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland), Queens University Belfast (N Ireland), Lund University (Sweden) and the University of Costa Rica, providing a strong supervisory team with extensive expertise in temperate and tropical freshwater systems and cutting edge analytical, statistical and field approaches. The student will be trained in a variety of phylogenetic comparative methods and species distribution and community assembly modelling. There is ample funding and opportunity for collaborative visits and fieldwork in both temperate and tropical regions, with field sites established in Indonesia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Scotland, Sweden and the U.S. The position comes with full tuition, fees, and living expenses covered for the duration of the project, with all travel and research expenses paid. The student will join the trans-institutional QUADRAT doctoral training programme, which offers rigorous generic scientific skills training and the chance to embed in a large cohort of students and staff studying biodiversity and environmental management, bringing a wealth of team building and collaborative opportunities.