Species' responses to climate change and their effects on community structure and ecosystem function

气候变化有可能对生物系统造成巨大破坏。因此，了解和预测物种、群落和生态系统对气候变化的反应是当今生物学家面临的最大挑战之一。最近的研究已经确定了气候引起的各种分类群分布和丰度的变化，但主要集中在孤立的单个物种上。随着这种变化的发生，生态群落的组成以及特定地点存在的相互作用物种的集合将发生变化，并对相关的生态系统功能产生影响。此外，以前的研究主要关注物种凉爽范围边缘的变化，气候变暖可能会增加物种的数量和分布。我将研究气候变化对蜣螂群落的影响，蜣螂在陆地生态系统的营养循环中起着至关重要的作用。我将评估最近气候变化导致的物种分布、物种丰富度和功能群组成的变化，使用来自欧洲南北样带的四个有充分记录的屎壳郎群落的数据。实验将测量屎壳郎丰度、物种丰富度和不同种间组合对生态系统功能的贡献。这个项目将是一个独特的机会来评估气候变化对陆地生态系统的影响，作为群落结构变化的功能。

Climate change has the potential to cause massive disruption to biological systems. Therefore, understanding and predicting the responses of species, communities and ecosystems to climate change are among the greatest challenges facing biologists today. Recent research has identified climate-induced shifts in the distribution and abundance of a variety of taxa, but has focused on individual species in isolation. As such shifts occur, the composition of ecological communities and thus the set of interacting species present at particular sites will alter, with implications for associated ecosystem functions. Furthermore, previous research has been concerned largely with changes at species¿ cool range margins, where climate warming is likely to allow increases in abundance and distribution. I will investigate the effects of climate change on communities of dung beetles, a guild which plays a crucial role in nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. I will evaluate changes in species distributions, species richness and functional group composition as a result of recent climate change, using data from four well-documented dung beetle communities on a north-south transect across Europe. The contributions of dung beetle abundance, species richness and different inter-specific combinations to ecosystem function will be measured experimentally. This project will be a unique opportunity to evaluate the effect of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems as a function of changes in the structure of communities.