Sources of ecological complexity interactions between autogenous and external dynamics in an aquatic systems

生态学提供了充分的证据表明，生态群落中某些物种的丧失（多样性丧失）往往会导致负面后果，例如其他通常有价值的物种的死亡，生产力的变化，以及对火灾，雨水或入侵物种的敏感性增加。生态学将这些后果归因于物种及其环境之间复杂关系网的破坏。有些环节很简单：例如，传粉媒介的丧失会扰乱植物繁殖并导致植物组成的变化。 然而，最大的谜团是间接调节关系的数量和影响。由于它们很难孤立地研究，生态学家试图通过多样性稳定性假说来捕捉它们的整体影响。 这一假说预测，群落中的物种越多，调节关系的潜力就越大，这反过来又会导致生态系统特别是其种群的更大稳定性。对这一假设的检验在一些实验中是成功的，但在另一些实验中却失败了。 进行确定性测试，特别是在实地情况下，是困难的，因为多样性对群落和生态系统稳定性的影响可能取决于环境变化的混杂影响。 我们的目标是克服这个问题。利用一个自然微型生态系统系统，每个系统都有自己的社区，我的团队打算通过统计设计和程序来梳理，环境变化如何影响社区内人口的变化。经过这样的统计清理（这需要一整套补充活动，包括使用长期数据集、实验、数字地图等），我们应该能够说明多样性是否在稳定种群规模和生产力方面发挥了积极作用。这个问题的解决对生态学学科具有重大意义。 此外，它将有助于提供对（生物）多样性的作用的科学理解，从而使关于环境保护的理由和范围的辩论摆脱武断和政治权宜之计。

Ecology provides ample evidence that the loss of some species from ecological communities (a diversity loss) often leads to negative consequences such as the demise of other, often valuable species, changes in productivity, and the heightening of susceptibility to fire, rain, or invading species. Ecology attributes these consequences to the disruption of a complex web of relationships among species and their environment. Some links are simple: For example, the loss of pollinators will disrupt plant reproduction and lead to change in plant composition.  However, the greatest mystery is the number and effects of indirect regulatory relationships. Since they are difficult to study in isolation, ecologists have tried to capture their overall effect through a diversity-stability hypothesis.  The hypothesis predicts that more species in a community results in greater potential for regulatory relations which, in turn, lead to greater stability of ecosystems and their populations in particular. Tests of this hypothesis were successful in some experiments but failed in others.  Performing definitive tests, particularly in field situations, is difficult because the effect of diversity on the stability of communities and ecosystems may depend on confounding influences of environmental variation.  We aim to overcome this problem. Using a system of natural miniature ecosystems, each with its own community, my group intends to tease apart, by means of statistical designs and procedures, how environmental variation affects variation of populations within a community. After such statistical cleaning (that requires a whole suite of complementary activities, including using long-term data sets, experiments, digital mapping, and others), we should be able to state whether diversity plays a positive role in stabilizing population sizes and their productivity. Resolution of this question is of major importance to the discipline of ecology.  Further, it will help provide scientific understanding of the role of (bio)diversity and thus free the debate on the rationales and scope of environmental conservation from arbitrariness and political expediency.