Modeling biodiversity patterns from tropical, temperate and boreal forests

宏观生态学是一门新兴的生态学科，旨在寻找一套简约的物种共存和生物多样性分布的一般模式，并了解在自然界中观察到的这些模式背后的规则。这门学科从来没有像现在这样令人兴奋。最近在宏观生态学几个方面的进展极大地刺激了辩论，并大大推动了该领域的发展。这一进展包括生物多样性中性理论的发展，将群落生态学与功能性状联系起来的新兴趣，物种组合中系统发育（进化）足迹的研究，以及统计力学在生物多样性模式建模中的应用。基于这些进展，我建议开发和测试模型来解释和预测从热带、温带到北方森林的全球生物多样性模式。本文的工作将有助于：(1)通过纳入物种间的差异出生和死亡率来放宽中性理论，使中性理论更加现实；(2)通过建立基于系统发育的生物多样性指数和属-种模型来理解系统发育（进化）足迹对促进生物多样性的意义；了解功能性状权衡对生物多样性维持的重要性的自生态学和生理学。本研究建立的理论和模型将提高我们解释和预测宏观生态模式的能力，从而建立我们保护和管理景观生物多样性的能力。

Macroecology is a newly emerging ecological discipline aiming to search for a parsimonious set of general patterns with respect to species coexistence and biodiversity distribution and to understand the rules that underlie those patterns observed in nature. This subject has never been so exciting as it is now. The recent progress on several fronts of macroecology has greatly stimulated the debate and has substantially advanced the area. This progress includes the development of the neutral theory of biodiversity, the renewed interest in connecting community ecology to functional traits, the search for phylogenetic (evolutionary) footprints in species assemblages, and application of statistical mechanics to modeling biodiversity patterns. Based on these advances, I propose to develop and test models to explain and predict global biodiversity patterns from tropical, temperate to boreal forests. The proposed work will contribute to (1) relaxing the neutral theory by incorporating differential birth and death rates among species so that to make the neutral theory more realistic, (2) understanding the significance of phylogenetic (evolutionary) footprints in promoting biodiversity through developing phylogenetically-based biodiversity indices and genus-species models, and (3) integrating community ecology, autoecology and physiology for understanding the importance of tradeoff in functional traits to biodiversity maintenance. Theories and models developed from this study should enhance our ability to explain and predict macrecological patterns and thus build our capacity of conserving and managing biodiversity in landscapes.