Eco-evolutionary interactions along landscape gradients in carbon and nutrients

我的研究计划的长期目标是揭示生态和进化之间的相互作用，这对维持淡水生态系统中的生物多样性非常重要。我将在一个考虑到异质栖息地和分散连接的景观环境中这样做。这项研究的重点是浮游动物，因为它们对水生食物网中的能量和生物量流动非常重要。拟议研究的第一个目标是比较受农业和伐木影响的地区在碳、营养和纬度方面的淡水景观梯度上的群落格局和遗传多样性。我和我的学生将进行实地调查，以比较种群和社区之间化学计量特征(碳/磷比率)的遗传和表型多样性的空间分布。到目前为止，还没有做什么工作来了解人口和社区的景观水平多样性是如何相关的。这是朝着了解这些层次的生物组织如何相互作用(生态进化相互作用)的关键一步。拟议研究的第二个目标是了解与生态化学计量相关的种群特征的进化多样性对群落和生态系统的生态后果。我们将进行现场和实验室实验，以测试这些对浮游动物复合群落中的竞争相互作用和淡水生态系统中的营养级联的影响。总体而言，我的研究计划有助于我们从进化的角度理解在我们快速变化的世界中生物多样性变化的潜在机制。这项拟议的研究处于生态进化工作的前沿，因为它将考虑进化如何影响生态过程。我们的方法是独一无二的，因为我们将使用与淡水生态系统中的能量流动直接相关的化学计量特征来解决生态和进化之间的相互作用。拟议的研究将为关于进化在水生生态系统对环境扰动的功能恢复中的作用的长期研究计划提供一个平台。

The long-term goal of my research program is to reveal interactions between ecology and evolution that are important for maintaining biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems. I will do this in a landscape context that considers heterogeneous habitats and dispersal connections. The research focuses on zooplankton because they are important for energy and biomass flow in aquatic food webs. The first objective of the proposed research is to compare patterns in community and genetic diversity across freshwater landscape gradients in carbon, nutrients and latitude that span regions impacted by agriculture and logging. My students and I will do field surveys to compare the spatial distribution of genetic and phenotypic diversity in stoichiometric traits (carbon:phosphorus-ratios) among populations and communities. Little work to date has been done to understand how landscape-level diversity in populations and communities are related. This is a critical step in moving towards understanding how these levels of biological organization interact with one another (eco-evolutionary interactions). The second objective of the proposed research is to understand the ecological consequences of evolutionary diversity in population traits related to ecological stoichiometry on communities and ecosystems. We will do field and laboratory experiments to test for these effects on competitive interactions in zooplankton metacommunities and on trophic cascades in freshwater ecosystems. Overall, my research program contributes an evolutionary perspective to our understanding of mechanisms underlying shifts in biodiversity in our rapidly changing world. The proposed research is at the forefront of eco-evolutionary work because it will consider how evolution can influence ecological processes. Our approach is unique because we will use stoichiometric traits that are directly linked to energy flow in freshwater ecosystems to address interactions between ecology and evolution. The proposed studies will provide a platform for a long-term research program on the role of evolution in functional resilience to environmental perturbations in aquatic ecosystems.