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学和进化之间的相互作用，这对维持淡水生态系统的生物多样性很重要。我将在考虑异质栖息地和分散联系的景观背景下做这件事。研究的重点是浮游动物，因为它们对水生食物网的能量和生物量流动很重要。该研究的第一个目标是比较受农业和伐木影响的淡水景观中碳、营养和纬度梯度的群落和遗传多样性模式。我和我的学生将进行实地调查，比较种群和社区中化学计量特征（碳磷比）的遗传和表型多样性的空间分布。迄今为止，在了解种群和社区的景观级多样性之间的关系方面所做的工作很少。这是迈向理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。本研究的第二个目标是了解与生态化学计量有关的种群特征的进化多样性对群落和生态系统的生态影响。我们将进行实地和实验室实验，以测试这些对浮游动物元群落和淡水生态系统中营养级联的竞争性相互作用的影响。总的来说，我的研究项目有助于从进化的角度来理解我们快速变化的世界中生物多样性变化的潜在机制。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。我们的方法是独特的，因为我们将使用与淡水生态系统中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。提出的研究将为水生生态系统对环境扰动的功能恢复能力的进化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.