Accounting for Complexity and Adaptivity in Ecology and Its Applications

生态系统由许多组成部分(动物、植物等)组成。它们通过对经验作出反应的行为相互作用--也就是说，它们是“复杂的适应系统”。这个概念听起来很简单，但在生态学和进化生物学的研究和实践中，有三个方面需要更多的关注：(1)当前生态模型的输出如何隐藏许多不确定性和假设，阻碍跨学科研究和在决策中使用科学；(2)对生态系统的多重影响如何阻碍关于任何一种影响的知识，统计能力可能远低于研究和管理中的常规假设；(3)生态系统的运作如何依赖于明确表示动物、植物和人类的行为如何通过学习和进化改变，这需要有针对性地整合生态、进化和社会背景。在这个项目中，我将与学生和合作者合作，通过数学和计算建模，通过经验分析和文献资料，促进我们对这些点的理解和应用。(1)我们将调查模型设计决策如何改变模型输出，甚至可能导致相互矛盾的发现，例如关于海獭对海藻森林和人类群落的影响(基于温哥华岛西海岸的广泛研究数据)。(2)我们将评估多重影响，如果评估不足，可能会影响生态研究的力量和破坏管理的有效性，例如濒危物种的管理(基于不列颠哥伦比亚省和新西兰沿海地区的数据)。(3)我们将评估(A)天敌的存在如何阻碍害虫对杀虫剂的抗性进化(在农业和水产养殖系统中)；以及(B)观察到的与年龄相关的人类收割机偏好和决定的变化可能以复杂的方式影响资源的可持续性(智利沿海渔业的案例研究)。通过这些项目，我的实验室团队将继续在不同的环境中工作，并应用一套分析方法。这种多样性与项目合作者的方法相辅相成，为学生和博士后研究员的创新和培训提供了丰富的跨学科环境。通过与各种组织和机构的协作和咨询关系，我们将把这一认识上的创新转化为加强对渔业和海洋、濒危物种和环境评估的管理和政策。再加上利奥波德领导力计划和其他培训带来的沟通和参与努力，这项研究将为生态系统及其为加拿大人和世界各地的人们提供的服务提供更好的保护。

Ecosystems are comprised of many components (animals, plants, etc.) that interact with each other through behaviours that respond to experience—that is, they are ‘complex adaptive systems’. This concept sounds simple, but three aspects demand substantially more focus in research and practice of ecology and evolutionary biology: (1) how current outputs from ecological models hide many uncertainties and assumptions, impeding interdisciplinary research and the use of science in decision-making; (2) how the multiplicity of impacts on ecosystems hampers knowledge about any one impact, and statistical power may be much less than routinely assumed in research and management; and (3) how the workings of ecosystems depends upon explicit representation of how behaviours of animals, plants, and humans change through learning and evolution, which requires targeted integration of ecological, evolutionary, and social contexts. In this project, I will work with students and collaborators to advance our understanding and application of these points through mathematical and computational modeling, informed by empirical analysis and the literature. (1) We will investigate how model design decisions can change model outputs, perhaps even resulting in contradictory findings, for example about the impacts of sea otters on kelp-forest and human communities (based on data from extensive research on the west coast of Vancouver Island). (2) We will evaluate how multiple impacts, if insufficiently assessed, might impact the power of ecological studies and undermine the effectiveness of management, e.g., of species at risk (based on data from coastal British Columbia and New Zealand). (3) We will assess how (a) the presence of natural enemies can impede a pest’s evolution of resistance to pesticides (in both agricultural and aquacultural systems); and (b) observed age-related changes in the preferences and decisions of human harvesters might affect the sustainability of a resource, in complex ways (with a case study from coastal fisheries in Chile). Through these projects, my lab group will continue to work in a diversity of settings and apply a suite of analytical approaches. This diversity complements the approaches of project collaborators to provide a richly interdisciplinary setting for innovation and training of students and postdoctoral fellows. Through collaborative and consulting relationships with a wide variety of organizations and agencies, we will turn this innovation in understanding into enhancement of management and policy for fisheries and oceans, species at risk, and environmental assessment. Coupled with communication and engagement efforts informed by the Leopold Leadership program and other trainings, this research will yield better safeguarding for ecosystems and the services they supply Canadians and people everywhere.