Temporal metacommunity dynamics

我的研究项目考察了水生和陆地环境中生物群落的结构和动态。我的研究是围绕元社区动力学的概念组织的，该概念探索了当地社区之间的扩散如何影响当地的非生物和生物环境过程。我相信，有了这个非常普遍的概念，生态学家将能够提供一个非常强大的框架，来解释我们在周围群落中发现的分类组成的时空结构差异。此外，它将为研究与保护和气候变化有关的应用问题提供一个预测性框架，因为它侧重于可以量化的机制。我使用观察、实验、建模和综合技术的组合来实现从解释到预测的转变。 我将扩展我的元社区研究的专业知识，探索时间动力学被忽视的影响，最终目标是为经验元社区提供一个预测模型系统的例子。为了实现这一目标，我将继续使用我的研究策略，将丘吉尔岩池元社区系统的详细研究与现有数据集的分析结合起来，并通过包括建模组件来扩展它。我的具体目标是：1)测量和模拟亚北极准群落系统中的扩散，2)通过调查扩散对一系列系统中当地社区之间的时间同步性和当地社区内的优先效应的影响来测试元群落的时间动力学，3)将竞争实验的结果与目标1和2的结果相结合，以对丘吉尔岩池型准群落的预测模型进行参数化，并测试该模型的时间预测。在这5年后，我计划扩大我的研究的空间规模，开始监测哈德逊湾全纬度梯度的岩石悬崖，并确定环境对预测的和实际的气候变化的反应速度。

My research program examines the structure and dynamics of biological communities in both aquatic and terrestrial contexts. My research is organized around the concept of metacommunity dynamics which explores how dispersal between local communities influences local abiotic and biotic environmental processes. I believe that with this very general concept, ecologists will be able to provide a very powerful framework to explain the differences in spatial and temporal structure in taxonomic composition we detect in communities around us. Moreover it will provide a predictive framework to study applied problems related to conservation and climate change since it focuses on mechanisms that can be quantified. I use a combination of observational, experimental, modelling, and synthesizing techniques to make this transition from explanation to prediction. I will expand my expertise of metacommunity research to explore the neglected effect of temporal dynamics, with the ultimate objective of providing an example of a predictive model system for an empirical metacommunity. To achieve this, I will continue to use my research strategy of combining detailed studies in the Churchill rockpool metacommunity system, and analyses of existing data sets, and expand it by including a modelling component. My specific objectives are to: 1) measure and model dispersal in a subarctic metacommunity system, 2) test temporal dynamics of metacommunities by investigating the effects of dispersal on temporal synchrony between local communities and priority effects within local communities in a range of systems, 3) combine the results of competition experiments with the results of Objectives 1 and 2 to parametrize a predictive model for the Churchill rock pool metacommunity and test the temporal predictions of this model. After these 5 years, I plan to increase the spatial scale of my studies by starting to monitoring rock bluffs along the full latitudinal gradient of Hudson Bay, and determine how fast the environment will react to the predicted and actual climate changes.