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这样做。 研究重点是浮游动物，因为它们对水生食物网中的能量和生物量流动很重要。 拟议研究的第一个目标是比较受农业和伐木影响的地区的碳、营养物质和纬度的淡水景观梯度中的群落和遗传多样性模式。 我和我的学生将进行实地调查，比较种群和群落中化学计量性状（碳：磷比）的遗传和表型多样性的空间分布。 到目前为止，人们还没有做多少工作来了解人口和社区中的物种多样性是如何联系在一起的。 这是理解这些生物组织水平如何相互作用（生态进化相互作用）的关键一步。 拟议的研究的第二个目标是了解进化多样性的生态后果，在社区和生态系统的生态化学计量相关的人口特征。 我们将做现场和实验室实验，以测试这些影响的浮游动物的metacrobacterities和淡水生态系统中的营养级联的竞争相互作用。 总的来说，我的研究计划有助于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机制。 这项拟议中的研究处于生态进化工作的最前沿，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学和进化之间的相互作用。拟议的研究将提供一个长期研究计划的作用，在水生生态系统的功能恢复环境扰动的演变平台。

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.