Structure, biodiversity and conservation of arthropod assemblages and populations

这项研究探索了维持节肢动物生活史的进化压力，以及节肢动物替代生活史策略的生态意义。它还将对半水栖昆虫(水行者)、地面甲虫和蜘蛛种群的了解融入社区，并探索由此产生的了解对生物多样性和保护的影响。这项工作通常旨在研究节肢动物在生态和进化时间内如何对环境变化，特别是人为变化做出反应，以及它们如何融入正常运作的生态群落。它考察了对季节变化、城市化和林业做法所驱动的干扰的反应，衡量了节肢动物对应对冬季和洪水等周期性干扰的适应能力，以及人口和社区对野火、林业做法、城市化和气候变化等更不规律的干扰的反应。 在有关生活史的著作中，重点放在作用于身体大小的选择性作用力，特别是关于对北方物种越冬成功的影响，以及在热带环境中，适应理解水栖类物种特殊的身体大小，接近能够在水上行走的身体大小限制。北方水行动物营养生态学的新工作试图了解摄食机制，栖息在水行动物肠道中的微生物群落的发展和意义，以及食物变化对北方物种生长和繁殖的影响。这项工作的主要应用意义涉及我们如何改进城市发展战略，使其对生态更加敏感，并在保持自然系统生物多样性特征的可持续性标准方面进一步发展森林管理和森林养护做法。 这项研究的一个中心方面是了解1)精细尺度的节肢动物栖息地，这对于确定作用于生活史的选择性力量是至关重要的，2)必须保持当地栖息地的特征，以将种群和群落保护在“自然”或至少在人类活动可接受的水平。大多数工作涉及加拿大艾伯塔省的半水栖昆虫以及地面和落叶节肢动物，主要是甲虫和蜘蛛，并为学生提供识别节肢动物以及基础和应用生态学研究的有用机会。要求提供少量资金(2%)，以支持中国和哥伦比亚的热带系统工作，这两个国家分别涉及世界遗产昆虫的保护，以及奥里诺科盆地上游地球上最不为人所知的生物多样性中心之一的节肢动物研究。参与后两个项目将为加拿大学生带来国际机会。

This research explores the evolutionary pressures that maintain arthropod life histories and the ecological significance of alternative life history strategies in arthropods. It also integrates understanding of semi-aquatic bug (waterstrider), ground beetle and spider populations into communities, and explores the biodiversity and conservation implications of the resulting understanding. The work is generally aimed at how arthropods respond in both ecological and evolutionary time to changes in their environments, especially anthropogenic changes, and how they are integrated into functioning ecological communities. It examines responses to disturbances driven by seasonal changes, urbanization and forestry practices, measuring arthropod responses in terms of adaptations to deal with cyclic disturbances like winter and flooding, and population and community responses to more irregular disturbances driven by wildfire, forestry practices, urbanization and climate change. In work about life history the focus is on the selective forces acting on body size, especially with respect to effects on overwintering success in boreal species, and in a tropical situation, with adaptive understanding of exceptional body size in a waterstrider species that is close to the physical size limit of being able to walk on water. New work in nutritional ecology of boreal waterstriders seeks to understand the mechanics of feeding, the development and significance of the microbial communities inhabiting waterstrider guts, and the implications of variation in diet for growth and reproduction in boreal species. The main applied significance of the work relates to how we can improve urban development strategies to make them more ecological sensitive, and further develop forest management and forest conservation practices with respect to the sustainability criterion of maintaining biodiversity characteristic of natural systems. A central aspect of the research is understanding both 1) arthropod habitats at the fine scales essential to work out the selective forces acting on life histories, and 2) the features of local habitats that must be maintained to conserve populations and communities at ‘natural’ or, at least acceptable levels in the face of human activities. Most of the work deals with semi-aquatic bugs and ground and litter-dwelling arthropods, mainly beetles and spiders, in Alberta, Canada, and provides useful opportunities for student education in identification of arthropods and in basic and applied ecological research. A small amount of funding (<2%) is requested to support work on tropical systems in China and Colombia that deal, respectively, with conservation of a world-heritage insect, and arthropod studies in one of the Earth’s most poorly understood centres of biodiversity in the upper Orinoco basin. Participation in both of these latter projects will lead to international opportunities for Canadian students.