Exploring interactions among climatic stressors and adaptive freshwater metacommunities

全球变化的生态惊喜证明了缺乏一种概念性方法来研究多种新的和快速的环境变化（即压力源）的累积影响。压力源和物种之间的相互作用是这些意外事件的核心，因为它们会导致间接影响，而这些间接影响无法根据单一直接影响的知识轻易预测。然而，对非生物和生物（如竞争、捕食）相互作用、物种扩散和适应对应激群落的中介作用的机制理解仍然非常有限。生态位和元群落概念的整合为发现涉及多种压力源（如极端气候事件（如干旱和热浪））的生态进化动力学提供了工具。在这种方法中还必须考虑功能性物种特征，以便能够预测气候压力源对生态系统功能及其服务的净影响。我的建议的前提是，沿着海拔和纬度梯度探索池塘元群落可以揭示全球变暖如何影响生物多样性和功能性能。我的年轻科学家小组的几项发现是这项拟议研究的基础，这将建立在我们的经验优势上，以调查多种压力源对水生生态系统的净影响。我们将在未来五年内实现以下四个研究目标：利用时空方法构建气候变化背景下的社区响应面。***干旱、高温和物种相互作用对当地群落的间接影响试验。*** 2。区域物种池对气候胁迫下地方群落的“拯救效应”检验。*** 3。测试焦点物种适应气候生态位的潜力。***拟议研究的成功将在很大程度上取决于我指导一个充满活力的HQP团队的能力。我的策略仍然包括频繁的互动、建设性的批评、鼓励和实验室所有成员之间的资源共享。HQP接受各种学科的培训，包括古湖沼学、湖沼学、全生态系统和中生态系统实验、定量分类学和多变量分析。阿尔伯塔大学提供的最先进的研究基础设施以及我自己的实验室使我能够提供全面的生态和分类学培训，培养越来越多的学术，政府和私人环境机构对生物多样性和生态系统服务影响进行环境评估的技能。虽然我的重点是全球变暖对生态的影响，但我提出的概念方法广泛适用于研究其他影响水生和陆地生态系统的多重压力源。**

The ecological surprises of global change attest to the lack of a conceptual approach to the study of cumulative impacts by multiple novel and rapid environmental changes (i.e. stressors). Interactions among stressors and species are at the core of these unexpected events as they result in indirect effects that cannot be easily predicted based on knowledge of single direct effects. However, mechanistic understanding of the mediating effects of abiotic and biotic (e.g., competition, predation) interactions, species dispersal, and adaptation on stressed communities remains very limited. Integration of the evolving niche and metacommunity concepts provides a tool for discovering eco-evolutionary dynamics involving multiple stressors, such as extreme climatic events (e.g., drought and heat waves). Functional species traits must also be considered in such an approach to enable forecasting of the net impacts of climatic stressors on ecosystem function and their services. The premise of my proposal is that exploring pond metacommunities along altitudinal and latitudinal gradients can reveal how global warming affects biodiversity and functional performance. Several discoveries by my group of young scientists are the basis for this proposed research, which will build on our empirical strength to investigate the net effects of multiple stressors on aquatic ecosystems. We will address these four research objectives over the next five years:***1. Using a space-for-time approach, construct community response surfaces in the context of climate change.***2. Test for indirect effects of drought, higher temperature, and species interactions on local communities.***3. Test for "rescue effects" by regional species pools on climatically stressed local communities.***4. Test the potential for climatic niche adaptation in focal species.***Success of the proposed research will depend highly on my ability to mentor a dynamic HQP team. My strategy continues to consist of frequent interaction, constructive criticism, encouragement, and sharing of resources among all members of my lab. HQP receive training across a high diversity of disciplines, including paleolimnology, limnology, whole-ecosystem and mesocosm experiments, quantitative taxonomy, and multivariate analyses. The state-of-the-art research infrastructure provided by the University of Alberta and also my own lab enables me to provide comprehensive ecological and taxonomic training, generating skill sets that are increasingly in demand by academic, governmental, and private environmental agencies conducting environmental assessments of impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Though my focus is here on the ecological impacts of global warming, my proposed conceptual approach is broadly applicable to the study of other multiple stressors affecting aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.  **