Metacommunity dynamics at multiple scales

我的长期研究目标是确定在多个空间和时间尺度上决定群落结构和动态的因素。我的方法通过透镜的元生态概念，通过调查当地社区之间的扩散可能会影响当地的非生物和生物的环境过程，这个问题。在接下来的5年里，我将通过巩固我过去的研究的4个流来改变我的研究策略：时间动力学，宿主-共生体相互作用，小型哺乳动物代谢动力学，以及基于DNA的物种识别和生物信息学。我将专注于一个研究系统，结合我过去的优势在多个尺度的metacrobiity生态学，但将它们应用到一个新的系统：嵌套在一个矩阵的小哺乳动物metacrobiity的多个宿主物种的微生物metacrobiities。 我的短期研究目标有两个方面：1）确定这样一个系统的结构化过程，这是阿尔冈琴省立公园长期监测研究的一部分，2）通过在该系统内的几个尺度上明确操纵扩散来实验验证这些模式。该提案将量化（Meta）社区动态的两个主要驱动因素的影响：通过当地环境条件进行物种分类和景观内站点之间的扩散。宿主-微生物组相互作用的复杂性在分析中发挥作用，因为局部环境效应可以通过季节性、宿主物种身份和宿主个体差异（如宿主内时间动态和相互作用网络）来介导或影响。此外，微生物群落的代谢扩散可以由宿主代谢扩散介导或影响。这些研究的结果将与元生态系统结构的要素所获得的结果进行比较，元生态系统结构是一种数据密集度较低但经常使用的方法。最后，观察性研究将通过创建微生物群落数量大幅减少的宿主个体并监测其代谢率，从而通过实验确定共生体代谢扩散率。这些研究将由一名博士生与4个项目和3名硕士生完成。 微生物无处不在，对高等生物的健康很重要。明确考虑所有不同重要尺度的元生态性方法是必要的，这一建议是分析自然群落中这些动态的重要一步。除了更多的实验研究外，这些结果还将导致更多的应用研究，调查微生物组物种和体内寄生虫之间的相互作用，这些相互作用已在阿尔冈琴省立公园的小型哺乳动物中检测到。在这种情况下，一个metacrobiity方法是更有必要的，因为人类引起的栖息地碎片化可以影响宿主-病原体-微生物组的相互作用。

My long-term research goal is to identify the factors that determine community structure and dynamics at multiple spatial and temporal scales. I approach this question through the lens of the metacommunity concept by investigating how dispersal between local communities could potentially influence local abiotic and biotic environmental processes. In the next 5 years, I will shift my research strategy by consolidating 4 streams of my past research: temporal dynamics, host-symbiont interactions, small mammal metacommunity dynamics, and DNA-based species identification and bioinformatics. I will focus on a study system that combines my past strengths in metacommunity ecology at multiple scales, but will apply them to a novel system: microbial metacommunities nested within a matrix of small mammal metacommunity of multiple host species. My short-term research goals are then 2-fold: 1) identify the structuring processes of such a system that is part of a long-term monitoring study in Algonquin Provincial Park, and 2) to experimentally verify these patterns by explicitly manipulating dispersal at several scales within this system. This proposal will quantify the effect of two of the main drivers of (meta-) community dynamics: species sorting through local environmental conditions and dispersal between sites within the landscape. The complexity of the host-microbiome interactions comes into play in the analyses because the local environmental effects can be mediated or influenced by seasonality, host species identity, and host-individual differences such as within-host temporal dynamics and interaction networks. In addition, microbiome metacommunity dispersal can be mediated or influenced by host metacommunity dispersal. The results of these studies will be compared to the results obtained with the Elements of Metacommunity Structure, a method that is less data intensive, but often used. Finally, the observational studies will lead to experimentally determining symbiont metacommunity dispersal rates by creating host individuals with strongly reduced microbiome populations and monitoring their recolonization rates. These studies will be done by a PhD student with 4 projects, and 3 MSc students. Microorganisms are ubiquitous and important for the health of higher organisms. A metacommunity approach that explicitly considers all the different important scales is necessary, and this proposal is an important step in analysing these dynamics within a natural community. In addition to more experimental studies, the results will also lead to more applied studies investigating the interactions between microbiome species and endoparasites, which have been detected in the small mammals of Algonquin Provincial Park. A metacommunity approach in this context is even more warranted, because human induced habitat fragmentation can influence host-pathogen-microbiome interactions.