Island Biogeography in a Sea of Subsidies

没有栖息地是一个孤岛。能量和营养物质在水生和陆地环境之间流动，由风、水、植物和动物携带。这些营养物质的流动可以对邻近的生态系统产生强大的影响，将它们连接在一起形成“元生态系统”。我建议通过测试营养流、生产力和生物地理如何塑造沿海岛屿和鲑鱼分水岭的生物多样性格局，来推进我们对元生态系统的理解。 长期目标。我的研究计划的长期目标是了解生态系统之间的补贴如何影响从个人到社区的生态。在这个主题下，我设计了两个系统的项目：流域和沿海岛屿。它们通过研究多种形式的补贴而相辅相成，它们允许我提出新的问题，将岛屿生物地理学和元生态系统的理论联系在一起。 短期目标。在接下来的五年里，我将(1)通过海藻、水獭粪便和鲑鱼身体的营养物质如何影响植物种群的实验测试，确定资源补贴如何纳入受援生态系统，(2)根据物种共生和基于特征的群落系统发生过滤，测试这些补贴如何影响群落和物种-区域关系，(3)利用稳定的同位素混合模型，通过基于岛屿特征的岛屿食物网追踪补贴，以及(4)将这些知识综合到岛屿和流域的基于资源的元生态系统模型中。 冲击力。这项研究将对资源补贴和岛屿生物地理理论的整合产生的预测进行首次全面测试，范围从个人密度到社区多样性。除了促进我们对生态学的基本理解，我们对景观连通性的研究还可以为当地的原住民和BC公园的海洋和陆地管理规划提供信息，他们共同管理我们工作的保护区，以及致力于向基于生态系统的管理转变的联邦渔业和海洋部。最强大的遗产可能是我们将培训的许多人，他们的科学技能与他们想要应对的挑战相匹配，从增进我们对生态的基本理解到解决紧迫的环境问题。

No habitat is an island. Energy and nutrients flow between aquatic and terrestrial environments, carried by wind, water, plants, and animals. These nutrient flows can have powerful impacts on adjacent ecosystems, connecting them together into “meta-ecosystems”. I propose to advance our understanding of meta-ecosystems by testing how nutrient flows, productivity, and biogeography shape biodiversity patterns on coastal islands and salmon-bearing watersheds. Long-term objective. The long-term objective of my research program is to understand how subsidies among ecosystems affect ecology from individuals to communities. Within this theme, I have designed projects in two systems: watersheds and coastal islands. These complement one another by studying multiple forms of subsidy, and they allow me to ask novel questions that tie together the theories of island biogeography and meta-ecosystems. Short-term objectives. In the next five years, I will (1) determine how resource subsidies are incorporated into recipient ecosystems through experimental tests of how nutrients from wrack seaweed, otter feces, and salmon carcasses affect plant demography, (2) test how these subsidies influence communities and species-area relationships according to species' co-occurrences and trait-based phylogenetic filtering of communities, (3) track subsidies through island food webs based on island characteristics using stable isotope mixing models, and (4) synthesize this knowledge into resource-based meta-ecosystem models for both islands and watersheds. Impact. This research will provide the first comprehensive tests of predictions arising from an integration of theories about resource subsidies and island biogeography, ranging from densities of individuals to diversity of communities. In addition to advancing our fundamental understanding of ecology, our research on landscape connectivity can inform marine and terrestrial management planning by local First Nations and BC Parks, who co-manage the conservancies where we work, as well as the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which is committed to moving toward ecosystem-based management. The strongest legacy may be the many people we will train, with scientific skills matched to the challenges they want to tackle, ranging from advancing our fundamental understanding of ecology to solving pressing environmental problems.