Scaling from organismal traits to populations and species range limits

到世界各地旅行，你一定会遇到新的物种，有些熟悉，有些不同于你以前见过的。或者，打开任何野外指南--鸟类、爬行动物、树木、蘑菇或任何其他群体--你会找到物种的分布图，显示每种物种可能存在或可能不存在的地方。这两个案例都揭示了生态学最基本的真理之一：所有物种都有地理限制，没有任何物种(甚至我们自己的物种)可以在任何地方、在所有环境中持续存在。但有何不可呢？是什么阻止物种向外扩散，扩散到所有环境？换句话说，是什么限制了物种的地理分布？回答这个问题从来没有像现在这样重要；为了应对快速的环境变化，许多物种的生存范围正在发生变化，要么扩大，要么缩小。这些范围的转移可能通过对濒危物种、入侵的传播、甚至人畜共患病风险的影响，对保护、经济和健康产生相当大的影响。归根结底，范围限制是由单个生物体与其当地非生物和生物环境之间的相互作用产生的；了解这些生物规模的相互作用如何产生范围限制可能是预测它们广泛规模动态的关键。该项目将结合实验室实验、实地研究、遥感和大数据建模，以1)测试气候和土地利用变化如何改变生物所经历的精细环境，2)测试物种的生理耐受性、营养相互作用和扩散动力学规模如何限制种群规模和物种范围边缘，3)建立一个长期监测计划，以预测变化环境中的范围动态。回答这些问题将为揭示物种范围限制的潜在机制提供新的线索，并提高我们预测物种地理命运的能力，因为快速的环境变化重新洗牌了全球生物多样性。

Travel to any location around the world, and you are bound to encounter new species, some familiar and some unlike anything you have seen before. Alternatively, open any field guide-to the birds, reptiles, trees, mushrooms or any other group-and you will find species' range maps, showing where each species may, or may not, be found. Both cases reveal one of ecology's most fundamental truths: all species have geographical limits and no species (not even our own) can persist everywhere, in all environments. But why not? What stops species from spreading outwards, to all environments? In other words, what sets limits on species' geographical distributions? Answering this question has never been more important; in response to rapid environmental change, many species' ranges are changing, either expanding or contracting. These range shifts can have considerable conservation, economic, and health implications through effects on at-risk species, the spread of invasives, and even zoonotic disease risk. Ultimately, range limits arise from interactions between individual organisms and their local abiotic and biotic environments; understanding how these organism-scale interactions generate range limits may hold the key to predicting their broad-scale dynamics. This project will bring together laboratory experiments, field studies, remote-sensing and big-data modelling to 1) test how climate and land use change are altering the fine-scale environments experienced by organisms, 2) test how species' physiological tolerances, trophic interactions and dispersal dynamics scale to constrain population size and species range margins, and 3) establish a long-term monitoring program to predict range dynamics in changing environments. Answering these questions will shed new light on the mechanisms underlying species' range limits and improve our ability to predict species' geographical fates as rapid environmental change reshuffles global biodiversity.