Elevation and Diversity

生物多样性通过相关的温度和降水变化受到海拔的影响。这些变化将如何影响最多样化的分类群体（陆生节肢动物），在最多样化的地区（热带）仍然未知。我的研究计划的长期愿景是通过揭开隐藏的热带昆虫物种生物学面纱，了解多样性和海拔升高的原因和后果。什么物种生活在哪里？这些物种的耐热性如何？物种如何应对低海拔干燥森林的炎热和干燥以及高海拔云雾森林的寒冷和潮湿？随着时间的推移，这些分布和适应是如何变化的？实现这一愿景将导致更好地描绘热带昆虫物种的海拔范围，更彻底地了解变温动物的进化和生态学，一个关于哪些物种在其无情的上坡行军中最受高温影响的预测工具包，以及对许多热带物种的描述，将它们释放到科学文献中。在这个项目中培养的4名博士和2名硕士将有助于加速我的研究愿景。他们将在实验室接受研究和社区贡献方面的培训，导师为这项工作做了独特的准备：在瓜纳卡斯特保护区（ACG；哥斯达黎加）进行了10年的采样，发表了100多篇论文，并帮助描述了1000多种物种。我的研究项目已经阐明了许多高度多样化的热带节肢动物群体是如何受到海拔的影响的。该DG提案描述了HQP培训，该培训有助于在ACG海拔1,500 m的样带中进行超过13年的密集采样和正式描述凋落叶节肢动物和非生物变量。我们将使用现场和实验室方法来估计这些野生分类群的耐热性和扩散能力，同时使用遗传学（DNA条形码和元条形码）来估计隐多样性和物种形成，然后利用所有信息源来正式描述我们发现的物种。最后，我们将标准化采样方案扩展到北美海拔梯度，以实现独特的热带/温带比较。理解和预测这些变化很重要，原因有几个。气候变化正在推动气温上升，并将减少热带或温带高海拔环境降水的数量和可预测性。在这些高海拔地区的落叶节肢动物物种中，有许多，也许是大多数都没有学名。因此，它们范围的变化，往好里说是粗糙的，往坏里说是粗糙的；看不见的。最后，我们对大多数热带或温带节肢动物物种的功能生物学（如耐热性或扩散能力）几乎一无所知。有了这里描述的程序，我的HQP和我将开始改变这一点。

Biological diversity is affected by elevation through associated changes in temperature and precipitation. How those changes will affect the most diverse taxonomic group (terrestrial arthropods), in the most diverse regions (the tropics) remains unknown. The long-term vision of my research program is to understand the causes and consequences of diversity and elevation by lifting the concealing veil of cryptic tropical insect species biology. What species live where? What is the thermal tolerance of these species? How do species deal with the heat and dryness of low elevation dry forest and the cold and wet of high elevation cloud forest? How are these distributions and adaptations changing through time? Fulfilling this vision will result in better delineation of elevational ranges for tropical insect species, a more thorough understanding of ectotherm evolution and ecology, a toolkit of predictions regarding which species will be most affected by hot temperatures on their relentless march upslope, and a description of many tropical species that frees them into the scientific literature. The 4 PhD and 2 MSc students who will be trained in this program will help to accelerate my research vision. They will be trained in making research and community contributions in a lab and with a mentor that is uniquely prepared for this undertaking: with >10 years of sampling in Area de Conservacion Guanacaste (ACG; Costa Rica), >100 publications, and who has helped describe >1000 species. My research program has elucidated how numerous hyperdiverse tropical arthropod groups are affected by elevation. This DG proposal describes HQP training that contributes to, and transitions more than 13 years of intensive sampling and formal description of leaf-litter arthropods and abiotic variables across 1,500 m elevational transects in ACG. We will use field and laboratory methods to estimate thermal tolerance and dispersal ability for these wild taxa while using genetics (DNA barcode and metabarcoding) to estimate cryptic diversity and speciation and then capitalise on all information sources to formally describe the species we discover. Finally, we will extend the standardised sampling protocol to a North American elevational gradient to enable a unique tropical/temperate comparison. Understanding and predicting such changes matters for several reasons. Climate change is pushing warmer temperatures upslope and will reduce the amount, and predictability, of precipitation that tropical or temperate high-elevation environments receive. Many, perhaps most, of the species of leaf-litter arthropods in these high-elevation communities are without scientific names. As such, changes in their ranges are, at best coarse, or at worst; invisible. Finally, we know next to nothing about the functional biology (e.g. thermal tolerance or dispersal capacity) of most species of arthropod, tropical or temperate. With the program described here my HQP and I will begin to change this.