Dissertation Research: Assessing the Strength of Competition in the Fossil Record

论文研究：评估化石记录中的竞争强度

• 批准号: 0608505
• 负责人: Elizabeth Hadly
• 金额: $ 0.66万
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-08-01 至 2007-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0608505&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dissertation; Research; Assessing; Strength; Competition

The project investigates the interspecific ecological interactions between small mammals over the past three millennia in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), a center of extraordinary biodiversity in the heart of North America. By integrating the recent fossil record and modern ecological experiments, it will be possible to determine how competition structures modern and ancient biological communities. The overarching goal is to reveal whether these interactions are similar in modern and ancient communities and to predict the importance of these interactions in the future. Modern experiments were conducted to describe the ecological mechanisms governing the abundance of voles sharing habitats across an environmental gradient. Results of these experiments are used to predict abundances over time of the same species in the GYE fossil record. Using fossils, the relationship between the outcome of the competitive interaction and climatic change is explored and new insights have begun to emerge. These data suggest that (1) ancient and modern interspecific interactions are similar; and (2) past fluctuations in climate directly influenced the abundance of one species, which indirectly influenced the abundance of the competitor. NSF funding will enable broader sampling of multiple fossil locales across time in order to establish the generalities of our preliminary results. Results to date point to the cascading effects of climate change in biological communities, which is ameliorated by species coexistence. Further, this study illustrates the importance of understanding how modern species responded to past climatic change in order to predict how species will respond to future climatic change.

该项目研究了大黄石生态系统（GYE）的小型哺乳动物之间的种间生态相互作用，这是北美中心的非凡生物多样性中心。通过整合最近的化石记录和现代生态实验，可以确定竞争如何结构现代和古老的生物社区。总体目标是揭示这些相互作用在现代和古代社区中是否相似，并预测将来这些相互作用的重要性。进行了现代实验，以描述掌握环境梯度中分享栖息地的丰富性的生态机制。这些实验的结果用于预测GYE化石记录中同一物种的随着时间的流逝。使用化石，探索了竞争互动和气候变化之间的关系，并开始出现新的见解。 这些数据表明（1）古代和现代的种间相互作用相似； （2）气候中过去的波动直接影响了一种物种，这间接影响了竞争者的丰度。 NSF资金将在时间上更广泛地对多个化石区域进行更广泛的采样，以确定我们初步结果的一般性。迄今为止的结果表明，生物群落气候变化的层层作用，该物种共存得到了改善。此外，这项研究说明了了解现代物种如何应对过去气候变化的重要性，以预测物种将如何应对未来的气候变化。