CAREER: Spatial network structure and food web stability across a productivity gradient.

职业：生产力梯度上的空间网络结构和食物网稳定性。

• 批准号: 1553718
• 负责人: Kurt Anderson
• 金额: $ 83.35万
• 依托单位: University of California-Riverside
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-06-15 至 2022-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1553718&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Spatial; network; structure; food

Many environments that are important for wildlife and human well-being are spread unevenly across the landscape. Examples of these "patchy" environments include natural habitats like wetlands and human-managed habitats like agricultural fields. This project will test the idea that the number of different species (biodiversity) that can live in patches of habitat depends on the animals' ability to move between patches, the places where those patches occur, and the amount of food available in each patch. Understanding what determines biodiversity is important because it allows one to predict and manage especially diverse, often vulnerable, patches of habitat. Because it is practically impossible to rigorously test the determinants of biodiversity in natural areas, this project will take place in the laboratory. Researchers will create miniature, patchy worlds of very small animals that live in water to study what happens on much larger scales to animals in the real world. Experiments will focus on the relationship between the number of species, their dispersal abilities, and the amount of food available to them in small containers of water. A complicated model will be built to help analyze the data and extend the results to different animals and different types of habitat patches. The laboratory experiments will also be used in teaching and outreach activities to provide opportunities for grade-school students and teachers to learn scientific methods and ecological concepts through hands-on experiences. Both students and teachers will help design and carry out experiments, contributing directly to the scientific process.The investigator will experimentally test whether a common feature of ecological systems -- dispersal among irregularly distributed habitats -- affects the stability of a fundamental ecological unit, the food web. Research will include experimental and theoretical components. Experiments conducted using protist microcosms will test hypotheses arising from network theory that: (1) food webs connected through randomly structured dispersal networks will show greater spatial asynchrony and network-wide stability than those connected in regular networks and (2) effects of dispersal will vary across a gradient in resource productivity, as this factor is known to alter food web stability. Experiments will be integrated with mechanistic models, extending the generality of project findings to broader contexts and advancing general food web theory. The research will also leverage the tractability of protist microcosms to provide inquiry-based curriculum content and student research projects in an undergraduate ecology course. Students from groups currently underrepresented in science will be recruited and mentored in experimental design, data collection, analysis and presentation. Outreach activities will bring public school teachers into the investigator's laboratory and translate ecological research experiences into lesson plans aligned to Next Generation Science Standards.

许多对野生动植物和人类福祉很重要的环境在整个景观中不均匀地传播。这些“斑点”环境的例子包括湿地和人为栖息地（如农业领域）的自然栖息地。该项目将测试以下观点：可以生活在栖息地的不同物种（生物多样性）的数量取决于动物在斑块之间移动的能力，这些斑块发生的地方以及每个斑块中可用的食物量。 了解什么决定生物多样性很重要，因为它允许人们预测和管理特别多样化的栖息地斑块。 由于实际上不可能严格测试自然地区生物多样性的决定因素，因此该项目将在实验室中进行。研究人员将创建微型，斑驳的世界，这些世界非常小动物，这些动物生活在水中，以研究现实世界中动物的更大尺度上发生的事情。实验将集中于物种数量，它们的分散能力以及在小容器中可供选择的食物之间的关系。 将建立一个复杂的模型，以帮助分析数据并将结果扩展到不同的动物和不同类型的栖息地斑块。实验室实验还将用于教学和外展活动，以为学生和教师通过动手经验来学习科学方法和生态概念。 学生和教师都将帮助设计和执行实验，直接促进科学过程。研究人员将通过实验测试生态系统的共同特征（分布在不规则分布的栖息地之间）是否会影响基本生态单位的稳定性，即食物网。研究将包括实验和理论成分。使用原生缩影进行的实验将测试由网络理论引起的假设：（1）通过随机结构化的分散网络连接的食物网将显示出更大的空间异步和网络范围的稳定性，而在常规网络中相比，（2）散布在这种因素中，散布的效果会差异，因为该因素在这种因素上都会改变与食物的影响。实验将与机械模型集成，将项目发现的一般性扩展到更广泛的环境并推进一般食品网理论。这项研究还将利用原生缩影的疗程来在本科生态课程中提供基于询问的课程内容和学生研究项目。 来自当前科学领域不足的小组的学生将在实验设计，数据收集，分析和演示中招募和指导。外展活动将把公立学校的教师带入调查员的实验室，并将生态研究经验转化为与下一代科学标准一致的课程计划。