DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Global patterns of fish functional diversity and trait convergence along species richness and environmental gradients

论文研究：鱼类功能多样性和性状趋同随物种丰富度和环境梯度的全球模式

• 批准号: 1601687
• 负责人: Kirk Winemiller
• 金额: $ 1.52万
• 依托单位: Texas A&M AgriLife Research
• 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: 2016-06-01 至 2018-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1601687&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DISSERTATION; RESEARCH; Global; patterns; fish

Community assembly processes (CAP), such as environmental filtering, limiting similarity, and neutral processes, explain species coexistence and community composition. Environmental filtering posits that environmental conditions allow species with certain traits to establish and persist, causing species traits to cluster. Alternatively, limiting similarity is the idea that species with similar traits will competitively exclude each other, producing an assemblage with an overdispersion of traits. Trait dispersion patterns are used to determine the importance of these scale-dependent, niche-based (i.e., biological, chemical, and physical factors in the environment) processes in structuring assemblages relative to neutral processes. The search for general patterns of these processes has been hindered by several factors including: lack of large-scale studies, inconsistent and erroneous methodologies, and changes in CAP along environmental gradients and species richness. Convergent evolution of functional groups within independent zoogeographic regions would provide additional evidence for ecological mechanisms influencing assemblage structure. A major challenge for ecology is to understand how assemblages are functionally structured and how CAP, at varying spatial scales, influence biodiversity patterns. This dissertation research project has three aims that address these issues: (1) examine knowledge gaps regarding functional diversity and convergence patterns of fish assemblages at a global scale; (2) determine relative contribution of limiting similarity and environmental filtering to neutral processes at three scales using recently proposed analytical methods; and (3) assess changes in functional diversity and community assemblage processes across environment and species richness gradients. Understanding the relative role of niche-based and stochastic processes at various scales is a central goal in community ecology and crucial for not only conservation and management of assemblages but for understanding the effect of the ever-changing environment on communities as a whole. To effectively address these aims, fish assemblages will be sampled in forty wadable streams in five different zoogeographic regions of varying species richness. Traits with well-known relationships to trophic ecology, habitat use, and life history will be measured for each assemblage. The relative contribution of community assembly processes will be tested at three spatial scales using new methods for analysis of functional trait dispersion. Functional diversity indices will be compared across gradients of stream size and species richness. Lastly, patterns of convergence of functional structure and community assembly processes in different zoogeographic systems will be analyzed using multivariate statistical methods. Field research will involve collaborations with scientists and students from several countries.

社区集会过程（CAP），例如环境过滤，限制相似性和中性过程，解释了物种共存和社区组成。环境过滤认为，环境条件允许具有某些特征的物种建立和持久，从而导致物种特征聚类。另外，限制相似性的想法是，具有相似特征的物种将相互竞争地排除彼此，从而产生特征过度分散的组合。性状分散模式用于确定这些依赖于规模的，基于细分市场的（即环境中的生物学，化学和物理因素）过程的重要性，相对于中性过程而结构组合。搜索这些过程的一般模式受到了几个因素的阻碍：缺乏大规模研究，不一致和错误的方法论以及沿环境梯度和物种丰富度的CAP变化。独立动物地理区域内官能团的收敛演化将为影响组合结构的生态机制提供其他证据。生态学的主要挑战是了解组合在功能上是结构化的方式，以及在不同的空间尺度上的CAP如何影响生物多样性模式。 该论文研究项目的三个目的可以解决以下问题：（1）研究全球范围内有关鱼类组合功能多样性和收敛模式的知识差距； （2）使用最近提出的分析方法确定限制相似性和环境滤波对中性过程的相对贡献； （3）评估跨环境和物种丰富度梯度的功能多样性和社区组合过程的变化。了解基于利基市场和随机过程在各种尺度上的相对作用是社区生态学中的核心目标，不仅是保护和管理组合，而且要了解不断变化的环境对整个社区的影响。为了有效地解决这些目标，将在不同物种丰富度的五个不同动物地理区域中的四十个可涉水流中采样鱼类组合。每个组合都将衡量与营养生态学，栖息地使用和生活史具有众多关系的特征。社区组装过程的相对贡献将在三个空间尺度上使用新方法进行测试，以分析功能性状分散。将在流的梯度和物种丰富度的梯度上比较功能多样性指数。最后，将使用多元统计方法分析功能结构和社区组装过程的收敛模式。现场研究将涉及与来自几个国家的科学家和学生的合作。