Collaborative Research: Leveraging the power of ecological modeling and functional ecology to understand spatio-temporal variation in community assembly through the late Quaternary

合作研究：利用生态模型和功能生态学的力量来了解第四纪晚期群落聚集的时空变化

• 批准号: 2149416
• 负责人: Jessica Blois
• 金额: $ 32.17万
• 依托单位: University of California - Merced
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-07-01 至 2025-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2149416&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Leveraging; power; ecological

Biodiversity—the variety of all forms of life—serves many functions to humans and its loss is one of the most pressing environmental issues of our time. Understanding the processes that shape species within ecological communities is crucial to chart the future of biodiversity and ecosystems in the face of human impacts. To date, studies of processes that are responsible for composition of ecological communities have been largely restricted to small (local) spatial scales and contemporary (months to decades) time scales. But these processes are complex and take place across many different scales, from local to continental spatial scales and monthly to 1000-year time scales. To understand which processes are important to structuring ecological communities at longer time scales, the project will use the fossil record of small mammals from the past 21,000 years. Results from and data generated by the project will be freely available for use by the broader scientific and educational communities. The project will provide workforce development opportunities and broaden participation in science by training middle- and high-schoolers and postdoctoral researchers from groups typically underrepresented in STEM.To elucidate spatial and temporal non-stationarity of processes structuring communities, the project will leverage the fossil record of small mammals across the late Quaternary, simulations and species distribution modeling (SDM) techniques, and trait datasets. The team will first conduct a comprehensive chronological re-assessment of the existing fossil record and carry out a suite of simulation exercises to understand the sensitivity of SDMs to spatial and temporal uncertainty inherent in the fossil record. The knowledge gained through these steps will then guide the construction of near continental, dynamic (i.e., changing through time) species distributions using the empirical fossil record. These modeled range-wide distributions for small mammals will then be stacked to obtain evaluations of community functional and trait composition, which will inform the spatio-temporal variation in community assembly processes. Ultimately, the findings will have implications for understanding the impacts of environmental and biotic change on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

生物多样性（所有生命形式的多样性）对人类具有多种功能，其丧失是我们这个时代最紧迫的环境问题之一，了解生态群落中物种的形成过程对于规划生物多样性和生态系统的未来至关重要。迄今为止，对生态群落组成过程的研究主要局限于较小的（局部）空间尺度和当代（数月至数十年）时间尺度，但这些过程是复杂的，并且发生在不同的时间尺度上。许多不同的尺度，从局部到为了了解哪些过程对于在较长时间尺度上构建生态群落很重要，该项目将使用过去 21,000 年小型哺乳动物的化石记录和生成的数据。该项目将免费供更广泛的科学和教育界使用，该项目将通过培训来自通常代表性不足的群体的初中生和高中生以及博士后研究人员，提供劳动力发展机会并扩大对科学的参与。 STEM。为了阐明群落结构过程的空间和时间非平稳性，该项目将利用第四纪晚期小型哺乳动物的化石记录、模拟和物种分布建模（SDM）技术以及性状数据集。该团队将首先进行一项研究。对现有化石记录进行全面的时间顺序重新评估，并进行一系列模拟练习，以了解 SDM 对化石记录固有的空间和时间不确定性的敏感性，然后通过这些步骤获得的知识将指导近邻的构建。然后，使用经验化石记录对大陆动态（即随时间变化）物种分布进行叠加，以获得对群落功能和性状组成的评估，从而了解物种的时空变化。最终，研究结果将对理解环境和生物变化对生物多样性和生态系统功能的影响产生影响。该奖项是 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响进行评估，被认为值得支持。审查标准。