Collaborative Research: Testing the Role that Biotic Interactions Play in the Latitudinal Diversity Gradient: A Chemical Community Ecology Approach to Understanding Tree Diversity

合作研究：测试生物相互作用在纬度多样性梯度中发挥的作用：理解树木多样性的化学群落生态学方法

• 批准号: 2240431
• 负责人: Jonathan Myers
• 金额: $ 25.05万
• 依托单位: Washington University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-03-15 至 2026-02-28
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2240431&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Testing; Role; Biotic

One of the most striking features of our planet is the dramatic increase in biodiversity from the poles to the equator. This global diversity gradient is especially noticeable among trees. Forest plots measuring 0.25 km2 contain 10 tree species in subarctic Canada, between 10 and 70 tree species in the continental United States, and 1,200 tree species in Amazonia. Since Darwin and Wallace, biologists have hypothesized that environmental stress predominates in temperate and seasonal climates, but the stresses experienced by plants in warm, wet, tropical rainforests are dominated by their interactions with other organisms, including insect herbivores and microbial pathogens. Plants are thought to evolve chemical defenses against their enemies, and their enemies to evolve counters to these defenses, more rapidly in the tropics, resulting in greater variation in defensive chemistry among plant species in the tropics, and ultimately greater species diversity. These ideas have gone largely untested at large scales because of a lack of tools to study the astonishing diversity of plant chemistry. This study will overcome this historical obstacle to chemical ecology by taking advantage of recent innovations in metabolomics—the study of the chemical profiles of organisms. The scientists will examine species differences in chemical profiles, or metabolomes, for 2,000 tree and shrub species in 20 long-term forest plots ranging from subarctic Canada to the Amazon Rainforest, their effects on the growth and survival of individual trees, their contribution to the maintenance of diversity. The project will support two Ph.D. students from underrepresented groups at the University of Texas at Austin and Washington University in St. Louis, undergraduate research opportunities, and capacity building in the larger research community. Other broader impacts include offering workshops at international meetings and the creation of a publicly available metabolome database for the research community. These data will support future research at US Government-supported sites within the National Science Foundation’s National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) and the Smithsonian Institution’s Forest Global Earth Observatory.The researchers will couple recent innovations in ecological metabolomics with existing data on the diversity and dynamics of forest-tree communities that span large-scale gradients in climate, latitude, and tree-species diversity from boreal forest in Canada (11 species in 21 hectares [ha]) to tropical rainforest in Amazonia (1,200 species in 25 ha). This project will leverage existing data on the growth, survival, and mapped distributions of more than 3,600 tree species in 20 large-scale forest-dynamics plots coordinated by the Smithsonian Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO) and San Diego Zoo Global, as well as existing metabolomics data from 13 forest plots. Building on these data, the researchers will collect and analyze leaves of 1,367 species in 7 new forest plots that represent unique climates and/or provide key seedling performance datasets. The researchers will combine metabolomics data, neighborhood demographic models, and theoretical simulations to determine i) how leaf-secondary chemistry shapes local species interactions within tree communities, ii) how the effects of leaf-secondary chemistry on local species interactions vary across latitudinal and climatic gradients, and iii) the importance of chemically mediated niche differences in maintaining species diversity across latitudinal and climatic gradients. Ultimately, the combination of long-term forest plots and novel techniques in metabolomics will provide unprecedented answers, in scope, scale, and substance, to questions that are fundamental to understanding Earth’s biodiversity. In addition to mentoring undergrad and graduate students, the researchers will lead a forest-metabolomics workshop at international meetings to train students and other scientists in the collection, analysis, and application of metabolomic data to community-scale ecology. The workshop will provide capacity building for early-career researchers from US and developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Finally, the project will generate a public database of metabolites for over 200 North American and over 2,000 Neotropical tree species, most of which are understudied tropical rainforest trees.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.

我们星球最引人注目的特征之一是从极点到等效的生物多样性的急剧增加。在树木中，这种全球多样性梯度尤其明显。森林地块的尺寸为0.25 km2，在加拿大亚北极含有10种树种，在美国连续的10至70种树种，亚马逊群中有1,200种树种。由于达尔文和华莱士（Darwin）和华莱士（Wallace），生物学家假设环境压力在温带和季节性气候中占主导地位，但是植物在温暖，潮湿，热带雨林中所经历的压力主要由它们与其他生物体（包括昆虫草食动物和微生物病原体）的相互作用所支配。人们认为植物可以进化针对其敌人的化学防御措施，并在热带地区更快地进化为这些防御能力的敌人，从而导致热带植物物种之间的防御性化学变化较大，最终使物种多样性更大。由于缺乏研究植物化学多样性的工具，这些想法在很大程度上没有经过大规模测试。这项研究将通过利用代谢组学的最新创新（对生物的化学特征的研究）来克服化学生态学的历史障碍。科学家将在20个长期的森林​​地块中，对200,000棵树和灌木种的化学特征或代谢组的物种差异，从亚北极加拿大到亚马逊雨林，它们对单个树木的生长和生存的影响，它们对维持多样性的贡献。该项目将支持两个博士学位。来自人代表不足的小组的学生在德克萨斯大学奥斯汀和华盛顿大学的圣路易斯大学，本科研究机会以及大型研究社区的能力建设。其他更广泛的影响包括在国际会议上提供研讨会以及为研究界创建公开可用的代谢组数据库。这些数据将支持美国国家科学基金会国家生态观测网络（NEON）和史密森学会的全球地球天文台的未来研究。研究人员将对生态代谢组的最新创新与现有的数据与有关森林境界的多样性和动态范围的多样性和动力学的现有数据，以及在加拿大的林木中跨越21种林中的林木，树木范围，树木范围之间的多样性，以及树木的各种环境，树木的范围，树木范围的各种境界，树木范围的境界，树木的范围有21个，树木的境界，树木的境界，树木范围的范围，树木范围的多样性和动态性，树木范围的境界，树木的境界，树木的范围是林的，树木的多样性和动态性，树木境内（树木）的多样性和动态性。在亚马逊的热带雨林（25公顷中的1,200种）。该项目将利用20多个由史密森尼森林全球地球天文台（Forestgeo）和圣地亚哥动物园全球协调的大规模森林动力学图中的3,600多种树种的增长，生存和映射分布的现有数据，以及13个森林图中的现有代谢瘤数据。在这些数据的基础上，研究人员将在7个新的森林地块中收集和分析1,367种物种的休假，这些新森林地块代表独特的气候和/或提供关键的幼苗性能数据集。研究人员将结合代谢组学数据，邻里人口统计学模型和理论模拟，以确定i）叶中的化学如何塑造树木群落中的局部物种相互作用，ii）叶中学化学对局部物种对局部物种相互作用的影响如何在纬度梯度和杂虫梯度之间变化，以及III的层次差异，并逐渐差异化。最终，在代谢组学中，长期森林图和新技术的结合将在范围，规模和实质上提供前所未有的答案，即对理解地球生物多样性至关重要的问题。除了精神上的本科和研究生外，研究人员还将在国际会议上领导森林 - 代谢组学研讨会，以培训学生和其他科学家在收集，分析和应用代谢组数据对社区规模的生态学中的收集，分析和应用。该研讨会将为来自非洲，亚洲和拉丁美洲的美国和发展中国家的早期研究人员提供能力建设。最后，该项目将为200多个北美和2,000多种新热带树种生成一个公共代谢物数据库，其中大多数被理解为热带雨林树。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响审查标准来通过评估来获得的支持。