Predicting the population consequences of environmental change

预测环境变化对人口的影响

基本信息

批准号：
NE/I023791/2
负责人：
Tim Coulson
金额：
$ 30.13万
依托单位：
University of Oxford
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2013
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2013 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FI023791%2F2
关键词：
Predicting population consequences environmental change

项目摘要

The environment that most natural populations experience is changing. Not only as a result of global climate change, but also as a consequence of other anthropogenic activities including hunting, habitat modification and the introduction of alien species. Such environmental change has already been demonstrated to impact animal and plant populations and the ecosystems in which these populations are embedded. The speed of environmental change continues to accelerate with potentially catastrophic consequences. Unfortunately biologists do not have a good track record of accurately predicting how environmental change will impact natural populations. This is because populations and the environment they experience are complex. We have identified an approach that is likely to improve upon the predictions that biologists are able to make about how populations will respond to environment change. The types of response we are able to model include both short-term ecological ones and longer-term evolutionary responses. Our approach relies on a powerful, recently developed modelling framework that can be applied to the types of data that biologists often collect. We will apply the approach to construct a detailed model to a well-studied population of Yellowstone wolves. Analysis of this model will allow us to predict how the Yellowstone wolf population may respond to various environmental change scenarios. We will also construct simplified versions of the model for a wide range of animal data sets to identify more general patterns in ways that animal populations are likely to respond to environmental change. Our work has the potential to substantially improve our understanding of how environmental change is likely to impact natural populations in both the short and long term.

大多数自然群体所经历的环境正在发生变化。这不仅是全球气候变化的结果，也是其他人类活动的结果，包括狩猎、栖息地改变和引进外来物种。这种环境变化已被证明会影响动植物种群以及这些种群所在的生态系统。环境变化的速度持续加快，并可能带来灾难性的后果。不幸的是，生物学家没有准确预测环境变化将如何影响自然种群的良好记录。这是因为人口和他们所经历的环境是复杂的。我们已经找到了一种方法，可能会改进生物学家对人类如何应对环境变化的预测。我们能够模拟的反应类型包括短期生态反应和长期进化反应。我们的方法依赖于一个强大的、最近开发的建模框架，该框架可以应用于生物学家经常收集的数据类型。我们将应用该方法对黄石狼群进行深入研究，构建详细模型。对该模型的分析将使我们能够预测黄石狼种群如何应对各种环境变化情景。我们还将为广泛的动物数据集构建模型的简化版本，以识别动物种群可能对环境变化做出反应的更一般模式。我们的工作有可能大大提高我们对环境变化如何在短期和长期影响自然种群的理解。