OPUS: Predicting species' responses to environmental change

Washington State University, Pullman WA

Investigators

Abstract

Individuals of a species can respond to changes in their environment by making adjustments in, for example, their development, metabolism, appearance, or behavior. Individuals of mobile species can also move to other locations with more suitable surroundings. Populations of the same species can respond to the same environmental changes by growing or shrinking in abundance, or by evolving adaptively if individuals vary genetically. It is important to consider all these possibilities simultaneously when trying to understand how species have responded to historical environmental changes and to forecast their potential responses to future changes. The objective of this project is to develop a mathematically-based theoretical framework combining all these biological processes that could be used along with data from field and laboratory studies to deduce past reactions and predict future responses of species to changed environments. This project will result in a guidebook with an associated freely-available package of computer programming scripts that empirical researchers can use to design efficient and effective experimental or observational studies about how species respond to environmental change. These data and models will, in turn, provide wildlife managers, policy makers, and conservation biologists with process-based quantitative tools to forecast responses of species of interest to anticipated environmental changes. In addition, a new graduate course will be developed based on the material in the proposed book. The creation of illustrative examples for the guidebook based on an extensive marmot dataset will contribute to graduate training and foster new collaborations with researchers in the United States and abroad. This award is being made jointly by three programs: 1) Evolutionary Processes in the Division of Environmental Biology (BIO Directorate), 2) Population and Community Ecology in the Division of Environmental Biology (BIO Directorate), and 3) Mathematical Biology in the Division of Mathematical Sciences (MPS Directorate).