Do spatial traits (geography) or species traits better explain vulnerability and resilience of plants to external threats?

University Of California-Riverside, Riverside CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project identifies the elements of plant biodiversity that are most vulnerable and, conversely, most resilient to the interacting threats of habitat loss, via land-use change and urbanization, as well as environmental variability and related changes in wildfire regimes. Identifying generalities in the factors that confer vulnerability or resilience to species based on their innate characteristics (their species traits) and where they naturally occur (their geography or spatial traits) in relation to threats, is the intellectual contribution of this project and to geography and the spatial sciences. Results from this study permit a prioritization of species and ecosystems and identify locations for management and conservation of plant diversity. This project will be conducted at the University of California Riverside (UCR), a Hispanic-serving institution located in one of the most socio-economically and culturally diverse regions in the United States. The PIs will leverage existing STEM education initiatives at UCR to engage undergraduates in local K-12 classrooms through the CalTeach program, where they will introduce spatial science and models as a framework for understanding geographic concepts, ecological principles and pressing conservation issues. The vulnerability of a plant species to threat depends on their distribution (biogeography) in relation to these threats, as well as their species traits. Plants may be long or short lived (redwood trees versus poppies), escape habitat fragmentation and loss because their ecological niche places them in locations undesirable for development, or they may have traits that allow them to recover their populations following fire (fire-stimulated seed germination, or resprouting from underground parts). In a changing environment, plants can only move (migrate) away from threats intergenerationally, mainly via seed dispersal. This project identifies the general aspects of spatial traits (biogeography) versus species traits that confer more or less vulnerability to plants under global change in the coming century as human populations grow and land-use changes. The PIs use simulation modeling to project the population growth or decline for a wide range of plant species that differ in their disturbance-response and other species traits (life form: trees, shrubs, herbs; fire-response; and morphological traits) and their biogeography (coastal, mountain and desert distributions) to identify generalities regarding their vulnerability to threats. They develop and use statistical models of spatially explicit fire risk and species biogeography using modern regression and machine learning methods and use those models to project spatially explicit changes under different land-use and environmental scenarios. The PIs construct plant population models using data from the COMPADRE Plant Matrix Database and will extract species traits from the TRY Plant Trait Database. This project focuses on the biodiversity of the California Floristic Province, but trends identified will be broadly relevant throughout the entire western U.S. where water-limited ecosystems are strongly impacted by increasing environmental variability and increasing wildfire. 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.