BII: Evolving Meta-Ecosystems in the Arctic

Woodwell Climate Research Center, Inc., Falmouth MA

Investigators

Abstract

The Evolving MetaEcosystems (EvoME) Institute will study the effects of global climate change on Arctic ecosystems. Ecosystems are complex communities of species that have evolved with each other and their shared environment over long periods of time. Understanding how these systems change over time is a Grand Challenge in Biology that is made urgent and policy-relevant by rapid climate change. This is particularly true in the Arctic, which is warming at least three times faster than the global average. Arctic ecosystems are uniquely suited to their extreme environment, and they provide food and livelihoods for human communities. It is critical to know whether species and ecosystems can evolve to match the pace of change, or whether they might fall apart or muddle along in a reduced state. EvoME will bring together experts from across biological disciplines to generate new insights at every scale, from genes to landscapes. It will document natural responses of multiple species in rivers and streamside tundra environments and conduct large-scale experiments on the flow of energy and genes between ecosystems. EvoME will foster a new generation of biologists trained to think and work across disciplines, with special attention to increasing inclusion and retention of researchers from underrepresented backgrounds, by a cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional course, a research fund for students, and a Fellows program. Finally, it will bring journalists into the research process to create—and help researchers create—innovative media and stories through blogs, social media, and radio stories that bring EvoME’s integrated understanding to public audiences, including rural and Alaska Native communities. The EvoME Institute integrates across biological disciplines and scales of organization to understand how adaptive evolution maintains and shapes ecosystems linked by the flow of evolving organisms and energy (the meta-ecosystem) in response to climate change. New evidence that evolution can occur rapidly necessitates a major reappraisal of the longstanding paradigm that ecosystem and meta-ecosystem resilience can be understood without evolution. EvoME advances eco-evolutionary theory and understanding by integrating from genes to meta-ecosystems to understand how each biological level interacts with the others. In doing so, this institute addresses fundamental questions in genomics, molecular genetics, evolution, physiology, behavior, population and community ecology, and ecosystem biology in the most rapidly warming place on Earth. EvoME will evaluate the current adaptive capacity of key species that integrate Arctic ecosystems along a latitudinal gradient in northern Alaska, including leveraging insights from populations living in hot springs in the Arctic. EvoME will conduct metaecosystem experiments that manipulate energy (litter and insect migration inclusion/exclusion) and gene (transplant and common garden) flow in river/riparian systems. It will combine this information with powerful whole-genome assessments and models to disentangle the processes through which food web responses interact with evolution and alter underlying trait and ecosystem responses. EvoME also will develop novel bio-monitoring equipment, computational algorithms, and new modeling techniques to develop flexible and adaptable forecasting tools. In these ways, EvoME will contribute to a broader, mechanistic, and predictive understanding of the joint ecological and evolutionary responses of Earth’s meta-ecosystems to climate change. 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.