Kurt AndersonAssociate Professor & Vice Chair, Dept. of EEOBEvolution Ecology & Orgns Bio kurta@ucr.edu(951) 827-2499
CAREER:Spatial network structure and food web stability across a productivity gradient
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AWARD NUMBER
008159-003
FUND NUMBER
33250
STATUS
Active
AWARD TYPE
3-Grant
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AWARD EXECUTION DATE
5/22/2016
BEGIN DATE
6/15/2016
END DATE
5/31/2021
AWARD AMOUNT
$168,000
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Sponsor Information
SPONSOR AWARD NUMBER
SPONSOR
SPONSOR TYPE
FUNCTION
Organized Research
PROGRAM NAME
Proposal Information
PROPOSAL NUMBER
16010067
PROPOSAL TYPE
New
ACTIVITY TYPE
Basic Research
PI Information
PI
Anderson, Kurt Evan
PI TITLE
Other
PI DEPTARTMENT
Evolution, Ecology & Orgns Bio
PI COLLEGE/SCHOOL
College of Nat & Agr Sciences
CO PIs
Project Information
ABSTRACT
Many environments that are important for wildlife and human well-being are spread unevenly across the landscape. Examples of these "patchy" environments include natural habitats like wetlands and human-managed habitats like agricultural fields. This project will test the idea that the number of different species (biodiversity) that can live in patches of habitat depends on the animals' ability to move between patches, the places where those patches occur, and the amount of food available in each patch. Understanding what determines biodiversity is important because it allows one to predict and manage especially diverse, often vulnerable, patches of habitat. Because it is practically impossible to rigorously test the determinants of biodiversity in natural areas, this project will take place in the laboratory. Researchers will create miniature, patchy worlds of very small animals that live in water to study what happens on much larger scales to animals in the real world. Experiments will focus on the relationship between the number of species, their dispersal abilities, and the amount of food available to them in small containers of water. A complicated model will be built to help analyze the data and extend the results to different animals and different types of habitat patches. The laboratory experiments will also be used in teaching and outreach activities to provide opportunities for grade-school students and teachers to learn scientific methods and ecological concepts through hands-on experiences. Both students and teachers will help design and carry out experiments, contributing directly to the scientific process.
The investigator will experimentally test whether a common feature of ecological systems -- dispersal among irregularly distributed habitats -- affects the stability of a fundamental ecological unit, the food web. Research will include experimental and theoretical components. Experiments conducted using protist microcosms will test hypotheses arising from network theory that: (1) food webs connected through randomly structured dispersal networks will show greater spatial asynchrony and network-wide stability than those connected in regular networks and (2) effects of dispersal will vary across a gradient in resource productivity, as this factor is known to alter food web stability. Experiments will be integrated with mechanistic models, extending the generality of project findings to broader contexts and advancing general food web theory. The research will also leverage the tractability of protist microcosms to provide inquiry-based curriculum content and student research projects in an undergraduate ecology course. Students from groups currently underrepresented in science will be recruited and mentored in experimental design, data collection, analysis and presentation. Outreach activities will bring public school teachers into the investigator's laboratory and translate ecological research experiences into lesson plans aligned to Next Generation Science Standards.(Abstract from NSF)
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