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Details of Award

NERC Reference : NE/N010221/1

Ecological and evolutionary effects of climate change on rainforest food webs

Grant Award

Principal Investigator:
Professor O Lewis, University of Oxford, Zoology
Science Area:
Terrestrial
Overall Classification:
Panel D
ENRIs:
Biodiversity
Global Change
Science Topics:
Climate & Climate Change
Ecosystem impacts
Community Ecology
Biodiversity
Community structure
Genetic diversity
Predator-prey interactions
Trophic structures
Tropical forests
Population Ecology
Biodiversity
Local adaptation
Systematics & Taxonomy
Genetic diversity
Abstract:
Ecological communities are complex, interacting networks of species, linked by competition, mutualism, predation and parasitism. In the 'Origin of Species', Charles Darwin famously wrote of 'an entangled bank', comprising a bewildering richness of species and an even more complex web of connections among them. Fundamentally, ecologists and evolutionary biologists seek to unravel this complexity, by establishing why species occur where they do, why they replace each other under certain conditions, and how the species interactions that make up ecosystems will change as environments change. As the climate warms and extreme events become more frequent, existing connections between species are changing in strength, or being severed completely; and new connections are forming as species change in abundance and shift their distributions (e.g. colonising cooler habitats, while becoming locally extinct in warmer habitats). Biologists use information about the range of temperatures where species currently occur to predict where species will occur in a future, warmer world. However, better predictions about the consequences of climate change will be possible if we can also take into account changing interactions between species, as well as the potential for species to evolve to cope with new conditions. We urgently need to test how whole food webs of interacting species are structured by biological processes (e.g. competition and predation) and by temperature, and how these ecological networks will respond to climate change. It is also important to test the extent to which current adaptive divergence across species' geographical ranges will increase their resilience to future climate change. To achieve this, our project will exploit a unique model system (Drosophila fruit-flies and parasitic wasps that are associated with them, called parasitoids) in a high-diversity ecosystem threatened by climate change (Australian tropical rainforests). With this system we will use field observations, field transplant experiments and mathematical models to test: (i) what determines species' local distributions and food web structure; (ii) the responses of natural and simulated networks of interacting species to simulated climate change; and (iii) the underlying mechanisms driving these changes, including the effects of genetic variation among populations within species and the potential for rapid evolutionary adaptation to warmer temperatures. The outcome will be a better and more predictive understanding of how climate change will affect the biotic interactions that characterise biodiversity and underpin the functions and services of natural ecosystems.
Period of Award:
1 Mar 2016 - 30 Nov 2019
Value:
£403,628 Lead Split Award
Authorised funds only
NERC Reference:
NE/N010221/1
Grant Stage:
Completed
Scheme:
Standard Grant FEC
Grant Status:
Closed
Programme:
Standard Grant

This grant award has a total value of £403,628  

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FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)

DI - Other CostsIndirect - Indirect CostsDA - InvestigatorsDI - StaffDA - Estate CostsDA - Other Directly AllocatedDI - T&S
£43,648£126,374£38,627£113,728£47,857£3,070£30,323

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