Project Details
Projekt
A trait-based theory of island biogeography
Applicant
Professor Dr. Ulrich Brose
Subject Area
Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions
Term
since 2018
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 379417748
This project will develop a property-based theory of island biogeography and meta-food webs. It will integrate the constraints of species traits and temperature on dispersal movement into meta-food web models. In addition, the consequences of stochastic perturbations will be investigated. In a first subproject, a novel food web assembly model will be used to predict the variability of food web topology in space as a function of spatial processes, local biotic filtering, and environmental conditions. This will reveal the importance of three dimensions of species traits related to movement, interaction, and tolerance for community assembly. Results will be generalized across gradients of stress and disturbance such as heat waves. A subsequent subproject will apply the trait-dependent dispersal model to the spatial scale of island archipelagos to predict patterns in biodiversity and trait distributions of actively dispersing species groups such as birds and the plants that are dispersed by them. The results will provide a predictive understanding of how species traits and environmental conditions influence biodiversity and trait patterns across archipelagos. Results will be used to develop a macro-food web model that predicts variance in food web topology from local to biogeographic scales as a function of local trophic and spatial processes, climatic conditions, evolutionary constraints on the species pool, and stochastic perturbations. Overall, this project will thus contribute to the DynaCom research unit by revealing the importance of species traits and dynamics in environmental conditions for patterns in biodiversity across archipelagic islands or metacommunity habitat patches.
DFG Programme
Research Units
