Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Two major threats to biodiversity are climate change and land use changes. Understanding how such changes cause species to expand their range or shift the timing of life cycle events is critical for conserving threatened species and managing invasive ones. Scientists now recognize that the interactions between different species (biotic interactions) play a crucial role in influencing how species respond to climate change. A current challenge in ecology is to integrate the role of biotic interactions into our forecasts of how biodiversity will respond to these major environmental changes in the future. To tackle this challenge, I seek to understand how environmental drivers affect the ecological processes that determine where species live, the timing of their seasonal activities and how these aspects influence the importance of biotic interactions relative to climatic drivers. Over the next 5 years, my research program will combine ecological modelling with field and greenhouse experiments in two complementary areas. First, most research has focused on understanding and predicting how species respond to environmental change as independent entities, neglecting their role in a broader ecological network. However, recent advances highlight the integral role of species interactions at many scales, making it more complex to predict the speed and magnitude of range expansion and shifts in seasonal timing. My research includes an ambitious series of experiments and modeling to test key theoretical predictions for the relative importance of climate versus biotic interactions in geographic space and time. The outcomes will advance this field and contribute to more effective conservation and management strategies. Second, effective habitat restoration is essential for mitigating the impacts of climate and land use change on ecosystems. This process involves identifying critical attributes and functional targets that enhance ecosystem resilience. Using a rigorous field experiment and a well-established network of natural and restored wetlands, I will examine the effectiveness of current restoration practices that focus solely on vegetation management in recovering plant and insect communities. I will also explore the potentially overlooked positive role of non-native plants in recovering ecosystem function. I will test predictions about whether vegetation restoration can effectively lead to full ecosystem recovery. Our results will evaluate longstanding ecological theory and highlight characteristics of species and geographic regions that make them more vulnerable to climate change. This information will allow us to articulate how changes to individual species will drive changes in biodiversity, both now and in the future. This research is crucial for the advancement of ecological science, and its implications extend to more effective conservation and management strategies.