NSF Award
2424994
This project is a collaboration between the University of California - Merced and University of Alaska Fairbanks.<br/><br/>Climate change and the overuse of natural resources are causing significant shifts in ecological communities, leading to novel states that lack modern equivalents. These changes often result in reduced species diversity and fewer interactions between species. To predict how future ecosystems will respond, it is essential to study the dynamics of past ecosystems, especially those from the distant past. Earth's history includes environmental disturbances of similar magnitude and direction to what we are experiencing today, and the imprints of these events are left on ancient ecological communities that are recorded in the fossil and historical record. This research aims to uncover how marine communities have responded to climate change and resource exploitation in the past, focusing on the evolution of large-bodied filter-feeding baleen whales and their apex predators near the Eocene-Oligocene transition, as well as the more recent anthropogenic impacts of industrialized fishing on these species. By studying these evolutionary and anthropogenic shifts, the aim is to reveal how past changes have shaped marine food web structures and their broader ecological function, providing insight into the potential future of marine ecosystems. The project will support the training of graduate student researchers at the University of California Merced and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.<br/><br/>This project introduces a novel framework for reconstructing and analyzing the dynamics of historical and paleo-ecosystems, connecting physiological constraints of species to community structure. The aim is to address three primary questions: (1) Do species interactions predict specific body size constraints shaping marine communities throughout the Cenozoic? By integrating bioenergetic and generalized dynamic models, we will explore how energetic flows among small groups of interacting species (motifs) influence population persistence. (2) How do the dynamics of size-structured species interactions provide insight into structural constraints of food webs? The objective is to assess interaction feasibility based on body size and predict structural constraints in broader community contexts. (3) How do the dynamic limitations of size-structured species interactions impact the stability of Cenozoic marine food webs? This study will evaluate how ancient marine community changes resulted in unique ecosystem structures, offering insights into current and future marine ecosystems impacted by climate change and exploitation. The proposed integrative modeling approach aims to uncover new insights into the structuring forces of ecological communities and pave the way for reconstructing the dynamics of no-analog paleo and historical food webs. By improving our ability to predict and understand the complexities of past, present, and future ecosystems, the proposed approach, rooted in fundamental energetic trade-offs, can be broadly extended to communities across various timescales, from pre-Cenozoic to future climate scenarios yet to be experienced.<br/><br/>This project is jointly funded by the Mathematical Biology Program in the Division of Mathematical Sciences and the Office of Polar Programs Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems.<br/><br/>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.
