The National Science Foundation Division of Environmental Biology awarded a $300,243 Project Grant to Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University under the Biological Sciences federal grant program (CFDA 47.074) to conduct collaborative research from January 2023 through December 2025. The research aims to understand how stochasticity and spatial context impact the dynamics of functional diversity in freshwater ecosystems under global change. Specifically, the grantee will conduct intensive surveys of macroinvertebrates across network positions in both US and Brazilian river systems to test hypotheses about how demographic stochasticity and environmental selection shape community assembly depending on network position and community size. The results will be used to develop models to extrapolate predictions of how stream ecosystems will respond to future climate change scenarios. The funding also supports ecology education opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students.
Generated 1/7/24, 7:24 AM