Objective
The objective of this proposed research is to use life history and biological characteristics (species traits) of aquatic macro-invertebrates to address two major concepts in ecology: the "habitat heterogeneity hypothesis" (HHH) and the "habitat templet concept" (HTC) which are commonly invoked in both basic and applied ecology (e.g. in biological monitoring).
Using a combination of field-based research and synthesis of large datasets from California (CA) and France (FR), I will address the following objectives:
(1) to make an inter-continental comparison of the relationship between trait composition, functional diversity and physical habitat (e.g. hydrology) of aquatic invertebrate communities between CA and FR at multiple spatial (microhabitat to region) and temporal scales (between seasons and years);
(2) determine the relationship between functional diversity and habitat diversity/complexity at multiple spatial and temporal scales; and
(3) compare the performance of individual traits (e.g. strong dispersal ability) versus a composite metric (functional diversity) in biological monitoring. 16 species traits (e.g. body size, life span, number of offspring) for >300 CA taxa and 264 FR taxa will be used to calculate functional diversity, as well as analyses of individual traits. Data from 85 sites in CA and > 65 sites in FR will be used for all three objectives.
In addition, intensive sampling of streams from multiple regions in FR (at nested spatial scale) will be used to for objective (2). Finally, the results from (1) and (2) will be used to develop a ¿mean-model¿ which can be used to evaluate the health and cause of impairment of disturbed streams. The examination of the relationships between the species traits, functional diversity, and the habitat heterogeneity of streams at multiple spatial and temporal scales is a novel approach to addressing the HTC and the HHH.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistory
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental scienceshydrology
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- natural sciencesbiological scienceszoologyinvertebrate zoology
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Keywords
Call for proposal
FP6-2004-MOBILITY-7
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Funding Scheme
IIF - Marie Curie actions-Incoming International FellowshipsCoordinator
VILLEURBANNE
France