Understanding the factors influencing the persistence of animal and plant populations lies at the heart of ecology and is essential for interpreting the effects of ongoing environmental change. The concept of spatial modularity, borrowed from physics and social sciences, has great potential to increase our understanding of population persistence and landscape connectivity under environmental change. In population ecology, spatial modularity occurs when resource patches are highly connected to other patches through movement of organisms, but only weakly connected to the remaining patches in the landscape. This Early Concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) project will assess the utility of the spatial modularity concept in ecology by using a highly modular, consumer-resource system of a cactus-feeding insect and patchy, prickly pear cactus. This research will couple field experiments and surveys with network modeling to address two major objectives: estimate the consequences of spatial modularity for populations undergoing habitat loss; and identify the causes of spatial modularity. The concept of spatial modularity extends ideas in ecology regarding different types of meta-populations, provides new insight to patch importance for connectivity, and complements work on patch aggregation in ecology by identifying the spatial and non-spatial roles of movement on dynamics. While spatial modularity holds much potential for ecology, no experimental tests of this phenomenon have occurred, and the causes and consequences of this phenomenon have received little empirical attention. This project will be the first to test if spatial modularity increases meta-population persistence, reduces negative effects of habitat loss, better predicts dynamics and connectivity compared to existing approaches, and is a fundamental scale for population dynamics.
The modularity concept is highly relevant to applied ecology, e.g., managing wildlife population under environmental change, and designing habitat units to achieve conservation goals. To facilitate these applications, this project will include a practical training workshop for applied scientists and conservation practitioners on the concept and application of "Managing for Modularity". In addition, this project will provide field research experiences for high school, undergraduate, and graduated students, and will support the training of a postdoctoral researcher in quantitative spatial ecology.
