REU: LTER: Organisms in the Agricultural Landscape

该项目将启动对农业生态系统中生物之间相互作用的长期综合研究。总的目标是检验这样一种假设，即基于生态概念的管理可以有效地取代生产层面农学中对化学补贴的依赖。通过对一系列试验田实施一系列管理处理，将检验遵循以下一般假设的具体假设：通过操纵植物-微生物相互作用可以最大限度地减少营养补贴；通过操纵作物-杂草相互作用可以最大限度地减少除草剂补贴；通过操纵植物-昆虫-病原体-脊椎动物相互作用可以最大限度地减少农药补贴。主要的实验处理旨在从根本上改变对农艺系统中种群水平相互作用的控制。这将允许检验关于种群之间的长期相互作用如何影响系统范围的属性的假设，如养分可获得性、草食和病程、植物竞争以及系统范围的碳分配和养分/农药输出。处理将包括四个主要物种水平，每个水平嵌套两个管理水平：常规玉米/大豆种植(翻耕与免耕)、有机基础、低投入玉米/大豆/覆盖种植(最低化学投入与零化学投入)；短轮伐期杨树(木质生物量)种植(地上分配与地下分配)；原生演替植被(历史上耕作与从未耕作)。这些治疗将在相同的一般领域内建立，这些系统的发展将被无限期地跟踪。还将审查地貌其他部分选定的卫星站点，以便为在项目后期阶段解决地貌问题奠定基础。许多人会断言，现代农业的未来需要对生产水平的种植制度的生态有一个基本的、机制层面的理解。这一努力需要在一个与北美农学相关的地点采取多学科、长期的方法，并能够提供后勤支持和行政基础设施，以促进这种类型的重大研究工作。这项研究的项目团队是优秀的，包括广泛和适当的专业知识和非常富有成效的过去业绩记录。机构设施在主校区和凯洛格生物站(KBS)现场都是一流的。机构对该项目的承诺是实质性的，无论是直接支持还是实物支持。预计该项目将迅速成为现有相关项目家族中的宝贵合作者，并将为无人管理的自然生态系统的工作提供一套具有启发性的比较。KBS将继续开展大量其他相关研究项目，并将从这项新工作中受益并为其提供力量。建议按要求颁发这一新的、为期五年的连续奖。

This project will initiate a long-term integrated study of interactions among organisms in agricultural ecosystems. The general goal is to test the hypothesis that management based on ecological concepts can effectively substitute for reliance on chemical subsidies in production-level agronomy. By imposing a range of management treatments on a series of experimental plots specific hypotheses will be tested that follow from the general hypothesis that nutrient subsidies can be minimized by manipulating plant-microbe interactions; that herbicide subsidies can be minimized by manipulating crop-weed interactions; and that pesticide subsidies can be minimized by manipulating plant- insect-pathogen-vertebrate interactions. Primary experimental treatments are designed to alter radically the controls on population-level interactions in agronomic systems. This will allow the testing of hypotheses about how long-term interactions among populations affect system- wide attributes such as nutrient availability, herbivory and pathogenesis, plant competition, and systemswide carbon allocation and nutrient/pesticide outputs. Treatments will include four main species-levels with two management levels nested within each: conventional corn/soybean cultivation (moldboard plowed vs. no-till), organic-based, low-input corn/soybean/cover cultivation (minimum chemical input vs.zero chemical input); short-rotation Populus (woody biomass) cultivation (above ground allocation vs. belowground allocation); and native successional vegetation (historically-tilled vs. never-tilled). These treatments will be established within the same general area, and the development of these systems will be followed indefinitely. Selected satellite sites in other portions of the landscape will also be examined to formulate a basis for addressing landscape-level questions in later phases of the project. Many would assert that the future of modern agriculture demands a basic, mechanism-level understanding of the ecology of production-level cropping systems. This endeavor requires a multidisciplinary, long-term approach at a site that is relevant to North American agronomy and that can provide the logistical support and administrative infrastructure to facilitate this type of major research effort. The project team for this research is excellent comprising a broad and appropriate array of expertise and very productive records of past performance. Institutional facilities are excellent at both the main campus and at the Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) field site. Institutional commitment to the project is substantial, both as direct support and in kind. It is expected that this project will rapidly establish itself as an invaluable collaborator within the extant family of related projects and that it will provide an instructive suite of comparisons for work on unmanaged, natural ecosystems. A large number of other related research projects will continue to be conducted at the KBS and will both benefit from and lend strength to this new work. It is recommended that this new, five-year continuing award be made as requested.