Effects of Climate Change in the Colorado Alpine

该项目是科罗拉多大学长期生态研究计划的第三阶段。它建立在对高山过程和与方案第一阶段和第二阶段期间进行的干扰有关的模式的研究的基础上。将继续在尼沃特山脊和绿湖谷进行实地研究，并在科罗拉多前线范围更广的地区进行选定的研究。这项研究的目的是了解积雪和夏季降水对生态系统过程和景观格局的影响，并利用这种理解来预测对气候变化的反应。中心假设是，积雪或降雨制度的变化将导致高山生态系统过程和格局在地点和区域尺度上的变化。高山冻土带通常被认为对气候变化很敏感，在冰川消融后的12,000年里，人们知道它对这种变化做出了反应。这种敏感性的原因是它的生产率低，营养循环紧密，而且在许多植物过程中处于极端情况。在这一项目的第三阶段，重点将放在对生态系统过程和模式的进一步实验研究以及它们的模拟，以此作为预测改变的展示和夏季降水模式的影响的一种手段。特别是，将强调分级办法的规模考虑。将利用遥感检查沿前沿山脉的海拔和气候梯度的区域初级生产力，并促进从尼沃特山脊的主要研究地点到其他高山地区的外推。这一主题源于第一阶段的主题和第二阶段的主题，第一阶段的前提是目前的高山生态系统反映过去的气候条件，第二阶段的重点是冻土带系统的复原力和抵抗力。从这项早期工作中得出的许多数据库将对我们的第三阶段研究至关重要，并将在接下来的六年内得到维护。

This project represents a third phase of the University of Colorado Long-Term Ecological Research program. It builds upon research in alpine processes and patterns related to disturbance conducted during Phase I and Phase II of the program. Field studies will be continued at Niwot Ridge and in the Green Lakes Valley with selected studies in the wider region of the Colorado Front Range. The goal of this research is to understand the influence of snowpack and summer precipitation on ecosystem processes and landscape patterns and to use this understanding to predict responses to climate change. The central hypothesis is that alternation of snowpack or rainfall regimes will cause changes in alpine ecosystem processes and patterns at site and regional scale. The alpine tundra is often thought to be sensitive to climate change and is known to have responded to such changes in the 12,000 years since deglaciation. The reasons for this sensitivity are its low productivity and tight nutrient cycling and its situation at an extreme for many plant processes. In Phase III of this project emphasis will be place on further experimental studies of ecosystem processes and patterns and their modeling as a means of predicting the effects of altered showpack and summer precipitation patterns. In particular, scale considerations will be emphasized hierarchical approach. Remote sensing will be used to examine regional primary productivity along elevational and climatic gradients in the Front Range and to facilitate extrapolation from the primary study site at Niwot Ridge to other alpine areas. This theme derives from that of Phase I, which was based on the premise that present alpine ecosystems reflect past climatic conditions and Phase II, which focuses on the resilience and resistance of tundra systems. Many of the databases derived from this earlier work will be crucial to our Phase III research and will be maintained for the next six years.