Fire, Grazing, and Climatic Interactions in Tallgrass Prairie

在美国堪萨斯州东北部的康扎草原（Konza Prairie）进行了一项关于火、放牧和火-放牧相互作用对种群、群落和生态系统特性的多学科研究。这项拟议的研究建立并扩展了一项关于高草草原火灾频率影响的十年研究。以前和提议的LTER工作将继续提供长期数据和基线研究，例如由NSF、NASA、USGS和国家基金支持的一系列密集的短期实验和操作。这些先前研究的结果已纳入当前的LTER测量和问题。拟议研究的目标是了解放牧如何影响生物和生态系统过程以及火灾频率对景观马赛克施加的模式，所有这些都受到可变（可能是定向的）气候制度的影响。将地表水和地下水化学联系起来的一项新的景观级研究将与正在进行的测量相结合，为生态学研究提供景观重点。新的重点涉及影响生态现象的地形效应和景观相互作用；具体地说，从个体生物的角度到流域水平，研究地貌格局与生态约束（火和/或放牧）之间的关系。如果生态学家要将他们的研究整合到生物过程可以充分与气候模型相结合的尺度上，这些努力是必要的。康扎草原LTER研究团队在大气-生物圈相互作用领域做出了重要贡献，研究机构支持力度突出。

A multidisciplinary study of fire, grazing and fire-grazing interactions on population, community and ecosystem properties will be continued on Konza Prairie, a native tallgrass prairie site in northeastern Kansas. The proposed research builds and expands upon a ten-year study of fire frequency effects on tallgrass prairie. Previous and proposed LTER efforts will continue to provide long-term data and baseline studies such as those that spawned a series of intensive short-term experiments and manipulations supported by NSF, NASA, USGS and state funds. Results from these previous studies have been incorporated into current LTER measurements and questions. The goal of the proposed research is to understand how grazing influences biotic and ecosystem processes and patterns imposed by fire frequency over the landscape mosaic, all of which are subjected to a variable (and possibly directional) climate regime. A new, landscape-level study linking surface and ground water chemistry will interface with ongoing measurements to provide a landscape emphasis to ecological research. The new focus involves topotedaphic effects and landscape interactions influencing ecological phenomena; specifically, the relationship between geomorphic patterns and ecological constraints (fire and/or grazing) from the perspective of the individual organism to the watershed level. These efforts are necessary if ecologists are to integrate their research to scales where biotic processes may adequately be incorporated with climate models. The Konza Prairie LTER research team has made important contributions on the area of atmosphere-biosphere interactions, Institutional support for this research is outstanding.