SGER: Consequences of Large-scale Fire on Plant Reestablishment in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

1988年烧毁黄石国家公园的大火为研究大规模干扰的生态反应提供了一个独特的机会。火灾的一个显著特征是造成了烧毁景观的异质性，从整体燃烧模式和烧毁区域内不同的火灾严重程度来看。很少有生态学研究以系统和定量的方式明确研究干扰效应的空间变异。以前的研究表明，物种对干扰的反应可能不仅与水分、温度和其他环境梯度有关，而且还与受干扰地点的大小、形状和异质性有关。1988年的火灾为生态学家提供了一个独特的机会来研究大规模火灾后的植物重建。Romme、Turner和Gardner博士将评估黄石公园景观中火灾斑块的大小和空间模式对于重建代表不同繁殖模式的植物物种的相对重要性。研究人员假设，植物重建的速度在一定程度上受景观几何形状的控制，但景观结构的相对重要性因植物的繁殖模式而异。这些调查人员都是景观生态领域的高素质专家。这项研究的制度支持是突出的。

The 1988 fires that burned Yellowstone National Park present a unique opportunity to investigate ecological responses to large-scale disturbance. A striking feature of the fires was the resulting heterogeneity of the burned landscape, in terms of both the overall burning patterns and the variable fire severity within the burned areas. Few ecological studies have dealt explicitly with the spatial variation of disturbance effects in a systematic and quantitative way. And previous research suggests that species' responses to disturbance may vary not only in relation to moisture, temperature, and other environmental gradients, but also with the size, shape, and heterogeneity of disturbed sites. The 1988 fires present a unique opportunity for ecologists to study plant reestablishment following large-scale fires. Drs. Romme, Turner and Gardner will evaluate the relative importance of size and spatial patterning of fire-created patches in the Yellowstone landscape for reestablishment of plant species representing different modes of reproduction. The investigators hypothesize that the rates of plant reestablishment are controlled in part by the geometry of the landscape, but that the relative importance of landscape structure differs with the plant's mode of reproduction. These investigators are highly qualified experts in the area of landscape ecology. The institutional support for this research is outstanding.