Collaborative Research: Coupling Ecosystem Process and Vegetation Pattern Across Environmental Gradients

这项研究将继续并扩展对 植被格局（物种或生活型） 组成，大小结构）和生态系统过程（营养 循环和水的关系）。 该项目的核心是 一组相互作用的模型，将生态系统过程与 通过生长、死亡和再生的植被动态 个别植物。 这些模型将得到实施和测试 在几个站点，每个站点都是NSF长期生态 LTER研究网络，代表一系列森林， 草原沿着大陆尺度温度排列， 降水梯度 分析将侧重于两个基本目标， 生态系统科学和发展中的全球环境问题： (1)来解释现有的植被模式， （a）当前环境制度下的生态系统进程; (2)评估生态系统对以下问题的潜在反应： 环境变化，特别是人为气候 变化 该项目将为生态系统科学做出重大贡献 通过进一步阐明所应用的“模式-过程”范式， 植物种群机制、水资源关系 和养分循环;并通过提供这些的合成 在广泛的生态系统中， 共同框架。 该项目还将进一步发展 在合作科学家之间建立网络能力。

This research will continue and extend the analysis of the relationship between vegetation pattern (species or lifeform composition, size structure) and ecosystem processes (nutrient cycling and water relations). This project has as its nucleus a set of interacting models that couple ecosystem processes to vegetation dynamics through growth, mortality, and regeneration of individual plants. The models will be implemented and tested at several sites, each a member of NSF's Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) network, which represent a range of forests and grasslands arrayed along continental-scale temperature and precipitation gradients. Analyses will focus on two goals that are fundamental to ecosystem science and developing global environmental concerns: (1) to account for existing patterns in vegetation and ecosystem processes under current environmental regimes; and (2) to assess the potential responses of ecosystems to environmental variability, especially anthropogenic climate change. This project will contribute substantially to ecosystem science by further elucidating the "pattern-process" paradigm as applied to feedbacks among plant-demographic mechanisms, water relations, and nutrient cycling; and by providing a synthesis of these relationships over a broad spectrum of ecosystems but within a common framework. The project will also further develop networking capabilities among collaborating scientists.