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

本研究将继续和扩展植被格局（物种或生命形式组成、大小结构）与生态系统过程（养分循环和水分关系）之间的关系分析。这个项目的核心是一套相互作用的模型，通过单个植物的生长、死亡和再生，将生态系统过程与植被动态联系起来。这些模型将在几个地点实施和测试，每个地点都是美国国家科学基金会长期生态研究（ltter）网络的成员，该网络代表了沿着大陆尺度温度和降水梯度排列的一系列森林和草原。分析将集中在对生态系统科学和发展全球环境问题至关重要的两个目标上：(1)在当前环境制度下解释植被和生态系统过程的现有模式；(2)评估生态系统对环境变率，特别是人为气候变化的潜在响应。该项目将通过进一步阐明“模式-过程”范式应用于植物-人口机制、水关系和营养循环之间的反馈，对生态系统科学做出重大贡献；通过在一个共同的框架内，在广泛的生态系统范围内提供这些关系的综合。该项目还将进一步发展合作科学家之间的网络能力。

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.