LTREB: Effects of Recent Environmental Change on the Pinyon-Herbivore-Mycorrhizal Community of Sunset Crater

LTREB：近期环境变化对日落火山口松树-草食动物-菌根群落的影响

• 批准号: 9615313
• 负责人: Thomas Whitham
• 金额: $ 24.97万
• 依托单位: Northern Arizona University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1997
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1997-03-01 至 2003-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9615313&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: LTREB; Effects; Recent; Environmental; Change

9615313 Whitham Studies of natural perturbations help understand how plants ecologically and/or evolutionarily respond to climate change. Since the eruption of the Sunset Crater in about 1300AD, colonizing plants have had only a few hundred years to adapt to this hotter, dryer, and nutrient poor cinder environment. This LTREB project represents a continuation of a 15 year study on how these environmental stresses have affected pinyon pine and its dependent community members. Compared to trees growing in low stress sandy-loam soils, trees growing in cinders produce less defensive resin, suffer chronic insect outbreaks, and suffer corresponding declines in mycorrhizal mutualists, growth and cone production. This in turn affects birds and mammals dependent upon pinyon seeds for their survival. Associated changes in tree genetics suggest that the selection pressures imposed by this new environment have resulted in genetic adjustments in the plant population. The distributions of dependent mycorrhiza, arthropods, and vertebrates map onto the underlying genetic structure of the plant population. Because the southwest has experienced general warming since the beginning of record keeping and is currently suffering a 100-year record drought, by contrasting Sunset Crater with adjacent less stressed control sites, the PI's can address the question, "Is Sunset Crater an analogue to global climate change and if so, how can it be used to predict the ecological and evolutionary impacts of continuing warming trends?" The continuation of long-term monitoring of individual tress and the associated long-term experiments will provide a clear answer to this important question.

9615313 Whitham自然扰动的研究有助于了解植物如何在生态和/或进化上应对气候变化。自从大约公元1300年日落火山口喷发以来，殖民植物只有几百年的时间来适应这个更热，更干燥，营养贫乏的环境。这个LTREB项目是对这些环境压力如何影响松树及其依赖的社区成员进行的15年研究的延续。与生长在低应力砂壤土中的树木相比，生长在煤渣中的树木产生较少的防御树脂，遭受慢性昆虫爆发，并遭受相应的菌根共生体，生长和球果生产下降。这反过来又影响了依赖松类植物种子生存的鸟类和哺乳动物。树木遗传学的相关变化表明，这种新环境施加的选择压力导致了植物种群的遗传调整。依赖的菌根，节肢动物和脊椎动物的分布映射到植物种群的潜在遗传结构。 由于西南地区自有记录以来经历了普遍的变暖，目前正在遭受100年的创纪录干旱，通过将日落火山口与邻近的压力较小的控制地点进行对比，PI可以解决这个问题，“日落火山口是全球气候变化的模拟物吗？如果是这样，它如何被用来预测持续变暖趋势的生态和进化影响？“对个别树木的长期监测和相关的长期实验将为这个重要问题提供明确的答案。