Environmental Variability and Forest Pattern: A Comparison of Eastern and Western Landscapes

9652656自然地点特征、生物过程和人类影响之间的城市相互作用扰乱了我们预测生态系统对环境变化反应的能力。由于这些复杂性，在资源管理和缓解所需的时间尺度上，影响评估的相关方法可能无关紧要。这项研究将阐明森林对环境约束的响应机制，并将这些响应从林分扩展到景观。将对四个截然不同的地区进行实地研究：太平洋西北部、内华达山脉、东北部和东南部。我们将使用林分和景观尺度的模型来探索这些森林对模拟的气候变化的敏感性。将在所有地点使用一个通用的建模框架，以提供一种明确的、结构化的方法来评估不同地点之间的森林反应差异。这项研究的结果将为瞬时森林对气候变化的反应的环境控制提供新的现场和区域尺度的见解。

9652656 Urban Interactions among physical site features, biological processes, and human influences confound our ability to predict ecosystem response to environmental change. Because of these complications, correlational approaches to impact assessment may be irrelevant at the time scales required for resource management and mitigation. This study will elucidate the mechanisms of forest response to environmental constraints, and scale these responses from stands to landscapes. Field studies will be conducted for four contrasting regions: the Pacific Northwest, the Sierra Nevada, the Northeast, and the Southeast. We will explore the sensitivity of these forests to simulated changes in climate using stand- and landscape-scale models. A common modeling framework will be used across all sites to provide an explicit, structured method for assessing differences in forest response among sites. The results of this study will provide new site- and regional-scale insights into the environmental control of transient forest responses to climatic change.