Maintaining Curated View Databases

这个项目将开发数据库工具，以提高一个新兴的跨学科领域--森林树冠研究--的研究人员收集、分析、连接和归档数据的能力。森林树冠领域目前处于青春期，正迅速引起科学界、公众和政策制定者的兴趣。对树冠的协调研究是从共享的研究地点开始的，但树冠研究人员认为，他们回答新出现的问题的主要障碍是缺乏数据库工具，使他们能够以协调的方式收集数据并将数据联系起来，以便进行比较研究。以前由美国国家科学基金会赞助的合作研究开发了初步的数据库工具和数据集，基于风河树冠鹤研究设施对森林树冠结构/功能关系的初步研究。这些工具包括多PI全球气候变化研究的数据模型、元数据数据库和基于网络的项目清单。该项目通过收集存档和最新数据来进一步开发这些工具，以检验不同结构多样性的针叶林梯度中树冠结构/功能关系的假设，从结构非常复杂(演替后期的原始林)到结构非常简单(年轻的单一种人工林)。这些工具将扩展到包括巴拿马和澳大利亚另外两种森林类型的不同结构成分的森林，这两种类型的森林都有树冠起重机设施，并支持合作树冠研究。安德鲁斯实验森林研究所、俄勒冈州立大学森林科学数据库中心、史密森热带研究所和热带森林研究中心的研究人员将作为合作的一部分参与该项目。该项目将通过研讨会和在现有国际树冠网络的基础上开发一个树冠研究的虚拟中心来传播研究成果。研究活动将纳入本科生和研究生的机会。

This Project will develop database tools that will enhance the ability of researchers in one emerging and interdisciplinary field -- forest canopy studies -- to collect, analyze, link, and archive their data.The field of forest canopies is currently in its adolescence, and is growing rapidly in terms of interest from the scientific community, the general public, and policy makers. Coordinated study of the canopy is beginning at shared research sites, but canopy researchers view their major obstacle to answer emerging questions as the lack of database tools that would allow them to gather their data in harmonized ways and to link their data to enable comparative studies.Previous NSF-sponsored collaborative research developed preliminary database tools and datasets, based on pilot studies of forest canopy structure/function relationships at the Wind River Canopy Crane Research Facility. These tools included data models, a metadata database, and a web-based project inventory for a multi-PI global climate change study.This project develops these tools further by gathering archived and current data to test hypotheses on canopy structure/function relationships in a gradient of coniferous forests of differing structural diversity, ranging from very structurally complex (the late-successional primary forests) to very structurally simple (young monospecific plantation forests). These tools will be extended to incorporate forests of different structural constituents from two other forest types in Panama and Australia, both of which have a canopy crane facility and support collaborative canopy research. Researchers at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, the Forest Science Database Center at Oregon State University, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and the Centre for Tropical Forest Studies will participate as part of a collaboration.The project will disseminate findings through workshops and through the development of a "virtual center" of canopy research, building upon theexisting International Canopy Network which is housed at Evergreen State. Research activities will be incorporated into opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students.