LTER Cross-Site: Models as Tools for Synthesis of the Effects of Hurricanes on Temperate and Tropical Forests

0087214坎汉姆飓风是北美东北部温带森林和加勒比群岛热带森林的主要自然干扰。过去20年来加勒比地区发生的一系列毁灭性飓风促使人们对风的扰动对热带森林的影响进行了大量研究。最一致的经验之一是，热带森林的反应可以非常迅速，在几年或更短的时间内就可以恢复，这表明飓风对热带森林的干扰远远小于温带森林。尽管在这些风暴之后产生了大量的文献，但飓风对热带森林与温带森林的结构和动态的相对重要性仍有待讨论。 拟议的LTER跨地点研究的最一般目标是跟踪在SGER资助下启动的一个项目，以开发加勒比飓风扰动后森林动态的SORTIE模型，并使用该资助产生的模型来解决飓风扰动制度对物种多样性、群落动态、以及温带和热带森林的生态系统结构。考虑到气候变化可能会改变未来飓风频率和强度的模式，这项研究对记录过去风暴的影响并不感兴趣，而是探索未来风暴严重程度和频率的广泛变化的后果。这项研究将利用丰富的经验研究的生态影响的飓风在两个LTER网站。与SORTIE以前的研究一样，基本方法将是将实地研究和新的数据分析方法与模型开发紧密联系起来。拟议的模型将有五个基本的子模型。五个子模型中的每一个都将与新的实证研究或对现有长期对比试验数据集的新分析紧密联系起来，以提供必要的参数值。除了提供一个综合平台，比较温带和热带森林的干扰动态，经验表明，新的模式将发挥重要作用，指导新的实证研究在这些网站。

0087214Canham Hurricanes represent the dominant natural disturbance in both temperate forests of northeastern North America and the tropical forests of the Caribbean islands. A series of devastating hurricanes in the Caribbean in the past two decades has stimulated an enormous amount of research on the effects of wind disturbance on tropical forests. One of the most consistent lessons has been that the responses of tropical forests can be astonishingly swift, with recovery occurring on time scales of years or less. This suggests that hurricanes represent far less of a perturbation to tropical forests than to temperate forests. Despite the extensive body of literature generated in the wake of these storms, the relative importance of hurricanes for the structure and dynamics of tropical versus temperate forests is open to debate. The most general objective of the proposed LTER cross-site research is to follow up on a project initiated under SGER funding to develop a SORTIE model for forest dynamics following hurricane disturbance in the Caribbean, and to use the resulting model from that funding to address a broad suite of hypotheses on the effects of hurricane disturbance regimes on species diversity, community dynamics, and ecosystem structure in temperate and tropical forests. Given the likelihood that climate change will alter future patterns of hurricane frequency and intensity, this research is not as interested in documenting the effects of past storms as exploring the consequences of a broad range of variation in future storm severity and frequency. This research will take advantage of the wealth of empirical research on the ecological effects of hurricanes at two LTER sites. As in previous research with SORTIE, the basic approach will be to tightly link field studies and new methods of data analysis with model development. The proposed model will have five basic sub-models. Each of the five sub-models will be tightly linked to new empirical research or new analyses of existing LTER datasets to provide the necessary parameter values. Besides providing an integrated platform for comparison of disturbance dynamics in temperate versus tropical forests, experience suggests that the new model will play a significant role in guiding new empirical research at each of these sites.