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

0087214Canham飓风代表了北美东北部温带森林和加勒比群岛热带森林的主要自然扰动。过去二十年来，加勒比地区发生的一系列破坏性飓风刺激了大量关于风扰动对热带森林影响的研究。最一致的教训之一是，热带森林的反应可以惊人地迅速，在数年或更短的时间内就能恢复。这表明飓风对热带森林的扰动远小于对温带森林的扰动。尽管在这些风暴之后产生了大量的文献，但飓风对热带森林和温带森林的结构和动态的相对重要性仍存在争议。拟议的LTER跨站点研究的最一般目标是跟进在SGER资助下启动的一个项目，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关于飓风扰动制度对温带和热带森林物种多样性、群落动态和生态系统结构影响的一系列假设。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的兴趣不如对探索未来风暴强度和频率的广泛变化的后果的兴趣。本研究将利用飓风对两个LTER站点的生态影响的丰富的实证研究。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。提出的模型将有五个基本子模型。五个子模型中的每一个都将与新的实证研究或对现有LTER数据集的新分析紧密联系在一起，以提供必要的参数值。除了为比较温带和热带森林的扰动动力学提供一个综合平台外，经验表明，新模型将在指导这些地点的新实证研究中发挥重要作用。

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.