SGER: Collaborative: Mechanisms of Community Re-Assembly After a Catastrophic Fire

2002年夏天，北美西部经历了有史以来最大的森林火灾之一。饼干大火烧毁了俄勒冈州和加利福尼亚州近50万英亩的原始栖息地。该项目将利用大火留下的复制燃烧和未燃烧地点的马赛克，并应用实验方法来解决社区生态学中的一般问题。由于P.I.s在燃烧前收集了该地区植物和蚂蚁群落结构的数据，因此与初始条件相比，他们处于一个独特的位置，可以跟踪群落重组的轨迹。在复制的地点，他们将设置屏障以排除蚂蚁（一种主要的种子传播媒介），并测试对植物群落聚集速度和轨迹的影响，特别是在孤立的沼泽中。这项工作将大大扩展我们对灾难性火灾后蚂蚁群落相互作用和重组的认识。

During the summer of 2002, western North America experienced one of the largest forest fires in recorded history. The Biscuit Fire burned nearly one half million acres of mostly pristine habitats in Oregon and California. This project will exploit the mosaic of replicated burned and unburned sites left by this fire, and apply an experimental approach to address general questions in community ecology. Because the P.I.s had collected pre-burn data on the structure of the plant and ant communities in this area, they are in a unique position to follow trajectories of community re-assembly compared to initial conditions. At replicated sites they will erect barriers to exclude ants, a major seed dispersal agent, and test for effects on rates and trajectories of plant community assembly, especially in isolated fens. This work will significantly extend our knowledge on ant-plant community interactions and re-assembly after catastrophic fire.