Collaborative Research: Fire and Vegetation Heterogeneity in Time and Space

生态系统管理需要了解森林火灾的生态效应如何与更缓慢、更微妙的过程（如演替和土壤发展）相互作用，从而产生景观尺度的植被模式。研究这些相互作用需要一个长期的视角，因为结果会在几个世纪后显现出来，并受到气候变率的影响。该项目的主要目标是改进古生态学方法，以记录过去1000年来威斯康星州西北部45万公顷沙地平原上的火灾和植被空间格局的变化。该项目将为生态研究和管理目标提供视角，并将让两所州立大学和一所文理学院的学生参与跨学科的教育体验。结果将与威斯康星州自然资源部和契卡梅贡-尼科莱国家森林共享，他们正在恢复生态系统过程和结构，以保护沙质平原上的稀有物种和群落。

Ecosystem management requires understanding how the ecological effects of forest fire interact with slower, more subtle processes such as succession and soil development to generate landscape-scale vegetation patterns. A long time perspective is required to study these interactions because the results manifest themselves over centuries, and are affected by climate variability. The primary objective of this project is to refine paleoecological methods to document changes in spatial patterns of fire and vegetation over the last 1000 years in a network of sites across a 450,000 ha sand plain in northwestern Wisconsin. The project will provide perspective for ecological studies and management goals and will involve students at two state universities and one liberal arts college in an interdisciplinary educational experience. Results will be shared with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, who are restoring ecosystem processes and structure to protect rare species and communities on the sand plain.