Interactions between Rainfall, Nutrient Cycles and Decomposition in Lowland Tropical Rainforests

低地热带雨林降雨、养分循环和分解之间的相互作用

• 批准号: 0515744
• 负责人: Alan Townsend
• 金额: $ 67.5万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-09-15 至 2010-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0515744&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Interactions; between; Rainfall; Nutrient; Cycles

Tropical rain forests exchange more carbon dioxide and water with the atmosphere than any other terrestrial biome, and thus play a major role in climate regulation. Wetter portions of the tropical biome store large amounts of carbon in tree biomass and soils, but those reserves - especially soil carbon - may be sensitive to predicted changes in rainfall. Thus, this project will manipulate the amount of rainfall that reaches soils in a wet Costa Rican rainforest, and test how such changes alter leaf litter and soil carbon decomposition, and the amount of CO2 that is released from the soil surface to the atmosphere. In addition, it will test how nitrogen and phosphorus availability, key nutrients that also vary greatly across the tropical biome, affect the responses to rainfall manipulation. Taken as a whole, the experiments will demonstrate how changes in rainfall in wet tropical forests may affect ecosystem processes that have direct relevance to earth's climate, with a focus on soil carbon storage. The data produced here will improve understanding of how this large soil carbon reservoir may respond to a changing climate, and thus how it might moderate or augment continued climate change. Finally, the project will provide training and education to young scientists in the U.S. and Costa Rica, and will develop an outreach program for Colorado school children.

热带雨林与大气的二氧化碳和水交换比任何其他陆地生物群落都多，因此在气候调节中发挥着重要作用。 热带生物群落的潮湿部分在树木生物量和土壤中储存了大量的碳，但这些储备-特别是土壤碳-可能对预测的降雨量变化敏感。 因此，该项目将控制到达哥斯达黎加潮湿雨林土壤的降雨量，并测试这些变化如何改变落叶和土壤碳分解，以及从土壤表面释放到大气中的二氧化碳量。 此外，它将测试氮和磷的可用性，关键的营养物质，也有很大的不同，在整个热带生物群落，影响降雨操纵的反应。总的来说，这些实验将展示潮湿热带森林降雨量的变化如何影响与地球气候直接相关的生态系统过程，重点是土壤碳储存。 这里产生的数据将提高对这个大型土壤碳库如何应对气候变化的理解，从而了解它如何缓和或增强持续的气候变化。 最后，该项目将为美国和哥斯达黎加的年轻科学家提供培训和教育，并将为科罗拉多的学童制定一项推广计划。