SGER: Using Management as an Experiment to Quantify the Effects of Patch Size and Plant Diversity on an Oak Woodland Ecosystem

自然资源开采后的土地恢复是许多行业的法定任务，但如何高效、有效地实现恢复目标仍存在许多未解决的问题。该提案利用了一种罕见的情况，即工业需要将原生植被恢复到以前开采的土地上，这与生态研究人员的兴趣相吻合，他们对测试生物多样性对恢复生态系统功能的重要性感兴趣。麦克劳克林保护区（250公顷）正由霍姆斯特克矿业公司从活跃的金矿转变为加州大学的研究站，该公司将在未来几年内花费50多万美元种植本地灌木和树木。这种规模的恢复为实施解决基础和应用问题的长期研究创造了独特的机会。这个SGER项目将有助于建立一个大规模的、长期的实验，研究灌木林和栎林植物群落的物种多样性和空间结构对土壤发育、植物竞争、动物群落和物种入侵的影响。这种对树木和灌木的大规模操作是独一无二的，将为社区和恢复生态学的研究和教育提供持久的机会。

Restoration of land exploited for natural resources is a legal mandate for many industries, yet there are many unresolved questions about how to meet restoration goals efficiently and effectively. This proposal capitalizes on a rare situation in which the needs of industry to restore native vegetation to a previously mined tract of land, mesh with the interests of ecological researchers interested in testing the importance of biodiversity to restored ecosystem function. The McLaughlin Reserve (250 ha) is being transformed from active gold mine into a University of California research station by the Homestake Mining Company, which will spend in excess of $500,000 over the next several years to plant native shrubs and trees. This scale of restoration creates a unique opportunity to implement a long-term study that addresses basic and applied issues. This SGER project would help create a large-scale, long-term experiment examining the effects of species diversity and spatial structure of chaparral and oak woodland plant communities on soil development, plant competition, animal communities, and species invasions. This scale of manipulation with trees and shrubs is unique and will produce a lasting opportunity for both research and education in community and restoration ecology.