Linking Landscape Models of Fire, Vegetation, and Global Climate Change in the Florida Everglades

连接佛罗里达大沼泽地火灾、植被和全球气候变化的景观模型。机构名称：佛蒙特大学DEB-0606801全球变暖可能会导致通过火灾频率和生态系统特征之间的反馈景观的快速转变。 火灾的频率影响景观上植被的组成。这些变化反过来又会影响火灾的频率，因为植被的可燃性差异很大。该项目将调查适应火灾的植物群落如何促进火灾的发生和蔓延，而不耐火的群落则在极端气象条件下抑制火灾。 这项工作将模拟大沼泽地生态系统的行为，在气候强迫使用耦合景观模型的植被和火灾，结合外部气候驱动因素，火灾植被反馈和水文。 将利用过去半个世纪记录的数据，包括厄尔尼诺/南方涛动情况、降水、水文、植被和火灾，对模型进行参数化。 该项目将拓宽我们对气候变化的潜力的理论理解，使生态系统跨越生态阈值，导致生态系统状态的快速变化。 确定这些阈值及其机制将告知土地管理者可能因全球变暖而导致的生态变化，使他们能够更好地保护佛罗里达大沼泽地等宝贵的自然资源。 该项目将支持理论生态学博士后学者的培训。

Linking landscape models of fire, vegetation, and global climate change in the Florida EvergladesPI: Beckage, Brian. Institution: University of Vermont DEB-0606801 Global warming may result in the rapid transformation of landscapes through feedbacks between fire frequency and ecosystem characteristics. The frequency of fire affects the composition of vegetation on the landscape. These changes, in turn, affect the frequency of fire, because vegetation varies greatly in flammability. This project will investigate how fire-adapted plant communities facilitate the initiation and spread of fire, while fire-intolerant communities inhibit fire except under extreme meteorological conditions. This work will model the behavior of the Everglades ecosystem in response to climatic forcing using a coupled landscape model of vegetation and fire that incorporates external climatic drivers, fire-vegetation feedbacks, and hydrology. The model will be parameterized using data recorded over the last half century, including ENSO conditions, precipitation, hydrology, vegetation, and fire. This project will broaden our theoretical understanding of the potential for climate change to move ecosystems across ecological thresholds that cause rapid shifts in the state of the ecosystem. Identification of these thresholds and their mechanisms will inform land managers of ecological changes that are likely to result from global warming, enabling them to better protect valuable natural resources such as the Florida Everglades. This project will support the training of a postdoctoral scholar in theoretical ecology.