Collaborative research: Mechanisms Influencing Seedling Recruitment and Establishment in a Fragmented Amazonian Landscape

热带地区的森林砍伐正在以前所未有的速度继续下去，导致物种丰富的雨林支离破碎。破碎化最常见的后果之一是减少幼苗的建立，特别是在森林林下发现的物种。这项提议有两个目的。首先，Bruna和Uriarte将确定安全地点和种子限制如何相互作用，影响亚马逊林下植物Heliconia acuminata的招募。第二，该项目将确定这些过程在森林碎片中是如何改变的。这些目标将通过实地研究以及创新的空间明确建模框架来解决。尽管有充分的证据表明，在森林碎片中，耐阴植物物种的补充减少，但生境破碎化影响植物补充的机制几乎一无所知。通过增进我们对这些机制的理解，这项工作将有助于改善热带森林的管理和保护工作。此外，本研究提供了一个独特的机会来研究林下草本植物生态学中的一个核心问题，林下草本植物是一组生态关键但明显未被充分研究的植物。最后，它将推进两名少数民族科学家的职业生涯，并为本科生、研究生和博士后研究人员提供支持，以研究亚马逊生态系统的生态学。

Deforestation in the tropics is continuing at rates that lack historical precedent, resulting in the fragmentation of species-rich rain forests. One of the most common consequences of fragmentation is reduced seedling establishment, particularly for species found in the forest understory. This proposal has two objectives. First, Bruna and Uriarte will determine how safe-site and seed limitation interact to influence the recruitment of Heliconia acuminata, an Amazonian understory plant. Second, the project will ascertain how these processes are altered in forest fragments. These objectives will be addressed using field studies coupled with an innovative spatially-explicit modeling framework. Despite ample evidence that the recruitment of shade-tolerant plant species declines in forest fragments, almost nothing is known about the mechanisms by which habitat fragmentation influences plant recruitment. By advancing our understanding of these mechanisms, this work will help improve management and conservation efforts for tropical forests. Furthermore, this study provides a unique opportunity to investigate a central issue in plant ecology with understory herbs, a group of plants that is ecologically critical but conspicuously understudied. Finally it will advance the career of two minority scientists and provide support for undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers to study the ecology of Amazonian ecosystems.