ETBC: Collaborative Research: Quantifying the Effects of Large-Scale Vegetation Change on Coupled Water, Carbon, and Nutrient Cycles: Beetle Kill in Western Montane Forests

ETBC：合作研究：量化大规模植被变化对耦合水、碳和养分循环的影响：西部山地森林中的甲虫死亡

• 批准号: 0910731
• 负责人: Brent Ewers
• 金额: $ 20.44万
• 依托单位: University of Wyoming
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-10-01 至 2012-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0910731&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: ETBC; Collaborative; Research; Quantifying; Effects

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Quantifying the Effects of Large-Scale Vegetation Change on Coupled Water, Carbon and Nutrient Cycles: Beetle Kill in Western Montane ForestWe are quantifying how rapid, extensive changes in forest structure and composition associated with Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB) infestation of western montane forests affect the coupling of water, carbon, and nitrogen cycles. MPB infestation and associated fungal pathogens radically change ecosystem structure by killing host trees, altering surface energy and water partitioning, reducing carbon uptake, and putting organic matter into soil on short and long time scales. The widespread extent of this disturbance presents a major challenge for governments and resource managers who must respond to the changes, yet lack a predictive understanding of how these systems will respond to the disturbance over various temporal and spatial scales. This disturbance allows us to test emerging theories of direct and indirect effects of vegetation change on coupled biogeochemical cycles following a disturbance that initially changes only the amount of living biomass while leaving soil hydrologic and chemical characteristics unchanged. By working at sites with different levels of MPB impact, we are evaluating how the dramatic loss of tree function both directly (i.e. transpiration and carbon fixation) and indirectly (i.e. snow capture, redistribution, and surface energy balance) affects water, carbon and nitrogen cycling. Our work is organized around two, broad questions that require both an interdisciplinary approach and close integration of observation and modeling. How do changes in vegetation structure associated with MPB alter the partitioning of energy and water? And How do these changes in energy and water availability affect local to regional scale biogeochemical cycles? We have assembled a diverse team of biogeochemists, ecologists, hydrologists, and atmospheric scientists to address these questions using measurements, modeling tools, and conceptual approaches from each discipline. Our approach includes intensive, coordinated hydrological, biogeochemical, and ecological observations designed to quantify the internal coupling of water, carbon, and nutrient cycling, as well as how these processes are expressed in both land surface-atmosphere exchanges and catchment solute export. These observations are closely integrated with two process models, one from the landsurface community and one from the catchment community, to evaluate our current understanding of how vegetation change alters coupled cycles. To extend our work beyond the relatively short time-scale of our observations, we coordinate with several ongoing projects, including the Boulder Creek CZO and the Niwot Ridge LTER.By quantifying both the biological and physical controls that forest vegetation has on water and biogeochemical cycles, our project will both improve our basic understand of the coupling between water, energy, carbon, and nitrogen. Through coordination with land surface and catchment modeling communities we will incorporate this knowledge into the broader community. Our educational activities build on successful efforts at all institutions, while coordination with land and water resource managers will ensure our knowledge is transferred to the applied science community.

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。大尺度植被变化对水、碳和养分耦合循环的量化影响：西部山地森林甲虫的死亡我们正在量化与山松甲虫（Mountain Pine Beetle， MPB）入侵相关的森林结构和组成的快速、广泛变化如何影响水、碳和氮循环的耦合。MPB感染及其相关真菌病原体通过杀死宿主树木、改变表面能量和水分分配、减少碳吸收以及在短时间和长时间尺度上将有机质带入土壤，从根本上改变生态系统结构。这种干扰的广泛程度对政府和资源管理者提出了重大挑战，他们必须对变化做出反应，但对这些系统如何在不同的时间和空间尺度上对干扰做出反应缺乏预测性的理解。这种干扰使我们能够测试新兴的理论，即植被变化对耦合生物地球化学循环的直接和间接影响，这些影响是在干扰最初只改变了活生物量的数量，而保持土壤水文和化学特征不变的情况下发生的。通过在不同MPB影响程度的地点工作，我们正在评估树木功能的巨大损失是如何直接（如蒸腾和碳固定）和间接（如雪捕获、再分配和地表能量平衡）影响水、碳和氮循环的。我们的工作围绕两个广泛的问题进行组织，这些问题既需要跨学科的方法，也需要观察和建模的紧密结合。与MPB相关的植被结构变化如何改变能量和水的分配？这些能源和水的可用性变化如何影响局部到区域尺度的生物地球化学循环？我们组建了一个由生物地球化学家、生态学家、水文学家和大气科学家组成的多元化团队，利用测量、建模工具和来自各个学科的概念方法来解决这些问题。我们的方法包括密集的、协调的水文、生物地球化学和生态观测，旨在量化水、碳和养分循环的内部耦合，以及这些过程如何在陆地表面-大气交换和流域溶质输出中表达。这些观测结果与两个过程模型紧密结合，一个来自陆地表面群落，一个来自集水区群落，以评估我们目前对植被变化如何改变耦合循环的理解。为了将我们的工作扩展到相对较短的观测时间之外，我们与几个正在进行的项目进行协调，包括博尔德溪CZO和尼沃特岭LTER。通过量化森林植被对水和生物地球化学循环的生物和物理控制，我们的项目将提高我们对水、能量、碳和氮之间耦合的基本理解。通过与陆地表面和流域建模社区的协调，我们将把这些知识纳入更广泛的社区。我们的教育活动建立在所有机构的成功努力的基础上，而与土地和水资源管理者的协调将确保我们的知识被转移到应用科学界。