Collaborative Research: Do Microenvironments Govern Macroecology?

一个由气候科学家、生态学家、水文学家和植物地理学家组成的跨学科小组将研究美国西部山区的环境条件如何变化，以及气候变化的速度如何决定树木的生存和迁移速度。目前的气候数据和模型过于粗糙，无法准确预测使植物群落得以存在和持续的更精细的空间变化。此外，人们对树苗和树木生长的定殖如何在当地气候中有所不同以及这如何影响区域尺度上的树木种群动态知之甚少。该项目将当地气候、树木建立和树木生长的实地研究与区域气候建模和描述植物种群和火灾动态的空间过程的模型结合起来。该项目将把环境和植物过程从个别树木的当地尺度连接到区域一级的整个树木种群。基于实地数据和理论的模型将预测加州重要的橡树和松树的分布和丰度的未来变化，这是一个地形复杂、生态多样的地区。考虑到森林在碳循环、木材生产、水资源和生物多样性方面的作用，了解和预测气候变化对树种的影响非常重要。该项目旨在修正气候变化导致的灭绝风险，完善对树木迁移和跟踪快速变化能力的理解，并改进对经济上重要的树木如何应对气候变化和野火风险相关变化的预测。至少有三名博士生和三名博士后学者将接受培训，帮助培养下一代科学家应对未来的挑战。该项目还涉及政府和其他非大学研究人员，以加强与公私土地管理人员、决策者和非政府组织的联系。这将确保成果转化为对公共和私人森林资源进行更好的适应性管理。

How environmental conditions vary locally in mountainous regions of the western United States and how rapid climate change determine the survival and migration rates of trees will be studied by an interdisciplinary team of climate scientists, ecologists, hydrologists and plant geographers. Current climate data and models are too coarse to accurately predict the finer scale spatial variation that enables plant communities to exist and persist. Moreover, there is scant knowledge of how colonization by tree seedlings and tree growth differ among local climates and how that might influence tree population dynamics at the regional scale. This project couples field studies of local climate, tree establishment and tree growth with regional climate modeling and models that depict spatial processes of plant population and fire dynamics. This project will bridge environmental and plant processes from the local scale of individual trees to whole tree populations at the regional level. Models based on field data and theory will predict future changes in the distribution and abundance of important oak and pine trees in California, a topographically complex and ecologically diverse region. Understanding and forecasting climate change effects on tree species is important, given the role of forests in carbon cycling, timber production, water resources and biodiversity. This project aims to revise extinction risk due to climate change, refine understanding of the ability of trees to migrate and track rapid changes, and improve predictions of how economically important trees will respond to climate change and associated changes in wildfire risk. At least three Doctoral students and three Post-Doctoral scholars will be trained to help prepare the next generation of scientists to tackle future challenges. The project also involves governmental and other non-university researchers to strengthen linkages to public and private land managers, policy makers and non-Government organizations. This will ensure that results will be translated to better adaptive management of public and private forest resources.