Ecosystem Response to Disturbance from Decadal to Millennial Timescales: Support for the PROBE Workshop - at Konza Prairie Biological Station near Manhattan, Kansas - April 2012

甲虫爆发、灾难性火灾、风暴和干旱等干扰的频率、严重程度和范围的增加引起了对生态系统健康的广泛关注。由于干扰的后果可能需要很多年才能显现出来，如果没有跨越几十年到几千年的生态系统过程的基线记录，评估其潜在影响是困难的。两组科学家，生态系统生态学家和古生态学家，研究这些过程，但他们通常在不同的时间尺度上研究事件和后果。每个小组的研究人员将聚集在一起，在PROBE（生物地球化学环境的古重建）研讨会上描述过去的生态系统，在那里，包括沉积物记录、树木年轮记录、土壤记录和长期仪器测量在内的几个数据集将被检查，以评估生态系统过程（特别是碳和氮循环）如何响应干扰。PROBE研讨会将使社会和更大的科学界受益。该研讨会将包括早期职业参与者，为培训年轻科学家如何进行21世纪所需的协作和跨学科研究提供机会。一些参与者已经开发了专门的技术，如木炭分析和稳定同位素解释，这些技术的知识将在研讨会上分享。最后，一些与会者正在与政府机构和非政府组织合作，提供有关干扰影响的信息，特别是虫害暴发和野火管理。讲习班将提供有助于管理人员，特别是那些试图制定处理干扰战略的管理人员的资料。

Increased frequency, severity, and extent of disturbances such as beetle outbreaks, catastrophic fires, windstorms, and droughts, have caused widespread concern about ecosystem health. Because the consequences of disturbance can take many years to play out, evaluation of their potential impacts is difficult without a baseline record of ecosystem processes that spans decades to a few thousand years. Two groups of scientists, ecosystem ecologists and paleoecologists, study these processes, but they typically examine events and consequences on different time scales. Researchers from each group will be brought together to characterize past ecosystems in a PROBE (Paleo Reconstructions Of Biogeochemical Environments) workshop, where several datasets, including sediment records, tree-ring records, soil records, and long-term instrumental measurements will be examined to assess how ecosystem processes (particularly carbon and nitrogen cycling) have responded to disturbance. The PROBE workshop will benefit society and the larger scientific community. The workshop will include early career participants, providing opportunities to train young scientists how to conduct collaborative and interdisciplinary research that is needed for the 21st century. Several participants have developed specialized techniques such as charcoal analysis and stable isotope interpretation and knowledge of these techniques will be shared at the workshop. Finally, several participants are working with government agencies and NGOs to provide information about the effects of disturbance, especially insect outbreaks and wildland fire management. The workshop will provide information that will be helpful to managers, particularly those trying to develop strategies for dealing with disturbances.