Collaborative research: Remote sensing of foliar chemistry to reconstruct the genealogy of canopy trees in a Neotropical rain forest.

该项目将调查热带森林不同地点树木之间的叶片化学变化是由其母树是谁决定的还是由当地环境条件的差异决定的。在巴拿马巴罗科罗拉多岛（Barro Colorado Island， BCI）的热带雨林中，同一物种的单株树木在叶子的化学成分和DNA上都有所不同。该项目旨在开发新技术，利用这种变化从空中绘制森林中树木的谱系图。研究人员将首先通过收集每个物种的DNA信息，直接确定三个冠层物种中哪些树木是其他树木的后代。接下来，DNA的差异将与树叶的七种化学性质有关，这些化学性质可以通过成像光谱仪（卡内基原子系统）的高分辨率观测来检测，该光谱仪设计用于测量物种丰富的热带雨林中的生物多样性和树叶化学。最后，在更大范围内对该物种的单个树木的化学性质进行航拍，可以用来检测树木的遗传谱系，而不必直接收集样本。除了解决？先天vs后天？问：该项目将寻求提供一种新的工具，利用遥感来确定森林中树木的遗传谱系，这是迄今为止很少实现的大规模遗传细节。该项目通过利用先进的机载遥感技术提高了解整个大型景观的生物多样性的能力，有助于发展研究和教育基础设施。接触这些技术将有助于为未来几代学者在科学和自然资源管理领域的职业生涯做好准备。

This project will investigate whether variation in leaf chemistry between trees in different locations in a tropical forest is determined by who their parent trees were or by differences in local environmental conditions. Individual trees of the same species in the tropical rain forest on Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama, differ in the chemical composition of their leaves as well as in their DNA. This project aims to develop new techniques that use this variation to map the genealogy of the trees in a forest from the air. Researchers will first directly determine which trees in each of three canopy species are descended from which others for a number of trees by collecting information on the DNA of each species. Next, differences in DNA will be related to seven chemical properties of the leaves that can be detected from high-resolution observations by an imaging spectrometer (the Carnegie AToMS system) designed to acquire measurements of biological diversity and foliar chemistry in species-rich, tropical rain forests. Finally, aerial images of these chemical properties of individual trees of the species over a wider area will be used to detect genetic lineages of trees without having to collect samples directly. In addition to addressing the ?nature vs. nurture? question, the project will seek to provide a new tool for using remote sensing to identify the genetic lineages of the trees in a forest, a large-scale level of genetic detail rarely achieved to date.The project contributes to the development of infrastructure for research and education by improving capacity for understanding biological diversity throughout large landscapes using advanced airborne remote sensing. Exposure to these technologies will help to prepare future generations of scholars for careers in science and natural resource management.