LTER: Biodiversity, Multiple Drivers of Environmental Change and Ecosystem Functioning at the Prairie Forest Border

雪松溪长期生态研究计划旨在了解中西部的草原草原和森林的功能，以及这种功能如何受到人类活动的影响。该研究将大型、重复性好的长期实验与对原生生态系统的长期观察相结合，并利用其结果来开发和测试生态系统动态和功能的理论。这些实验的重点是如何以及为什么本地物种的损失，火灾制度的变化，气候变化，大气二氧化碳浓度升高，以及氮沉积速率的升高会影响草原和森林生态系统的生产力，稳定性和功能。这项研究的结果将有助于为国家和世界面临的一些环境问题提供解决方案，因为全球人口接近90亿或100亿。 一些人类行为正在降低世界各地生态系统提供对人类至关重要的货物和服务的能力。 雪松溪研究解决了人类活动如何改变自然和管理的草原和森林的能力，从大气中去除二氧化碳并将其储存在土壤和植物中，净化地下水，生产可持续的生物燃料，并增加土壤肥力;并寻求这些能力可以得到改善和恢复的方法。该计划将继续其创造性地向更广泛的公众传播结果并为政府官员和机构提供咨询的历史。其标志性的专业发展计划培训K-12教师和学生，2011年包括6000名教师和学生。该网站的教育计划将继续合作，以培训美国原住民学生的教育工作者，并加强与城市，服务不足的学校的接触。来自全国各地的不同本科生以及研究生和博士后研究人员将通过这个高度综合的计划进行培训。

The Cedar Creek Long Term Ecological Research program is designed to understand how the prairie grasslands and forests of the Midwest function and how this functioning may be influenced by human activities. The research combines large, well-replicated, long-term experiments with long-term observations in native ecosystems, and uses the results to develop and test theories of ecosystem dynamics and functioning. The experiments focus on how and why the loss of native species, shifts in fire regimes, climate change, elevated atmospheric CO2, and elevated rates of nitrogen deposition affect the productivity, stability and functioning of prairie and forest ecosystems. The results of this research will help to provide solutions to some of the environmental problems the nation and world face as global population approaches 9 or 10 billion people. Some human actions are decreasing the ability of ecosystems around the world to provide goods and services vital to humanity. Cedar Creek research addresses how human activities alter the ability of natural and managed grasslands and forests to remove carbon dioxide from the atmospheric and store it in soils and plants, purify groundwater, produce sustainable biofuels, and increate soil fertility; and seeks ways that these abilities can be improved and restored. The program will continue its history of creative dissemination of results to the broader public and of advising government official and agencies. Its signature professional development program trains both K-12 teachers and students, and included 6000 teachers and students in 2011. The site's education program will continue partnerships to train educators of Native American students and strengthen engagement with urban, underserved schools. Diverse undergraduate students from across the country together with graduate students and postdoctoral researchers will be trained through this highly integrative program.