Collaborative Research: Geomorphic Control of the Lowland Tropical Forest Nitrogen Cycle

热带雨林是地球上最重要和最受威胁的生物群之一。它们承载着地球上很大一部分生物多样性-S生物多样性，而且它们每年与大气交换的碳和能量比任何其他主要的陆地生态系统类型都要多。这种碳和能量交换受到营养限制的性质和强度的强烈调控，通常是由于氮、磷或这两种元素的组合造成的。热带森林在控制氮和磷循环的关键方面的因素在各个尺度上也存在巨大的异质性，使得对养分限制的大规模预测变得非常困难。这项工作将针对低地热带森林氮循环的一个很大程度上尚未探索但可能是重要驱动因素：地貌的作用。研究人员将结合生态系统生态学、生物地球化学、地貌学和遥感技术来评估区域尺度上氮和磷循环的变化，重点是地形地形和演化的变化如何影响养分限制。该项目还包括一项首创的伙伴关系，将生物地球化学的实地技术与使用和解释来自包括激光和光学传感器的平台的机载遥感数据相结合。这项研究的最终目标是产生更好的热带生态系统功能预测模型。该项目的成果将有助于提高预测地球上最关键但最不为人所知的生物群之一S未来可能发生变化的能力，从而有助于实现各种管理和保护目标。这个项目还将有助于扩大国际和平协会长期的外展和公共交流记录。它将包括与科罗拉多大学环境新闻中心(CEJ)及其斯克里普斯环境奖学金计划的新合作伙伴关系，其中将有一名斯克里普斯研究员(访问专业记者)？嵌入？关于这个项目。CEJ团队还将包括一名新闻学硕士学生。CEJ将提供多个交流平台，以加强这种伙伴关系；其中包括屡获殊荣的视频播客(CU科学更新)和学生运营的多媒体杂志Boulder Stand。从传统杂志风格的文章到视频播客，再到现场博客和社交媒体的使用，一系列沟通策略将通过对每个参与机构的班级以及Aldo Leopold领导层和谷歌科学传播网络成员的正式调查进行评估。最后，该项目使用的原子遥感系统直接导致了将用于新的霓虹灯空中观测平台的遥感系统，该项目所做的工作将有助于实现将霓虹灯空中观测平台数据与一套解决大陆尺度生态动力学问题的地面和模型方法相结合的霓虹灯目标。

Tropical forests are one of Earth?s most important and threatened biomes. They house a large fraction of the planet?s biodiversity, and they exchange more carbon and energy with the atmosphere each year than any other major terrestrial ecosystem type. This carbon and energy exchange is strongly regulated by the nature and strength of nutrient limitation, typically due to shortages of nitrogen, phosphorus or a combination of both elements. Tropical forests also contain enormous heterogeneity at every scale in the factors that control key aspects of nitrogen and phosphorus cycling, rendering large-scale predictions of nutrient limitation very difficult. This work will target a largely unexplored but potentially important driver of the lowland tropical forest nitrogen cycle: The role of geomorphology. The investigators will combine techniques from ecosystem ecology, biogeochemistry, geomorphology and remote sensing to assess variations in both nitrogen and phosphorus cycling across a regional scale, with a focus on how changes in landform topography and evolution affect nutrient limitation. The project also includes a first-of-its-kind partnership that combines on-the-ground techniques in biogeochemistry with the use and interpretation of airborne remote sensing data derived from a platform that includes both laser and optical sensors. The ultimate goal of the research is to produce better predictive models of tropical ecosystem function. The project results will contribute to an improved ability to predict how one of Earth?s most critical but least-understood biomes may change in the future, thus aiding a variety of management and conservation goals. This project will also help extend a long record of outreach and public communication by the PI's. It will include a new partnership with the University of Colorado Center for Environmental Journalism (CEJ) and its Scripps Environmental Fellowship Program, where a Scripps Fellow (a visiting professional journalist) will be ?embedded? with the project. The CEJ team will also include a Masters student in journalism. The CEJ will provide access to multiple communication platforms to enhance this partnership; these include an award-winning video podcast (CU Science Update), and The Boulder Stand, a student-run multi-media magazine. A suite of communication strategies, ranging from traditional magazine-style articles, to video podcasts, to live blogging and the use of social media, will be assessed via formal surveys of classes at each participating institution, as well as of members of the Aldo Leopold Leadership and Google Science Communication networks. Finally, the AToMS remote sensing system used in this project led directly to those to be used in the new NEON Airborne Observing Platforms (AOP), and the work done in this project will help inform NEON goals of integrating AOP data with a suite of ground- and modeling-based approaches to resolving ecological dynamics at continental scales.