LTREB: Drivers of temperate forest carbon storage from canopy closure through successional time

对森林的干扰，如伐木或野火，通常会导致生态系统中植物和土壤的碳和养分的大量损失。几乎所有的森林都在某种程度上从这种干扰中恢复过来，无论是自然造成的还是人为造成的。对森林在受到干扰后恢复其原始量的碳和养分所需时间的了解还不完整，也不了解随着森林年龄的增长，重新生长的植物、恢复的土壤和气候的年复一年变化如何相互作用来控制恢复。该项目利用密歇根大学生物站长期存在的森林研究小区，弄清楚森林结构的变化、森林的碳和氮含量以及气候变化如何随着时间的推移共同影响树木的生长速度、氮的保留以及碳的捕获和储存在森林中。科学家和学生将定期测量1936年、1948年、1954年、1980年和1998年被砍伐和焚烧的五种森林的树木类型、树干大小和质量、树叶排列方式、土壤中的碳氮量和其他因素，因此今天的树龄从15岁到115年不等。附近的几片更古老的森林也将被取样。这将使该项目将美国北部、加拿大、欧洲和亚洲具有广泛代表性的森林干扰、气候和生态联系起来。该项目将让学生和森林管理人员参与部分研究，并将结果应用于实际的森林管理。本科生将帮助设计和进行定期的树木和土壤属性的实地测量。研究结果将用于学生夏季在野外考察站上的一般生态学和森林生态系统课程。本科生和研究生也将能够使用这些地块和其他数据来进行他们自己的研究项目。该小组还将主持实地考察，并为州和联邦机构以及当地保护组织的森林管理人员举办研讨会。

Disturbances to forests, such as logging or wildfires, typically lead to large losses of carbon and nutrients from both the plants and soils of the ecosystem. Virtually all forests are in some state of recovery from such disturbances, whether caused naturally or by humans. Knowledge of the time required for a forest to recover its original amounts of carbon and nutrients after a disturbance is not complete, nor is an understanding of how regrowing plants, recovering soils and the year to year variation in climate interact to control recovery as a forest ages. This project takes advantage of long existing research plots in forests at the University of Michigan Biological Station to figure out how changes in forest structure, carbon and nitrogen contents of the forests, and variations in climate act together through time to influence how fast trees grow, nitrogen is retained, and carbon is captured and stored in forests. Scientists and students will make regular measurements of the types of trees, their stem sizes and mass, their patterns of leaf arrangement, the amounts of carbon and nitrogen in soils, and other factors in five forest that were cut and burned in 1936, 1948, 1954, 1980, and 1998 and so today range from 15 years to 115 years old. Several nearby much older forests will also be sampled. This will let the project link disturbances, climate and ecology for forests that are broadly representative of those across the northern United States, Canada, Europe and Asia.This project will involve students and forest managers in portions of the research and in the application of results to actual forest management. Undergraduate students will help design and carry out regular field measurements of tree and soil properties. Results will be used in general ecology and forest ecosystem courses taken by students at the field station in the summer. Both undergraduate and graduate students will also be able to use the plots and other data to conduct their own research projects. The team will also host site visits and conduct workshops for forest managers in state and federal agencies, as well as those in local conservation groups.