RAPID: Using the historic Californian drought to gain a predictive understanding of the effects of severe climatic events on plant communities

RAPID：利用历史性的加州干旱来预测严重气候事件对植物群落的影响

• 批准号: 1439246
• 负责人: Susan Harrison
• 金额: $ 17.06万
• 依托单位: University of California-Davis
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-05-01 至 2016-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1439246&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Using; historic; Californian; drought

Drought in the California Floristic Province has recently reached record-setting severity, with 2013 having the lowest precipitation ever recorded in a calendar year. The proposed study will test predictions about which plant species and plant communities are most vulnerable to severe droughts and which ones are more resistant to drought. This will be done by gathering new data from the sites of five previous studies across California. Each of these previous studies examined how water availability affected plant communities, using either experimental water additions, comparisons of wetter and drier years, or comparisons of geographic locations with differing amounts of rainfall. Each of these studies provided evidence about which characteristics of plant species and communities make them more or less sensitive to water availability. Using the data collected in 2014, the same plant communities previously studied will be compared after versus before the drought, allowing this study to document which species and communities have changed the most in response to the drought. Next, this study will test whether the changes seen after versus before the drought are consistent with predictions based on the five earlier studies. As one example of the expected results, it is predicted that species with small, thick leaves will decline less in abundance than species with broader and thinner leaves, because these characteristics were previously found to predict the sensitivity of plant species to water availability. This research is urgent because effects of the drought can only be quantified by intensive resampling of the five datasets in spring-summer 2014.This study will confirm or reject generalizable predictions about the attributes of terrestrial plant species and communities that render them more or less vulnerable to drought. Severe droughts are expected to worsen with climate change, and so this research may have great potential applications to prediction of plant community composition with climate change. Additionally, the research will involve a female postdoctoral researcher. At the principal study location, the researchers will continue contributing to an outreach program that provides field science learning opportunities to 500 K-12 students per year in an under-served area.

加州植物区的干旱最近达到了创纪录的严重程度，2013年的降水量是历年来最低的。这项拟议中的研究将测试哪些植物物种和植物群落最容易受到严重干旱的影响，哪些植物物种和植物群落对干旱的抵抗力更强。这将通过收集来自加州五个先前研究地点的新数据来完成。这些先前的研究都研究了水的可用性如何影响植物群落，使用实验性的水添加，比较湿润和干燥的年份，或比较不同降雨量的地理位置。 每一项研究都提供了证据，说明植物物种和群落的哪些特征使它们对水的可用性更敏感或更不敏感。利用2014年收集的数据，将之前研究的相同植物群落在干旱前后进行比较，使这项研究能够记录哪些物种和群落在应对干旱时变化最大。 接下来，这项研究将测试干旱前后的变化是否与基于先前五项研究的预测一致。作为预期结果的一个例子，据预测，具有小而厚的叶子的物种将比具有更宽和更薄的叶子的物种在丰度上下降得更少，因为这些特征先前被发现用于预测植物物种对水供应的敏感性。干旱的影响只能通过对2014年春夏5个数据集的密集再分析来量化，因此这项研究是紧迫的。这项研究将证实或拒绝关于陆地植物物种和群落属性的普遍预测，这些属性使它们或多或少地对干旱敏感。随着气候的变化，严重的干旱将进一步加剧，因此这项研究在预测气候变化下的植物群落组成方面具有很大的应用潜力。此外，该研究将涉及一名女博士后研究员。 在主要研究地点，研究人员将继续为一个外展计划做出贡献，该计划每年为服务不足地区的500名K-12学生提供实地科学学习机会。