Long-Term Ecological Research at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest (LTER7)

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Climate change forecasts for the Pacific Northwest portend drought, decreased snow packs, and increased wildfire. Predictions for how Pacific Northwest ecosystems will respond to climate change face both scientific and social challenges. First, observed rates of climate change in this region vary in both space and time. Second, forest governance systems face conflicting pressures to provide timber, restore ecological processes, maintain biodiversity, and facilitate adaptation of forests to climate change. The goal of this long-term project is to identify the mechanisms that determine how forested mountain ecosystems respond to changes in climate, land-use, and their interactions. Over the next six years, research will focus on determining how intermittent, spatially variable flows of air, water, nutrients, organisms, and information may reduce or accentuate the effects of regional and global climate change and land use in mountain ecosystems. Simultaneously, researchers will examine how humans and institutions make decisions that affect forest governance. These approaches in combination will engage the public, resource managers, and policymakers in studies of changing social networks influencing forest landscapes and conservation ethics analyses of arguments used in forest governance. Collaborations with arts and humanities will enhance public literacy about science, demonstrate the value of long-term ecological research, and convey the strong sense of place necessary to improve the well being of individuals in society. The project will continue education, outreach and STEM development for K-12, undergraduate, and graduate students and teachers as well as the public, with explicit emphasis on enhancing participation of women, people with disabilities, and under-represented minorities.The project addresses the central question of how climate, natural disturbance, and land use as controlled by forest governance interact with biodiversity, hydrology, and carbon and nutrient dynamics in a forested ecosystem. Research will use the lens of "connectivity" to evaluate and characterize spatial and temporal patterns and processes in the old-growth temperate forests, streams, and montane meadows of the mountain landscape of the Andrews Forest. Analyses of long-term climate and hydrology records and short-term mechanistic studies will investigate patterns and drivers of air and water flow in the landscape to assess how temperature, moisture, and associated fluxes of carbon and nutrients in forested mountain ecosystems are connected to or decoupled from regional and global climate. Analyses of long-term vegetation records combined with short-term studies of phenology and organism movement will examine the implications of timing of trophic connections and landscape connectivity for community structure and function in forests and montane meadows. Long-term studies of stream ecosystems and short-term experiments will test how stream community structure and function depend on network-level connectivity. Researchers will study how perceptions of the landscape influence societal expectations, social networks, and social movements, and examine the relationship between the arguments underpinning forest policy and the validity and soundness of those arguments. Research on the changing history of relations between Andrews Forest science, federal forest policymaking, and federal forest management along with the implications of that change for ecosystem function will contribute to theories regarding the role of social networks in governance and landscape transformation, and the functioning of social-ecological systems.