Collaborative Research: Nutritional Landscapes of Arctic Caribou: Observations, Experiments, and Models Provide Process-Level Understanding of Forage Traits and Trajectories

合作研究：北极驯鹿的营养景观：观察、实验和模型提供了对饲料特性和轨迹的过程级理解

• 批准号: 1602898
• 负责人: Glen Liston
• 金额: $ 25.19万
• 依托单位: Colorado State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1602898&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Nutritional; Landscapes; Arctic

Terrestrial Arctic systems are the result of complex interactions between climate, vegetation, herbivores, and humans that must be studied together to understand their functional
traits. While low temperatures and short-growing seasons limit plant growth, enough plant biomass exists to support herds of migratory caribou, on which Alaska Natives depend. Any changes in the plants at the base of the food web can have cascading consequences for herbivores and human consumers and their interactions. Today, the Arctic system is in the midst of change resulting in new vegetation assemblages, changes in the nutritive value of plant tissues, and ultimately in the diets of migratory caribou and the humans that depend on them. This project examines the nutritional landscape of the Central Arctic Caribou Herd as a unifying concept, describing the nutritional landscape as caribou available protein (CAP) and caribou available energy
(CAE), integrative forage quantity measures that reflect biomass, species composition, plant
C and N content, digestibility, and secondary compounds. The core objectives are gaining understanding of the drivers of spatial and temporal patterns in the amounts of CAP and CAE across the tundra; caribou use of this nutritional landscape; how the amounts of CAP and CAE will differ in the future under likely climate scenarios and long-term experiments, and the interactions between caribou and Native communities. The broader impacts of this study involve several groups of Alaskan stakeholders, including: harvesters of the North Slope community of Nuiqsut, the worldwide caribou community, and students at multiple stages of education. The project will embed a team member with hunters in Nuiqsut,
and develop an educational scientific documentary on the caribou - Alaska Native interactions for
high school students. The group plans to employ village students and undergraduates affiliated with the Alaska Native Science
and Engineering Program to assist with experimental work and vegetation collection at Toolik Lake. This research is significant to ecologists from the Circumarctic Rangifer Monitoring
and Assessment Network, dedicated
to caribou conservation and sustainable management in the US, Canada, and Scandinavia, who will use the data to consider how a suite of climate change scenarios affect herd fecundity and population dynamics. The intellectual merit of this project stems from the merging of five elements to understand Arctic
System function and response to climate change: (1) A landscape-scale assessment of plant species, soil and plant C and N, digestibility, and secondary compounds that will be used
to calculate the amounts of CAP (kg m-2) and CAE (kJ m-2); (2) analysis of how closely caribou foraging is tied to the nutritional landscape throughout the year; (3) analysis of samples
from an existing long-term winter - summer climate change experiment to provide data on how
CAP and CAE will differ in the future; (4) prediction of future nutritional landscapes and
caribou foraging interactions; and (5) observations of Alaska Native hunter harvesting and attributes
of the system that determine their spatial and temporal patterns. These project components will enable an integrative understanding of how an important herbivore, caribou, interact with a landscape that is rapidly changing. This research: (1) examines the Arctic System from primary production to secondary consumers and the
influence of climate change across multiple trophic levels; (2) applies broadly by examining
the most abundant large herbivore and its food sources, both of which are distributed throughout
the Arctic; and (3) integrates experimental, observational, and modeling approaches to understanding ecological systems and climate change. The integration of observation, experimental data
and modeling to describe current and forecast future nutritional landscapes is intended to provide a
mechanistic understanding of Arctic System function and transform the understanding
of climate-vegetation-caribou-subsistence hunter interactions.

陆地北极系统是气候，植被，食草动物和人类之间必须一起研究以了解其功能性特征的复杂相互作用的结果。尽管低温和短期生长季节限制了植物生长，但存在足够的植物生物量来支持阿拉斯加当地人所依赖的迁徙驯鹿。食品网络底部的植物的任何变化都会对草食动物和人类消费者及其相互作用产生级联后果。如今，北极系统正在变化中，导致了新的植被组合，植物组织的营养价值的变化以及最终依赖于它们的迁徙驯鹿和人类的饮食。 This project examines the nutritional landscape of the Central Arctic Caribou Herd as a unifying concept, describing the nutritional landscape as caribou available protein (CAP) and caribou available energy
(CAE), integrative forage quantity measures that reflect biomass, species composition, plant
C and N content, digestibility, and secondary compounds.核心目标是了解整个苔原上帽和CAE量的空间和时间模式的驱动因素。驯鹿使用这种营养景观；在可能的气候场景和长期实验以及驯鹿与本地社区之间的相互作用下，将来的CAP和CAE数量将在未来如何差异。这项研究的更广泛影响涉及几个阿拉斯加利益相关者，包括：Nuiqsut North Slope社区的收割者，全球驯鹿社区以及多个教育阶段的学生。该项目将在Nuiqsut的猎人中嵌入一个团队成员，并在高中生中开发有关驯鹿 - 阿拉斯加本地互动的教育科学纪录片。该小组计划雇用乡村学生和本科生，隶属于阿拉斯加本地科学＆＃8232;和工程计划，以协助Toolik Lake的实验工作和植被收集。这项研究对来自狭窄的护林员监测的生态学家和评估网络至关重要，并致力于美国，加拿大和斯堪的纳维亚半岛的驯鹿保护和可持续管理，他们将使用这些数据来考虑一系列气候变化风光的套件，以如何影响Herd Fecundenties和Herd Fecundentity and Idynics。该项目的智力优点源于五个要素的合并，以了解北极的系统功能和对气候变化的反应：（1）对植物物种，土壤和植物C和N的景观尺度评估，土壤和植物C和N，二次化合物以及将使用的次要化合物将使用＆＃8232; cap（Kg M-2）和CAE（KJ M-2）和CAE（KJ M.-2） （2）分析全年与营养景观相关的驯鹿觅食程度； （3）分析样品的分析＆＃8232;根据现有的长期冬季 - 夏季气候变化实验，提供了有关如何在未来的CAP和CAE的数据； （4）预测未来的营养景观和埃＃8232;驯鹿的互动； （5）对决定其空间和时间模式的系统的阿拉斯加本地猎人收获和属性的观察。这些项目组成部分将使人们能够综合了解重要的草食动物驯鹿如何与正在迅速变化的景观相互作用。这项研究：（1）研究了从初级生产到二级消费者的北极系统，以及“气候变化在多个营养水平上的影响； （2）通过检查＆＃8232;最丰富的大型草食动物及其食物来源广泛适用，它们均分布在北极;北极； （3）整合了了解生态系统和气候变化的实验，观察和建模方法。观察，实验数据的整合以及描述当前和预测的未来营养景观的建模旨在提供对北极系统功能的机械理解，并改变人们对气候 - 蔬菜 - 气候 - 蔬菜 - 加里布尔 - 核心 - 苏联猎人的互动的理解。