EAGER: The ecosystem consequences of management disturbances: examining the community-trait-function relationships of consumers in a restored grassland

生态系统进行广泛的过程，包括提供清洁空气、水、作物授粉和肥沃土壤等造福人类的服务。这些过程依赖于植物、动物和其他具有各种特征的有机体的不同群落--植物和动物的特征决定了它们在生态系统中如何相互作用。改变社区的人类活动，如生态系统退化和恢复，有可能改变生态系统过程。该项目将研究恢复草原的管理行动如何塑造动植物群落的物种和特征组成，以及这些物种驱动的生态系统过程。这些成果将指导土地管理者如何最大限度地发挥生态系统对自然和社会的好处。与研究地点管理人员的合作将为访问该地点的公众提供教育和外联机会，包括课堂实地考察，该项目将对研究生和本科生进行科学实践和交流方面的培训。该项目将研究三个景观规模的管理行动引起的环境背景变化对社区和生态系统功能的影响：重新引入巨型食草动物(野牛)，清除大型捕食者，以及在恢复的高草草原应用规定的火。它将通过将消费者包括在跨越整个食物网的互动中并扩展到相关的景观规模来促进对社区-特征-功能关系的了解。研究人员将在两个食物网模块中测量管理行动导致的特征和生态系统功能变化。第一个单元包括植物和食草动物(昆虫和小型哺乳动物)及其对初级生产力和凋落物分解的影响，通过改变植物特性和食草动物的觅食专门化，以及通过稳定同位素衡量食草动物利用各种食物资源的程度(生态位宽度)。第二个模块是粪便分解者，以及它们通过形态、觅食策略和物候的变化对土壤过程(碳和氮循环和分解速率)的影响。研究结果将揭示群落的特征组成如何在环境背景与生态系统功能之间的关系中起中介作用。最终，这项研究将为操纵消费者群体的物种和特征构成的研究奠定基础。此外，通过在恢复的系统中执行这项工作，并与管理人员协调，它有助于关闭研究人员和自然资源管理人员之间的循环。

Ecosystems carry out a wide range of processes, including services that benefit people such as providing clean air, water, pollination of crops, and productive soils. These processes depend on diverse communities of plants, animals, and other organisms with a wide variety of traits - characteristics of plants and animals that shape how they interact in ecosystems. Human activities that shift communities, such as ecosystem degradation and restoration, have the potential to alter ecosystem processes. This project will examine how management actions in a restored grassland shape the species and trait compositions of plant and animal communities and the ecosystem processes that these species drive. Results will provide guidance on how land managers can maximize the benefits of ecosystems to nature and to society. Collaborations with the research site managers will allow education and outreach opportunities to members of the public who visit the site, including class field trips, and the project will train both graduate and undergraduate students in the practice and communication of science. This project will examine the community and ecosystem function consequences of changes in environmental context resulting from three landscape-scale management actions: reintroduction of megaherbivore grazers (bison), large predator removal, and application of prescribed fires in restored tallgrass prairies. It will advance knowledge of community-trait-function relationships by including consumers in interactions spanning entire food webs and expanding to a relevant landscape scale. Researchers will measure both traits and ecosystem function changes resulting from management actions in two food web modules. The first module includes plants and herbivores (insect and small mammal) and their impacts on primary productivity and litter decomposition through changes in plant traits and herbivore foraging specialization and the degree to which herbivores use a wide variety of food resources (niche breadth) as measured by stable isotopes. The second module is dung decomposers and their effects on soil processes (carbon and nitrogen cycling and decomposition rates) through changes in morphology, foraging strategies, and phenology. Results will reveal how the trait composition of communities mediates the relationship between environmental context and ecosystem function. Ultimately this research will lay the groundwork for studies manipulating the species- and trait-composition of consumer communities. Further, by performing this work in a restored system and in concert with managers, it helps close the loop between researchers and natural resource managers.