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

生态系统执行一系列广泛的过程，包括提供清洁的空气、水、作物授粉和肥沃的土壤等造福人类的服务。这些过程依赖于植物、动物和其他生物的不同群落，它们具有各种各样的特征——动植物的特征决定了它们在生态系统中如何相互作用。改变群落的人类活动，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。研究结果将为土地管理者如何使生态系统对自然和社会的效益最大化提供指导。与研究站点管理者的合作将为访问站点的公众提供教育和推广机会，包括课堂实地考察，该项目将培训研究生和本科生在科学实践和交流方面的能力。该项目将研究三种景观尺度管理行动所导致的环境变化对群落和生态系统功能的影响：重新引入大型食草动物（野牛），大型食肉动物的清除，以及在恢复的高草草原上应用规定的火灾。通过将消费者纳入整个食物网的互动中，并扩展到相关的景观规模，它将推进社区-特征-功能关系的知识。研究人员将在两个食物网模块中测量管理行动导致的性状和生态系统功能变化。第一个模块包括植物和食草动物（昆虫和小型哺乳动物）及其通过植物性状和食草动物觅食专业化的变化对初级生产力和凋落物分解的影响，以及食草动物利用各种食物资源的程度（生态位宽度），这是通过稳定同位素测量的。第二个模块是粪便分解者及其通过形态、觅食策略和物候变化对土壤过程（碳氮循环和分解率）的影响。研究结果将揭示群落性状组成如何调节环境背景与生态系统功能之间的关系。最终，这项研究将为操纵消费者群体的物种和特征组成的研究奠定基础。此外，通过在修复后的系统中执行这项工作并与管理人员协同工作，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.