OPUS: Integrating long-term demographic data, field experiments, and mathematical models to understand mangrove forest dynamics

这个研究项目将综合对加勒比海沿岸红树林种群和群落生态进行了25年实地调查的结果。红树林是世界各地热带和亚热带海岸的主要植被类型。它们支持多样化、高产的食物网，并提供宝贵的生态系统服务，如渔业物种的苗圃栖息地、候鸟的越冬栖息地、保护海岸线免受风暴潮的影响，以及大量碳的地下储存。尽管这些生态系统具有相当大的价值，但红树林栖息地受到沿海开发、污染和转向水产养殖的严重威胁。本研究项目的一个中心目标是提高我们预测红树林生态系统对自然和人为干扰的反应的能力；这些知识将有助于指导恢复这些极有价值的生态系统的努力。实现这一目标的办法是，通过分析长期实验和观测研究的数据以及森林动态数学模型的预测，确定这些生态系统反应的一般机制。有关这些系统丰富的生物学信息，以及本研究和该地区类似研究的发现，将在pi撰写的关于新热带红树林群落生态学的书中与其他生态学家、他们的学生和业余博物学家分享。该项目还将涉及本科生助理，维持研究者长期致力于培训年轻科学家并指导他们从事科学事业。这项研究的第一阶段将完成对控制研究森林结构和动态的因素的长期观测和实验性实地调查所得数据的全面分析。通过监测1993年建立的六个森林地块中个别标记的树木的命运，记录了森林的人口和组成。1995年和1999年开展的两个长期野外实验对这些观测数据进行了补充，测试了竞争和草食对光隙再生和物种沿潮汐梯度的空间分布的独立和相互作用。这些分析结果将与红树林动态的空间显式模型综合起来，该模型将从森林样地和田间试验中收集的树木人口统计数据作为参数化。模式模拟将预测一系列环境情景下森林组成和年龄/空间结构的变化。该项目的最后阶段将致力于设计和编写一本关于新热带红树林群落生态学的图文并茂的书籍。这将是该地区首个此类项目。在关注这些系统的丰富生物学和塑造其结构和动态的关键生态过程的同时，本书将强调红树林生态系统面临的严峻环境，并讨论保护和可持续管理红树林的方法。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research project will integrate the results of a 25-yr field investigation of the population and community ecology of mangrove forests along the Caribbean coast. Mangroves are a predominant vegetation type of tropical and subtropical coasts around the world. They support diverse, highly productive food webs, and provide valuable ecosystem services such as nursery habitat for fishery species, wintering habitat for migratory birds, protection of coastlines from storm surge, and below-ground storage of large stocks of carbon. Despite the considerable value of these ecosystems, mangrove habitats are severely threatened by coastal development, pollution, and conversion to aquaculture. A central goal of this research project is to enhance our ability to predict the responses of mangrove ecosystems to both natural and human-caused disturbances; this knowledge will help guide efforts to restore these highly valuable ecosystems. This goal will be achieved by identifying general mechanisms underlying these ecosystem responses through analyses of data from long-term experimental and observational studies, and from the predictions of a mathematical model of forest dynamics. Information about the rich biology of these systems, and the findings of this and similar studies in the region will be shared with other ecologists, their students, and amateur naturalists in a PI-authored book on the ecology of neotropical mangrove forest communities. This project will also involve undergraduate student assistants, maintaining the investigator's long commitment to training young scientists and guiding them to careers in science.The first phase of this research will complete comprehensive analyses of data from long-term observational and experimental field investigations of the factors that control the structure and dynamics of the study forests. Forest demography and composition have been documented by monitoring the fates of individually marked trees in six forests plots that were established in 1993. These observational data are complemented by two long-term field experiments, initiated in 1995 and 1999, that test the independent and interactive effects of competition and herbivory on light gap regeneration and the spatial distributions of species along the tidal gradient. The results of these analyses will be synthesized with a spatially-explicit model of mangrove forest dynamics, parameterized with tree demographic data collected from the forest plots and field experiments. Model simulations will predict changes in forest composition and age/spatial structure under a range of environmental scenarios. The final phase of the project will be devoted to designing and writing a photo-illustrated book on the ecology of neotropical mangrove forest communities. It will be the first of its kind for the region. While focusing on the rich biology of these systems and key ecological processes that shape their structure and dynamics, the book will highlight the dire circumstances faced by mangrove ecosystems and discuss approaches to their protection and sustainable management.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.