RCN: INCyTE: Investigating Nutrient Cycling in Terrestrial Ecosystems: Integrating Observations, Experiments, and Models

只有极少数生态系统的肥沃程度足以支持植物的高生产率。 这并不是因为缺乏二氧化碳，因为二氧化碳在大气中的浓度一直在增加。 相反，这是由于土壤中缺乏其他可用养分，特别是氮和磷，造成的生长限制效应。 然而，用于估计植物对大气二氧化碳增加的反应的计算机生态系统模型预测，这种环境变化将导致全球植物生长更快，更丰富。这些模型没有考虑到其他限制性营养物质对植物生长的影响。该项目将汇集实验科学家和计算机建模人员，探索营养素对植物生长的影响，确定营养素供应是否足以促进模型预测的生长，并决定如何在全球计算机模型中最好地代表营养素的影响。通过这一网络进行的研究协调对于确定碳循环可能如何因全球环境变化而发生变化非常重要，对土壤肥力和农业产生重要影响。 该项目将培养多名早期职业科学家，促进多种多样的国际合作，并利用多种科学和社交媒体平台与广大受众互动。拟议的研究协调网络（INCyTE）将汇集两个历史上没有密切互动的社区：地球化学实验者和地球系统建模者。INCyTE的总体目标是提高我们对全球碳（C）循环的营养循环反馈的理解，并整合不同的研究人员，数据以及实验和概念框架，以改善地球系统模型（ESM）中全球陆地C循环的营养相互作用和约束的表现。虽然营养物质（氮、磷等）有可能介导植物对二氧化碳浓度升高的生长反应（并与许多其他全球变化相互作用），但目前只有少数全球模拟模型试图代表这些相互作用和反馈。该项目将：1）确定在理解/代表建模的C-养分反馈和过程的差距; 2）协调一些小规模的，社区为基础的，高通量的实验，以解决特定的假设和确定候选过程进一步关注; 3）使用网络合成和社区为基础的实验数据，以提高模型的养分循环的代表性;和4）采用新的ESM相互比较。从科学角度来看，拟议的工作有可能大大提高预测营养物质是否以及如何限制全球陆地碳循环的能力，并提高对营养物质-碳循环反馈如何影响环境变化的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Very few ecosystems are fertile enough to support high rates of plant productivity. This is not due to lack of carbon dioxide, whose concentration in the atmosphere has been on the increase. Rather, it is due to the growth-limiting effects caused by the lack of other available nutrients in soil, especially nitrogen and phosphorous. Nevertheless, computer ecosystem models used to estimate the response of plants to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide predict that this environmental change will result in more rapid and abundant plant growth globally. Such models fail to incorporate the effects of other limiting nutrients on plant growth. This project will bring together experimental scientists and computer modelers to explore the effects of nutrients on plant growth, determine whether nutrient supplies are adequate to promote the growth predicted by models, and decide how to best represent the effects of nutrients in global computer models. Research coordination via this network is important for establishing how the carbon cycle is likely to change in response to global environmental change, with important implications for soil fertility and agriculture. The project will train multiple early career scientists, foster a number of diverse international collaborations, and engage with broad audiences using multiple scientific and social media platforms.The proposed Research Coordination Network (INCyTE) will bring together two communities that historically have not interacted closely: biogeochemical experimentalists and earth system modelers. The overarching goals of INCyTE are to enhance our understanding of nutrient cycling feedbacks on the global carbon (C) cycle in general, and to integrate different investigators, data, and experimental and conceptual frameworks to improve representation of nutrient interactions and constraints on the global terrestrial C cycle in Earth System Models (ESMs). While nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus and others) have the potential to mediate plant growth responses to elevated carbon dioxide (and interact with a host of other global changes), only a handful of current global simulation models even attempt to represent those interactions and feedbacks. This project will: 1) Identify gaps in understanding/representation of modeled C-nutrients feedbacks and processes; 2) Coordinate a number of small-scale, coummunity-based, high-throughput experiments to address particular hypotheses and identify candidate processes for further attention; 3) Use network syntheses and community-based experimental data to enhance model representation of nutrient cycling; and 4) Employ new ESM inter-comparisons. Scientifically, the proposed work has the potential to vastly increase the ability to predict if and how nutrients may constrain the global terrestrial C cycle and enhance understanding of how nutrient-C cycle feedbacks may influence environmental change.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.