Collaborative Research: Can disturbance history predict plant species responses to environmental change?

我们这个时代最大的挑战之一是预测环境变化将如何改变我们在生态系统中发现的植物和动物类型。在北纬地区，冬天变得更短，雪深减少，气温变化更大。本研究项目使用并继续进行长期的野外调查（65年以上），以确定这些变化的冬季是否影响了草原群落中发现的植物类型。这项工作研究了物种的哪些特征可能使它们最容易消失，以及土地管理活动（如规定的火灾）如何防止它们的消失。项目调查人员将开发课程，培训学生了解生态的复杂性，并将与地方和国家团体一起举办讲习班和网络研讨会，向公众宣传草原生态和保护。总的来说，本研究考察了植物特征如何影响它们的损失和持久性，并确定了如何最好地管理草原和稀树草原，这两个全球受到威胁且具有重要经济意义的生态系统。本研究探讨了植物的功能性状在草地物种对变化的冬季条件和环境干扰的响应和持久性中的作用。利用历史和当前调查的数据，该项目研究了美国东北部草地植物群落在过去65年以上的变化，以及这些变化在多大程度上可以用火灾干扰的频率和气候条件的变化来解释。利用功能性状方法，采用可操作的野外实验来确定物种对干扰（燃烧、割草）、冬季条件（雪深）的反应及其相互作用，物种持久性、建立和群落稳定性。本研究考察了耐寒性作为一种持久性相关性状的重要性，并验证了火种制度通过对耐寒植物的选择和对植物建立和定殖率的影响有利于保护草原多样性的假设。这项工作增加了我们对草原和稀树草原生态系统生态学和管理的理解，并将通过几个在线资源提供功能性状数据。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。

One of the greatest challenges of our time is anticipating how environmental change will alter the types of plants and animals we find within an ecosystem. At northern latitudes, winters have become shorter, snow depth has decreased, and temperatures have become more variable. This research project uses and continues long-term field surveys (65+ years) to determine whether these changing winters have affected the types of plants found within grassland communities. This work examines which characteristics of species may make them most vulnerable to being lost and how land management activities, such as prescribed fires, may prevent their loss. Project investigators will develop courses to train students about ecological complexity, and will develop workshops and webinars with local and national groups to inform the public about grassland ecology and conservation. Overall, this research examines how plant characteristics may influence their loss and persistence and determines how to best manage grasslands and savannas, two globally threatened and economically important ecosystems. This research examines the role that the functional traits of plants play in the responses and persistence of grassland species to changing winter conditions and environmental disturbances. Using data from historic and current surveys, this project examines how grassland plant communities in the North Eastern United States have changed over the past 65+ years and the degree to which these changes are explained by the frequency of fire disturbances and changing climatic conditions. Using a functional traits approach, manipulative field experiments will be used to determine species responses to disturbances (burning, mowing), winter conditions (snow depth), and their interactions, on species persistence, establishment, and community stability. This work examines the importance of freeze tolerance as a persistence related trait and tests the hypothesis that fire regimes are beneficial to preserving grassland diversity through their selection of stress-tolerant plants and influence on plant establishment and colonization rates. This work adds to our understanding of the ecology and management of grassland and savanna ecosystems and would make functional trait data available through several on-line resources.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.