Do spatial traits (geography) or species traits better explain vulnerability and resilience of plants to external threats?

该项目确定了植物生物多样性中最脆弱的组成部分，反过来说，这些组成部分对生境丧失的相互作用的威胁最有弹性，这些威胁是通过土地使用变化和城市化以及环境变异和野火制度的相关变化造成的。根据物种的先天特征（物种特征）和与威胁有关的自然发生地点（地理或空间特征），确定赋予物种脆弱性或复原力的因素的一般性，是该项目以及地理和空间科学的智力贡献。这项研究的结果允许物种和生态系统的优先顺序，并确定管理和保护植物多样性的位置。该项目将在加州大学滨江（UCR）进行，这是一所位于美国社会经济和文化最多样化地区之一的西班牙裔服务机构。PI将利用加州大学河滨分校现有的STEM教育计划，通过CalTeach项目吸引本科生进入当地的K-12教室，在那里他们将引入空间科学和模型，作为理解地理概念、生态原则和紧迫保护问题的框架。（植物志）与这些威胁的关系，以及它们的物种特征。植物的寿命可能很长或很短（红木树与罂粟），逃避栖息地的破碎和丧失，因为它们的生态位将它们置于不适合发展的位置，或者它们可能具有允许它们在火灾后恢复种群的特性（火刺激种子发芽，或从地下部分重新发芽）。在不断变化的环境中，植物只能代际迁移（迁移），主要是通过种子传播远离威胁。该项目确定了空间特征（地理学）与物种特征的一般方面，赋予或多或少的脆弱性植物在全球变化下，在未来世纪人口增长和土地利用的变化。PI使用模拟建模来预测各种植物物种的种群增长或下降，这些植物物种在其干扰响应和其他物种特征（生命形式：树木，灌木，草本植物;火灾响应;和形态特征）及其地理分布（沿海，山区和沙漠分布）方面存在差异，以确定其对威胁的脆弱性。他们利用现代回归和机器学习方法开发和使用空间上明确的火灾风险和物种地理学统计模型，并利用这些模型预测不同土地使用和环境情景下的空间上明确的变化。PI使用COMPADRE植物矩阵数据库中的数据构建植物种群模型，并从TRY植物性状数据库中提取物种性状。该项目的重点是加州植物区系省的生物多样性，但确定的趋势将广泛适用于整个美国西部，那里的水有限的生态系统受到日益增加的环境变化和野火的强烈影响。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知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

This project identifies the elements of plant biodiversity that are most vulnerable and, conversely, most resilient to the interacting threats of habitat loss, via land-use change and urbanization, as well as environmental variability and related changes in wildfire regimes. Identifying generalities in the factors that confer vulnerability or resilience to species based on their innate characteristics (their species traits) and where they naturally occur (their geography or spatial traits) in relation to threats, is the intellectual contribution of this project and to geography and the spatial sciences. Results from this study permit a prioritization of species and ecosystems and identify locations for management and conservation of plant diversity. This project will be conducted at the University of California Riverside (UCR), a Hispanic-serving institution located in one of the most socio-economically and culturally diverse regions in the United States. The PIs will leverage existing STEM education initiatives at UCR to engage undergraduates in local K-12 classrooms through the CalTeach program, where they will introduce spatial science and models as a framework for understanding geographic concepts, ecological principles and pressing conservation issues.The vulnerability of a plant species to threat depends on their distribution (biogeography) in relation to these threats, as well as their species traits. Plants may be long or short lived (redwood trees versus poppies), escape habitat fragmentation and loss because their ecological niche places them in locations undesirable for development, or they may have traits that allow them to recover their populations following fire (fire-stimulated seed germination, or resprouting from underground parts). In a changing environment, plants can only move (migrate) away from threats intergenerationally, mainly via seed dispersal. This project identifies the general aspects of spatial traits (biogeography) versus species traits that confer more or less vulnerability to plants under global change in the coming century as human populations grow and land-use changes. The PIs use simulation modeling to project the population growth or decline for a wide range of plant species that differ in their disturbance-response and other species traits (life form: trees, shrubs, herbs; fire-response; and morphological traits) and their biogeography (coastal, mountain and desert distributions) to identify generalities regarding their vulnerability to threats. They develop and use statistical models of spatially explicit fire risk and species biogeography using modern regression and machine learning methods and use those models to project spatially explicit changes under different land-use and environmental scenarios. The PIs construct plant population models using data from the COMPADRE Plant Matrix Database and will extract species traits from the TRY Plant Trait Database. This project focuses on the biodiversity of the California Floristic Province, but trends identified will be broadly relevant throughout the entire western U.S. where water-limited ecosystems are strongly impacted by increasing environmental variability and increasing wildfire.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.