Collaborative Proposal: MRA: The influence of climatic dipoles on plant and animal populations at continental scales

气候的变化往往导致世界上某个地区出现异常温暖和干燥的状况，而数千英里外却出现寒冷和潮湿的状况。这些持续和可预测的温度和降雨量波动被称为“气候偶极子”，往往出现在几年或几十年。这种现象的一个众所周知的例子是厄尔尼诺现象，美国南部的潮湿状况与北部的干燥状况有关。大多数生态学研究收集的数据都是局部或区域尺度的。因此，气候偶极子对生态和环境过程的大陆尺度影响基本上没有得到探讨。气候偶极子可以提供对重要现象的洞察力，如动物迁徙，农业和森林生产力，昆虫爆发和疾病的出现。这项研究将使用数千名公民科学家对鸟类运动的长期观察，数十年的树木种子生产记录，以及通过国家生态观测网络（氖）收集的动物种群数量。该项目将与现有的公民科学计划合作并指导其更好地预测气候对动植物的影响。该团队将组织“生态气候学”研讨会，为对气候科学和生态学感兴趣的早期职业科学家提供培训。该研究提出了一种新的时空模式发现方法框架，供气候科学家用于分析变化，以确定北美的气候生态偶极子。最重要的假设是，许多生态现象在大陆尺度上被气候变率的偶极模式所携带。具体问题包括：1）大气环流和气候偶极子是否使树木的种子生产（称为桅杆）和大陆尺度的鸟类入侵同步？2)气候变率的独特模式是否会影响多个分类群（依赖种子的鸟类、小型哺乳动物和蜱类）在间断的氖地点和跨越多个时间滞后的种群动态？3）历史和未来的环境变化如何影响这些气候-生态关系？分析来自项目FeederWatch的三十年数据和最近汇编的数百个站点的树桅杆数据集，该研究将探索使用经验正交函数来了解在快速环境变化期间影响植物和动物群落的气候变化。生态观测网络，如氖和公民科学数据库的信息越来越丰富。采用这些气候科学的分析方法将代表生态研究的一个关键进步。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。

Changes in climate often result in the appearance of unusually warm and dry conditions in one part of the world with cold and wet conditions thousands of miles away. These lasting and predictable fluctuations in temperature and rainfall are known as "climatic dipoles" and often emerge across years or decades. A well-known example of this phenomenon is El Nino, where wet conditions across the southern United States are associated with dry conditions to the north. Most ecological studies collect data at local or regional scales. As a result, the continental-scale effects of climatic dipoles on ecological and environmental processes are largely unexplored. Climatic dipoles may provide insight on important phenomena such as animal migrations, agricultural and forest productivity, insect outbreaks, and the emergence of diseases. This study will use long-term observations of bird movements from thousands of citizen scientists, decades of seed production records in trees, and animal population numbers collected throughout the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). The project will partner with and guide existing citizen science programs to better predict the effects of climate on animals and plants. The team will organize "ecoclimatology" workshops to provide training to early-career scientists interested in both climate science as well as ecology.The research poses a novel framework of methods applied for space-time pattern discovery, used by climate scientists to analyze variability, to identify climate-ecological dipoles across North America. The overarching hypothesis is that many ecological phenomena are entrained at continental scales by dipole modes of climate variability. Specific questions include: 1) do atmospheric circulations and climatic dipoles synchronize seed production in trees (known as masting) and avian irruptions at continental scales?; 2) do unique modes of climate variability affect the population dynamics for multiple taxa (seed-dependent birds, small mammals, and ticks) at disjunct NEON sites and across multiple time lags?; and 3) how might historic and future environmental change influence these climatic-ecological relationships? Analyzing three decades of data from Project FeederWatch and a recently compiled data set of tree masting at hundreds of sites, the research will explore the use of empirical orthogonal functions to understand climate variability impacting plant and animal communities during a time of rapid environmental change. Ecological observatory networks, such as NEON, and citizen science databases are increasingly rich in information. Employing these analytical approaches from climate science will represent a key advance for ecological research.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.