OPUS: CRS: The impacts of changing phenology on species, ecological interactions, and conservation

环境变化正在改变季节性事件的时间，例如植物在春天开花或树叶的时候，或者树叶的颜色改变时，或者鸟类在秋天迁徙的时候。这些变化正在改变物种之间的关系--例如植物和传粉者之间，以及它们所吃的鸟类和昆虫之间的关系--并正在影响保护经理用来保护物种的技术。这个项目将综合波士顿大学Primack实验室17年来对植物和动物对环境变化的反应的研究，以及另外30年对植物种群和群落生态学的研究的见解。该综合将解决生态和保护中的关键问题，例如不同的物种、地点和季节性事件如何应对气候变化，以及这些变化可能如何影响保护经理用来保护自然资源的方法。这项综合工作将包括亨利·大卫·梭罗于19世纪50年代在马萨诸塞州康科德对植物开花、成叶和鸟类迁徙的观察，以及在日本和韩国的数十个地点、三大洲的八个植物园和美国两个国家公园的开花和其他季节性活动。研究人员将通过科学和公开演示、媒体采访以及与保护经理的互动来广泛交流这一项目的结果。研究人员还将邀请高中教师和公民科学家参与与这项研究相关的活动。该项目将产生四篇综述论文，探讨和描述：(1)植物物候对环境变化的反应变化和生态关系的潜在破坏；(2)植物园在推进环境变化研究中的作用；(3)对物候资源进行标准化、评估和分析以了解对环境变化的生态反应的最佳实践；(4)将植物对环境变化的反应纳入保护和保护区管理的技术和假设。该项目还将在长期、可搜索的数据档案中公开提供与该项目有关的关键数据集和元数据。这些数据集涵盖了很长一段时间、数十个物种和大量的野外地点，将允许其他研究人员进行进一步的分析，探索物种对环境变化的反应，并将为旨在向高中生和本科生教授数据驱动的生态学和统计学的倡议提供资源。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Environmental change is altering the timing of seasonal events, such as when plants flower or leaf in the spring or when leaf colors change or birds migrate in the fall. These changes are altering relationships between species—such as between plants and pollinators, and between birds and insects that they eat—and are influencing techniques conservation managers use to protect species. This project will synthesize insights from 17 years of research on plant and animal responses to environmental change, and an additional 30 years of research on plant population and community ecology by the Primack Lab at Boston University. The synthesis will address key questions in ecology and conservation, such as how different species, locations, and seasonal events are responding to changes in climate and how these changes might affect methods that conservation managers use to protect natural resources. The synthesis work will include observations of plant flowering and leafing and bird migrations made by Henry David Thoreau in the 1850s in Concord, Massachusetts and flowering and other seasonal events at dozens of sites in Japan and South Korea, across eight botanical gardens on three continents, and at two US national parks. The researchers will communicate the results of this project widely through scientific and public presentations, media interviews, and interactions with conservation managers. The researchers will also engage high school teachers and citizen scientists in activities related to this research. This project will result in four synthesis papers that will explore and describe: (1) variation in plant phenological responses to environmental change and potential disruptions in ecological relationships; (2) the role of botanical gardens in advancing environmental change research; (3) best practices for standardizing, evaluating, and analyzing phenological resources to understand ecological responses to environmental change; and (4) techniques and hypotheses for incorporating plant responses to environmental change into conservation and protected area management. The project will also make key data sets and metadata associated with this project publicly available in long-term, searchable data archives. These data sets—which cover long periods of time, dozens of species, and numerous field sites—will allow other researchers to carry out further analyses exploring species responses to environmental change and will provide a resource for initiatives aimed at teaching data-driven ecology and statistics to high school students and undergraduates.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.