Collaborative Research: RAPID: Forest productivity and expression in a low-emissions present: A RAPID response to the COVID-19 Emissions Reduction Event

在COVID-19大流行期间，州和联邦政策大大限制了人类活动，以保证美国人口的安全。这导致汽车和航空旅行的减少大大减少了大气输入。在排放持续高企的主要大都市地区，史无前例的交通急剧减少正在改变大气，甚至在大陆尺度上也是如此。2019冠状病毒病事件提供了一个独特、短暂和难得的机会，可以研究美国森林如何应对急剧清洁的空气。该奖项将通过研究从遗传和分子水平到森林规模的反应，探索经历了人类运输副产品的北美森林如何作出反应。这项研究将在华盛顿特区市区附近的一个大型森林基地进行，该基地拥有悠久的森林研究历史，毗邻国家生态观测网络（NEON）塔。这些联系为将分子研究扩大到生态系统对减排努力的潜在反应提供了机会。史密森尼环境研究中心（SERC）的教育办公室每年与数千名高中生和他们的老师合作，将结果纳入SERC教育中心的课堂活动中。了解树木和森林生态系统如何对变化的大气作出反应，对于在持续的全球变化下提供地球系统的预测至关重要。该提案提供了一个独特的机会，通过评估如果排放量大幅减少会发生什么，来探索未来政策的潜在后果。该项目为研究基因组、生理、种群、群落、生态系统等层面的影响提供了前所未有的机会，并利用了史密森尼（Forest GEO）、美国林服局（FIA）和美国国家科学基金会（NEON）提供的现有基础设施和数据。该研究将重点关注两种物种（山毛榉和红枫）的基因表达谱，以探索与covid -19前的条件相比，它们是否会在所有大小类别中表现出有利于最大生长的平行变化。这项研究将检验生长季节结束时叶片叶绿素含量如何预测基因表达差异。该研究还将探索处理活性氧应激（ROS）反应、修复和应激信号的基因途径，以及本季和下一生长期生长和繁殖的生理反应。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

State and federal policies have significantly limited human activities to keep the U.S. population safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has resulted in a significant decrease of atmospheric inputs from the reduction in automobile and air travel. The unprecedented and dramatic reduction in traffic in major metropolitan areas where emissions are consistently high is transforming the atmosphere, even at continental scales. The COVID-19 event presents a unique, ephemeral, and rare opportunity to study how forests would respond to dramatically cleaner air in the United States. This award will explore how North American forests that have experienced a life-time of the byproducts of human transportation respond by examining responses from the genetic and molecular levels to the forest scale. The research will be conducted at a large forest plot near the Washington DC metropolitan area with a long history of forest research and adjacent to a National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) tower. These linkages provide opportunities to scale the molecular research to potential ecosystem responses to emissions reduction efforts. The Education Office at Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), which works with thousands of high school students and their teachers every year will incorporate results into classroom activities at the SERC Education Center. Knowing how trees and forested ecosystems respond to a transformed atmosphere is critical for providing projections of the Earth system under ongoing global change. This proposal provides a unique opportunity to explore the potential consequences of future policy by evaluating what could happen if emissions were dramatically reduced. The project provides an unprecedented opportunity to study the impacts from the genomic, physiological, population, community, ecosystem level given the ongoing research at these levels and leveraging existing infrastructure and data provided by the Smithsonian (Forest GEO), US Forest Service (FIA plots), and NSF (NEON). The research will focus on gene expression profiles of two species (beech and red maple) to explore whether they will exhibit parallel shifts favoring maximal growth in all size classes compared to pre-Covid-19 conditions. The research will examine how leaf chlorophyll content at the end of the growing season will predict gene expression differences. The research will also explore gene pathways that deal with reactive oxidative stress (ROS) reactions, repair, and stress signaling and the physiological responses for growth and reproduction for this and next growing seasonThis 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.