RAPID: Synergistic effects of habitat fragmentation and climate-change driven megafire on biodiversity in a large-scale experiment

RAPID：大规模实验中栖息地破碎化和气候变化驱动的特大火灾对生物多样性的协同影响

• 批准号: 2051752
• 负责人: Kendi Davies
• 金额: $ 20万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-12-01 至 2022-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2051752&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Synergistic; effects; habitat; fragmentation

The natural world is changing in many ways that threaten ecological systems. A big question is whether the threats interact, with some making others much worse than otherwise expected. This project will examine the interaction of two threats, fire and habitat fragmentation (the breaking up of large forests into many small forest fragments), on insects in Australia. Researchers will test how the location of small unburned areas may act as refugia (safe spaces) for beetles, helping them recover in some burned fragments but perhaps not in others. Without nearby refugia, impacts of fire may be especially bad. The project will take advantage of a huge fire in January 2020 that burned through a very big and long-running forest fragmentation experiment. The fire has provided a fleeting opportunity to study how effects of fire may interact with those of habitat fragmentation. Researchers will find and map refugia, relate them to fragment size and habitat, and estimate how many species were wiped out by the fire. Results will allow researchers to figure out how impacts of fire and fragmentation may be related. Also, results will critically inform the management of fragmented forest under increased fire risk. Relative to their enormous biodiversity and importance in ecosystem function, the impact of severe fire on forest invertebrates is poorly studied. A long, continuous record of beetle biodiversity (over 700 species) before the fire, together with the existing large-scale experimental manipulation of the landscape into habitat fragments, provides a rare opportunity to study possible synergistic effects of fragmentation and fire. The study will provide the first data to evaluate such effects on biodiversity loss and recovery, and the role of small refugia. Additionally, this study of initial conditions and ecosystem trajectory after a severe fire will provide a baseline for long-term study of the drivers of recovery in fragmented forest systems impacted by extreme events that are becoming more common.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.

自然界正在以多种方式发生变化，威胁着生态系统。一个大问题是，这些威胁是否会相互作用，其中一些威胁会让另一些威胁比预期的更严重。该项目将研究火灾和栖息地破碎化（大森林分裂成许多小森林碎片）这两种威胁对澳大利亚昆虫的相互作用。 研究人员将测试小型未燃烧区域的位置如何作为甲虫的避难所（安全空间），帮助它们在一些烧毁的碎片中恢复，但在其他烧毁的碎片中可能不会。如果附近没有避难所，火灾的影响可能会特别严重。该项目将利用 2020 年 1 月发生的一场大火，这场大火烧毁了一项非常大规模且长期进行的森林破碎实验。这场火灾提供了一个短暂的机会来研究火灾的影响如何与栖息地破碎化的影响相互作用。研究人员将找到并绘制保护区地图，将它们与碎片大小和栖息地联系起来，并估计有多少物种被大火消灭。结果将使研究人员能够弄清楚火灾和碎片的影响如何相关。此外，研究结果将为火灾风险增加的破碎森林的管理提供重要信息。相对于其巨大的生物多样性和在生态系统功能中的重要性，严重火灾对森林无脊椎动物的影响的研究很少。火灾发生前对甲虫生物多样性（超过 700 种）的长期、连续记录，加上现有的大规模实验将景观变成栖息地碎片，为研究碎片化和火灾可能产生的协同效应提供了难得的机会。该研究将提供第一批数据来评估这种对生物多样性丧失和恢复的影响，以及小型保护区的作用。此外，这项对严重火灾后初始条件和生态系统轨迹的研究将为长期研究受日益常见的极端事件影响的支离破碎的森林系统的恢复驱动因素提供基线。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用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。