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

自然界正在以许多方式发生变化，威胁着生态系统。一个很大的问题是，这些威胁是否相互作用，其中一些威胁让另一些威胁比预期的要糟糕得多。该项目将研究火灾和栖息地碎片化(将大片森林分割成许多小片森林)这两种威胁对澳大利亚昆虫的相互作用。研究人员将测试小的未焚烧区域的位置如何充当甲虫的避难所(安全空间)，帮助它们在一些被烧毁的碎片中恢复，但在另一些可能不会。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月的一场大火，这场大火烧毁了一个非常大的、长期进行的森林碎片化实验。这场大火提供了一个短暂的机会，可以研究火灾的影响如何与栖息地碎片化的影响相互作用。研究人员将找到并绘制避难所的地图，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烧毁。研究结果将使研究人员能够弄清楚火灾和碎片的影响可能是如何相关的。此外，结果将为火灾风险增加的碎片化森林的管理提供关键信息。相对于森林无脊椎动物巨大的生物多样性和重要的生态系统功能，严重火灾对森林无脊椎动物的影响研究较少。火灾前甲虫生物多样性的长期、连续记录(超过700个物种)，加上现有的将景观划分为栖息地碎片的大规模试验性操作，为研究碎片和火灾可能产生的协同效应提供了难得的机会。这项研究将提供第一批数据，以评估这种对生物多样性丧失和恢复的影响，以及小型避难所的作用。此外，这项对严重火灾后的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碎片化森林系统恢复的驱动因素提供基线。这一奖项反映了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。

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.