NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2021: Integrating megafauna community reassembly with ecosystem carbon cycling

这一行动为NSF 2021财年生物学博士后研究奖学金提供了资金，综合研究调查了支配基因组、环境和表型之间相互作用的生命规则。该奖学金支持研究员的研究和培训，这些研究员将以创新的方式为生活规则领域做出贡献。气候变化(由加速的碳排放调节)和野生动植物群落重组(由前所未有的物种引进和丧失速度调节)是我们现代的环境名片。然而，尽管越来越多的人认识到野生动物可能控制着生态系统和大气之间的碳交换，但很少有人将野生动物群落的变化与碳循环的变化联系起来。该项目将展示野生动物管理如何在北方森林生态系统中调节碳的吸收和储存，潜在地提供基于自然的气候解决方案，并在系统的碳预算中更准确地考虑碳的来源和命运。该研究员将利用野外和实验室方法、数据科学和碳建模，将野生动物保护与生态系统科学相结合，培养来自不同背景的下一代科学家(高中、本科生和研究生)。该项目量化了驼鹿种群对加拿大纽芬兰北部森林碳循环的影响。北方森林是大气碳的汇，但纽芬兰森林作为碳汇的能力可能会受到引进驼鹿数量增加及其对森林生物量和土壤生物地球化学的影响的威胁。这项研究将系统地研究驼鹿种群丰富度的变化如何与整个景观规模的驼鹿密度梯度的森林碳储量和排放的变化相联系。这位研究员将量化储存在树木生物量中的碳、储存在土壤中的碳，以及与当地驼鹿丰度和当地景观生物物理特征相关的土壤碳排放。碳循环的这三个方面将分别使用无人机图像、实验室中的土壤采样和碳分析以及定制的碳排放检测传感器进行测量。这些数据将全面描述驼鹿对碳储存和排放的影响。这些见解将被用来开发一个模型，将驼鹿密度和景观特征与整个纽芬兰的碳循环联系起来，为景观管理提供空间决策支持工具，以加强生态系统的碳吸收和储存。该研究员将接受土壤和气候科学、景观生态学和数据科学方面的培训，并通过多个在线和面对面的场所向学生提供这些主题的拓展。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。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2021, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the Fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. Climate change (mediated by accelerated carbon emissions) and wildlife community reassembly (mediated by unprecedented rates of species introduction and loss) are environmental calling cards of our modern era. However, the connection between changes to wildlife communities and changes in the carbon cycle is rarely drawn, despite growing recognition that wildlife may control carbon exchange between ecosystems and the atmosphere. This project will demonstrate how management of wildlife can mediate uptake and storage of carbon in a boreal forest ecosystem, potentially offering a nature-based climate solution, and more accurately account for sources and fates of carbon in the system’s carbon budget. The Fellow will train the next generation of scientists (high school, undergraduate and graduate) from diverse backgrounds by integrating wildlife conservation with ecosystem science using field and laboratory methods, data science, and carbon modeling. This project quantifies impacts of moose populations on carbon cycling in the boreal forest of Newfoundland, Canada. Boreal forests are a sink for atmospheric carbon, but Newfoundland’s forest’s capacity as a carbon sink may be threatened by rising populations of introduced moose and their foraging impacts on forest biomass and soil biogeochemistry. The study will systematically examine how variation in moose population abundances links to changes to forest carbon storage and emissions across a landscape-scale moose density gradient. The Fellow will quantify carbon stored aboveground in tree biomass, carbon stored in soil, and the soil carbon emissions in relation to local moose abundance and local biophysical features of the landscape. These three aspects of carbon cycling will be measured with drone imagery, soil sampling and carbon analyses in the laboratory, and custom carbon-emissions detecting sensors, respectively. The data will holistically describe moose impacts on carbon storage and emissions. These insights will be used to develop a model relating moose density and landscape features to carbon cycling across Newfoundland to provide a spatial decision-support tool for landscape management to enhance ecosystem carbon uptake and storage. The Fellow will receive training in soil and climate science, landscape ecology, and data science as well as providing outreach to students on these topics through multiple online and in-person venues.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.