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

该行动资助2021财年NSF生物学博士后研究奖学金，研究基因组，环境和表型之间相互作用的生命规则的综合研究。该奖学金支持将以创新方式为《生活规则》领域作出贡献的研究员的研究和培训。气候变化（以加速的碳排放为中介）和野生动物群落重组（以前所未有的物种引进和丧失速度为中介）是我们现代时代的环境名片。然而，野生动物群落变化与碳循环变化之间的联系很少被提及，尽管越来越多的人认识到野生动物可能控制生态系统与大气之间的碳交换。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，有可能提供一种基于自然的气候解决方案，并更准确地说明系统碳预算中的碳来源和命运。该研究员将培养来自不同背景的下一代科学家（高中、本科和研究生），通过实地和实验室方法、数据科学和碳模型，将野生动物保护与生态系统科学结合起来。这个项目量化了驼鹿种群对加拿大纽芬兰北方森林碳循环的影响。北方森林是大气碳汇，但纽芬兰森林作为碳汇的能力可能受到引入驼鹿数量增加及其对森林生物量和土壤生物地球化学的觅食影响的威胁。该研究将系统地研究驼鹿种群丰度的变化如何与景观尺度驼鹿密度梯度上森林碳储量和排放的变化联系起来。该研究员将量化地上树木生物量中储存的碳，土壤中储存的碳，以及与当地驼鹿数量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通过无人机图像、土壤采样和实验室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。这些见解将用于开发一个将驼鹿密度和景观特征与整个纽芬兰的碳循环联系起来的模型，为景观管理提供空间决策支持工具，以增强生态系统的碳吸收和储存。该研究员将接受土壤与气候科学、景观生态学和数据科学方面的培训，并通过多种在线和面对面的方式向学生提供这些主题的外展服务。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.