CAREER: Interactive Effects of Land Cover and Climate Change on Forest Carbon Sequestration: Integration of Research and Education to Advance Fundamental Science and Inclusivity

该奖项全部或部分由2021年美国救援计划法案（公法117-2）资助。温带森林比任何其他陆地生态系统都能从大气中吸收更多的二氧化碳，因此在减缓气候变化速度方面发挥着关键作用。然而，温带森林也是世界上最支离破碎的森林生物群落。城市化和农业扩张造成的森林砍伐造成了树木生长条件空间梯度大的异质景观。森林边缘的树木比森林内部的树木生长得更快，但受到高温和干旱等极端天气的负面影响更大。解释为什么树木生长在破碎的森林比在完整的森林中受到气候压力的负面影响更大的机制仍然未知。科学界对气候如何影响树木生长和森林碳固存的理解主要是基于对远离森林边缘的森林内部生态系统的研究。过去对内陆森林的关注限制了我们对受破碎化影响的温带森林的碳循环的理解。本研究结合野外试验和模拟研究，探讨森林片断化和气候对树木生长和森林碳汇的交互作用。该项目旨在改变我们对未来温带森林在气候和土地覆盖不断变化的世界中固碳能力的看法，从而为减缓气候变化战略提供信息。这项工作与旨在解决纳入环境生物学的主要障碍和改善学者与利益相关者之间沟通的举措相结合，包括让少数民族学生和高中教师参与研究，并与学者，教育工作者和森林管理人员举办研讨会。拟议工作的目标是发展一个机械的理解森林破碎化和气候对森林碳固存的相互作用的影响，以及这些相互作用在调节人类主导的景观碳平衡中发挥的作用。这些目标将通过建立一个新的实验来实现，以操纵降水制度（即，环境降水，高降水，干旱）在边缘影响和内部温带阔叶林。该实验还将利用自然发生的气温随时间的变化，探讨森林破碎化和水的可用性在森林碳固存对过热的反应中的作用。从这个实验产生的数据将被用来修改现有的地球系统模型（能源亿亿级地球系统模型），以改善森林碳循环跨越人类景观和应对气候变化的解释。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得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的支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Temperate forests remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than any other terrestrial ecosystem and thus play a critical role in slowing the rate of climate change. However, temperate forests are also the most heavily fragmented forest biome in the world. Deforestation from urbanization and agricultural expansion creates heterogeneous landscapes with large spatial gradients in growing conditions for trees. Trees at the forest edge grow faster than those in the forest interior, yet are more negatively impacted by extreme weather like high temperatures and drought. The mechanisms explaining why tree growth in fragmented forests is more negatively impacted by climate stress than in intact forests remain unknown. The scientific community’s understanding of how climate affects tree growth and forest carbon sequestration are largely based on studies from interior forest ecosystems, away from forest edges. This past focus on interior forests limits our understanding of carbon cycling across the large and growing proportion of temperate forests that is influenced by fragmentation. This study integrates a field experiment and modeling to test the interactive effects of forest fragmentation and climate on tree growth and forest carbon sequestration. The project is intended to transform how we think about the future of the temperate forest’s capacity to sequester carbon in a world facing ongoing changes in climate and land cover and thus will inform climate change mitigation strategies. This work is paired with initiatives aimed at addressing major barriers to inclusion in environmental biology and improving communication between academics and stakeholders, including engaging minority students and high school teachers in research and holding workshops with academics, educators, and forest managers. The goals of the proposed work are to develop a mechanistic understanding of the interactive effects of forest fragmentation and climate on forest carbon sequestration and the role these interactions play in modulating carbon balance across human-dominated landscapes. These goals will be accomplished by establishing a new experiment to manipulate precipitation regimes (i.e., ambient precipitation, high precipitation, and drought) in both edge-influenced and interior temperate broadleaf forests. This experiment will also leverage naturally occurring variations in air temperature across time to explore the roles of forest fragmentation and water availability in forest carbon sequestration response to excessive heat. Data generated from this experiment will be used to modify an existing Earth system model (the Energy Exascale Earth System Model) to improve depictions of forest carbon cycling across human-landscapes and in response to climate change.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.