Collaborative Research: Continent-wide forest recruitment change: the interactions between climate, habitat, and consumers

合作研究：全大陆森林补充变化：气候、栖息地和消费者之间的相互作用

• 批准号: 2211765
• 负责人: Ines Ibanez
• 金额: $ 18.54万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-01 至 2026-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2211765&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Continent; wide; forest

The sustainability of North American forests depends on seed production by trees as well as seedlings that must establish for the next generation of trees. For most of North America, neither the amounts of seed that are produced, nor how much of that seed survives to become adult trees is known. Population spread beyond current frontiers will be governed by seed production of trees (fecundity), germination, and seedling survival—the capacity of trees to produce seed and disperse it to the habitats where populations can survive in the future. Planning for environmental change impacts requires this knowledge to anticipate tree species migrations and its impacts on the birds and mammals that depend on forests for habitat and food. Understanding these forest recruitment responses requires a methodological shift from the current method of monitoring of seeds, seedlings, and consumers on small plots to extensive sampling methods that can be implemented at biogeographic scales. This study combines continental scale tree fecundity estimates with a new generation of monitoring and synthesis methods for integrating tree fecundity, seedling success, and its impacts on animal consumers. This research will quantify current trends across the continent, the changes in forests that are happening now, and the habitat changes that are causing them. Development of a biogeographic network of tree fecundity and recruitment will provide the monitoring platform needed for science and management of future forests. Broader impacts will focus on stakeholder integration, including conservation and management planning, information transfer to stakeholders in federal and state agencies, and citizen science outreach. Products of the study will have immediate application to forest regeneration practices in the coming decades. Agency and NGO stakeholders will advise and disseminate products of the study. New analytical tools will identify where tree recruitment is limited in North America, its rate of change, and what’s causing it. The project focuses on three recruitment stages, seed supply (seed mass per tree abundance), seedling establishment (seedlings per seed mass), and recruitment rate (advanced regeneration per seedling). Each recruitment stage will be linked to climate and habitat variables and to the vertebrate consumers of seeds, fruits, and nuts. Extensive gradient sampling (EGS) is a new approach to estimate the key demographic rates that are relevant at the scale of habitats or plant communities, while combining it with traditional data already available from the meter-scale intensive monitoring sampling (IMS). The project will include data collection based on this new approach, (EGS) of fecundity, tree recruitment, and vertebrates distributed across climate and habitats. Predictive vertebrate modeling (PVM) of activity based on camera traps (snapshot USA, NEON, and this study), live trapping (NEON sites) and bird point counts (BBS, NEON, and eBird) across North America will be conducted by the research team. By understanding tree recruitment and the vertebrates that depend on them, this study will i) identify the species that are limited by recruitment, including the habitats and stages where limitation occurs, ii) quantify the relationship with vertebrate activity, and iii) evaluate predictive distributions of change that account for climate-vertebrate interactions fitted to data. Quantifying tree fecundity and animal-consumer relationships at biogeographic scales will provide a foundation for the next generation of efforts to understand food web implications of environmental 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.

北美森林的可持续性取决于树木的种子生产以及必须为下一代树木建立的幼苗。对于北美的大部分地区来说，既不知道产生的种子数量，也不知道有多少种子存活下来成为成年树。扩散到当前边界以外的种群将取决于树木的种子生产(繁殖力)、萌发和幼苗存活-树木产生种子并将其分散到未来种群能够生存的栖息地的能力。规划环境变化的影响需要这方面的知识来预测树种的迁徙及其对以森林为栖息地和食物的鸟类和哺乳动物的影响。要了解这些森林补充反应，需要从方法上转变，从目前监测小块土地上的种子、苗木和消费者的方法转变为可以在生物地理范围内实施的广泛抽样方法。这项研究将大陆尺度的树木繁殖力估计与新一代监测和综合方法相结合，以整合树木繁殖力、苗木成功及其对动物消费者的影响。这项研究将量化整个非洲大陆目前的趋势，目前正在发生的森林变化，以及导致这些变化的栖息地变化。建立树木繁殖力和招募的生物地理网络将为科学和管理未来的森林提供所需的监测平台。更广泛的影响将集中在利益攸关方的整合上，包括保护和管理规划、向联邦和州机构的利益攸关方传输信息以及公民科学推广。这项研究的成果将在未来几十年立即应用于森林再生实践。机构和非政府组织利益攸关方将提供建议并传播研究成果。新的分析工具将确定北美哪些地方的树木招聘受到限制，其变化速度，以及导致这种变化的原因。该项目侧重于三个招募阶段，即种子供应(每株树的种子质量)、苗木建立(每粒种子质量的苗数)和招募率(每株苗木的高级更新)。每个招募阶段都将与气候和栖息地变量以及种子、水果和坚果的脊椎动物消费者有关。广泛梯度抽样(EGS)是一种新的方法，用于估计与生境或植物群落规模相关的关键人口率，并将其与已有的米级密集监测抽样(IMS)的传统数据相结合。该项目将包括基于这种新方法的数据收集、繁殖力(EGS)、树木招募以及分布在气候和生境中的脊椎动物。研究小组将根据北美地区的相机陷阱(美国快照、霓虹灯和这项研究)、活体陷阱(霓虹灯站点)和鸟点计数(BBS、霓虹灯和eBird)对活动进行预测性脊椎动物建模(PVM)。通过了解树木招募和依赖它们的脊椎动物，这项研究将：i)确定受树木招募限制的物种，包括发生限制的生境和阶段；ii)量化与脊椎动物活动的关系；iii)评估与数据相适应的气候-脊椎动物相互作用的预测变化分布。在生物地理尺度上量化树木繁殖力和动物-消费者关系将为下一代理解环境变化对食物网络影响的努力提供基础。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。