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: 2211764
• 负责人: James Clark
• 金额: $ 65.48万
• 依托单位: Duke University
• 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=2211764&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木。目前边界以外的人口扩散将由树木的种子生产（繁殖力），发芽和幼苗存活率决定树木产生种子并将其传播到未来人口可以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，以预测树种的迁移及其对依赖森林作为栖息地和食物的鸟类和哺乳动物的影响。了解这些森林补充的反应，需要从目前的方法监测种子，幼苗和消费者的小地块广泛的抽样方法，可以在地理尺度上实施的方法转变。这项研究结合了大陆规模的树木繁殖力估计与新一代的监测和综合方法，整合树木繁殖力，幼苗成功，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，现在正在发生的森林变化以及导致这些变化的栖息地变化。发展树木繁殖力和补充的地理网络将为未来森林的科学和管理提供所需的监测平台。更广泛的影响将集中在利益相关者的整合，包括保护和管理规划，向联邦和州机构的利益相关者传递信息，以及公民科学宣传。这项研究的成果将在未来几十年内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咨询意见并传播研究成果。新的分析工具将确定北美树木补充有限的地方，其变化率以及导致它的原因。该项目侧重于三个补充阶段，种子供应（每棵树的种子质量），幼苗建立（每颗种子质量的幼苗）和补充率（每棵幼苗的高级再生）。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联系起来。广泛梯度采样（EGS）是一种新的方法来估计关键的人口率，在生境或植物群落的规模相关，同时结合它与传统的数据已经从米级密集监测采样（IMS）。该项目将包括基于这种新方法的数据收集，包括繁殖力，树木补充以及分布在气候和栖息地的脊椎动物。研究小组将在北美地区进行基于相机陷阱（快照美国，氖和本研究），现场诱捕（氖网站）和鸟类点计数（BBS，氖和eBird）的活动预测脊椎动物建模（PVM）。 通过了解树木补充和依赖于它们的脊椎动物，本研究将i）确定受补充限制的物种，包括限制发生的栖息地和阶段，ii）量化与脊椎动物活动的关系，iii）评估预测变化分布，解释气候-脊椎动物相互作用拟合数据。量化树木繁殖力和动物消费者的关系，在地理尺度将为下一代的努力，以了解食物网的影响，环境changes.This奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。