MCA: Data Science for Global Change-Does Plant Diversity Imply Forest Resilience?

MCA：全球变化的数据科学——植物多样性是否意味着森林恢复力？

• 批准号: 2220980
• 负责人: Martin Dovciak
• 金额: $ 29.3万
• 依托单位: SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-01-01 至 2025-12-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2220980&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: MCA; Data; Science; Global; Change

Two ongoing global crises – climate warming and species loss – make it difficult to predict how our planet’s forests will look in the future. Are species-rich forests more resilient to changing climate, or more vulnerable to change? Should we expect greater changes in species-rich tropical forests, or in species-poor northern conifer forests? All forests deliver important ecosystem services to humanity as they moderate climate and provide wood, clean water, wildlife habitat, and livelihoods and recreation opportunities. This project will help us understand how the world’s forests are changing and what role biodiversity plays in forests’ resilience to changing climate. This work will focus on the most vulnerable stage in forest development – tree seedlings – to create new conceptual and statistical models to aid forest management and conservation in varied settings across the globe. The project will also compare how different countries monitor early stages of forest change and will contribute to the sharing of best practices and the best science across borders. The findings will be widely disseminated to major agencies in forest management and monitoring. Ongoing societal conversations about climate change and biodiversity loss will be aided by sharing the project’s findings with the public via interviews, press releases, and lectures at regional high schools and nature centers. Advanced training in ecology, forest monitoring, and data science will be given to 15-30 graduate students, including those from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. Long-term impacts will include a newly developed course, new teaching materials, and new study plots established to monitor future forest changes.As global forest ecosystems experience interconnected contemporary crises – climate change and biodiversity loss – it is increasingly important to understand if forests composed of more species are also more resilient to changing climate. This proposal will help answer this question by studying how forests change in time and space along the global latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG), focusing particularly on the early stages of forest change (tree seedlings) that influence future forest character. The proposal seeks to use diverse data science approaches to help us understand how tree seedling banks change along the LDG with climate and how they relate to characteristics (such as diversity and resilience to change) of forest overstory and understory plant communities. We will specifically address key aspects of tree seedling bank dynamics such as tree seedling diversity, resilience to change, abundance, and composition. The project integrates four activities: (1) fine-scale analyses of field data from sites along the tropical-temperate-boreal gradient, (2) broad-scale analyses of forest inventories spanning the LDG (Big Data), (3) systematic review and meta-analysis of published papers, and (4) review and synthesis of data science approaches used for monitoring tree seedlings in major forest monitoring systems of the world. Data will be analyzed using generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) and meta-analyses. The proposed project will address decades old, yet still unresolved discussions of the effects of diversity on forest ecosystem resilience and stability, while focusing on the most sensitive stage of forest dynamics using modern data science approaches along the global diversity gradient.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.

正在发生的两场全球危机--气候变暖和物种灭绝--使得我们很难预测我们这个星球的森林未来会是什么样子。物种丰富的森林对气候变化的适应能力更强，还是更容易受到变化的影响？我们应该期待物种丰富的热带森林或物种匮乏的北部针叶林出现更大的变化吗？所有森林都为人类提供了重要的生态系统服务，因为它们缓和了气候，提供了木材、干净的水、野生动物栖息地以及生计和娱乐机会。这个项目将帮助我们了解世界森林是如何变化的，以及生物多样性在森林对气候变化的适应能力方面发挥了什么作用。这项工作将侧重于森林发展中最脆弱的阶段--树苗--以创建新的概念和统计模型，以帮助全球不同环境下的森林管理和保护。该项目还将比较不同国家如何监测森林变化的早期阶段，并将有助于跨国界分享最佳做法和最佳科学。调查结果将广泛传播给森林管理和监测方面的主要机构。正在进行的关于气候变化和生物多样性丧失的社会对话将通过采访、新闻稿以及在地区高中和自然中心的讲座与公众分享该项目的发现，这将得到帮助。15-30名研究生将接受生态学、森林监测和数据科学方面的高级培训，其中包括那些来自传统上代表性不足的背景的学生。长期影响将包括新开发的课程、新的教材和为监测未来森林变化而建立的新的研究小区。随着全球森林生态系统经历相互关联的当代危机--气候变化和生物多样性丧失--理解由更多物种组成的森林是否也更能适应气候变化，变得越来越重要。这项建议将通过研究森林如何沿全球纬度多样性梯度(LDG)在时间和空间上变化来帮助回答这个问题，特别侧重于影响未来森林特征的森林变化的早期阶段(树苗)。该提案寻求使用不同的数据科学方法来帮助我们了解树苗银行如何随着气候变化而变化，以及它们如何与森林覆盖层和林下植物群落的特征(如多样性和对变化的适应能力)相关联。我们将具体讨论树苗银行动态的关键方面，如树苗多样性、对变化的适应能力、丰富度和组成。该项目包括四项活动：(1)对热带-温带-北方梯度沿线地点的实地数据进行精细分析；(2)对横跨大数据的森林清单进行广泛分析；(3)对已发表的论文进行系统审查和综合分析；(4)审查和综合世界主要森林监测系统中用于监测树苗的数据科学方法。数据将使用广义线性混合模型(GLMM)和荟萃分析进行分析。拟议的项目将解决几十年来仍未解决的关于多样性对森林生态系统弹性和稳定性的影响的讨论，同时关注使用全球多样性梯度上的现代数据科学方法进行森林动态最敏感的阶段。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。