BoCP-Design: Climate change and ecosystem functioning: reducing critical uncertainties about ecosystem acclimation

生态系统通过许多不同的过程对温度和降水的变化做出反应，时间跨度从几分钟到几个世纪。这些过程的净影响被称为“生态系统适应”。然而，尚不清楚快速和缓慢变化的影响最终将如何导致前所未有的植物、动物、微生物和土壤的组合。该项目汇集了来自许多领域的专家，以了解导致长期预测变得如此困难的缓慢生态过程，并提供新的数学和统计工具，以了解更多关于这些过程的信息。该项目的目标是改善对生态系统功能的长期预测。这是通过减少鲜为人知的生态系统适应现象带来的不确定性来实现的。作为该项目的一部分，一名博士后研究员正在接受直接培训和指导。抵抗-接受-直接框架被用来为土地管理者提供应对迅速变化的条件的选择。这一管理框架是对现有气候适应规划工作的补充。研究采取了三种方法。首先，发展了一个理论框架来研究滞后在生态系统驯化中的功能后果。该框架旨在研究跨越时间尺度和生物组织水平的生态变化。其次，几位研究人员正在将古生态学、长期观测研究、实验和模拟模型的知识结合在一起，以综合我们对生态系统适应的理解。这种综合通过催化跨生物学分支学科和研究传统的整合而使生态学领域受益。这些过程包括生理变化、性状可塑性、物种周转、干扰机制的改变和土壤性质的长期变化。最后，对长期数据集进行分析，以寻找适应滞后已经影响生态系统功能的证据。对现有数据集的分析表明，气候和生态系统结构之间的不平衡已经影响到生态系统功能的时间、地点和原因。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。

Ecosystems respond to changes in temperature and precipitation through many diverse processes spanning time scales from minutes to centuries. The net effect of these processes is known as “ecosystem acclimation.” However, it is unknown how the effect of fast and slow changes will ultimately lead to combinations of plants, animals, microbes, and soils never seen before. This project brings together experts from many fields to understand the slow ecological processes that make long-term predictions so difficult, and to provide new mathematical and statistical tools for learning more about these processes. The goal of the project is to improve long-term forecasts of ecosystem functioning. This is accomplished by reducing the uncertainty from the poorly understood phenomena of ecosystem acclimation. A postdoctoral researcher is receiving direct training and mentorship as part of this project. The Resist-Accept-Direct framework is used to provide options to land managers dealing with rapidly changing conditions. This management framework complements existing climate adaptation planning efforts.The research takes three approaches. First, a theoretical framework is developed to study the functional consequences of lags in ecosystem acclimation. The framework was designed to study ecological change across temporal scales and levels of biological organization. Second, several researchers are bringing together knowledge from paleoecology, long-term observational studies, experiments, and simulation models to synthesize our understanding of ecosystem acclimation. This synthesis benefits the field of ecology by catalyzing integration across biological subdisciplines and research traditions. Processes such as physiological changes, trait plasticity, species turnover, altered disturbance regimes, and long-term change in soil properties are considered. Finally, long-term data sets are analyzed for evidence that acclimation lags are already impacting ecosystem functioning. The analyses of existing data sets demonstrates when, where, and why disequilibria between climate and ecosystem structure are already impacting ecosystem functioning.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.