RCN: DRAGNet - Disturbance and Recovery Across Grasslands

物理干扰（如耕地或动物打滚）和营养物质供应的增加（如氮和磷）正在改变地球的陆地环境。然而，预测植物和土壤将如何反应仍然不确定。该项目名为DRAGNet（草原干扰与恢复网络），旨在通过联合来自亚洲、非洲、澳大利亚、欧洲、北美和南美93个草原地点的120多名科学家来解决这个问题。所有科学家将进行相同的土壤扰动和养分添加实验，以了解草地群落如何以及在何处对反复扰动和养分增加做出反应，草地如何从扰动中恢复，以及为什么相似的地方对这些变化表现出不同的反应。DRAGNet只需要单个研究人员投入相对较少的时间和金钱，从而使全球生态学家能够做出贡献。除了科学发现之外，该项目还旨在培育一个多样化和包容性的科研社区，提供网络和合作机会，特别是为来自发展中国家的早期职业研究人员和科学家。DRAGNet的调查结果将通过出版物、教育材料和公开讲座进行分享。这一协作性的全球研究网络的协调将使人们更深入地了解生态系统如何应对全球人类活动造成的干扰和变化，从而更好地保护和保存野生环境和人类居住环境。作为一个研究协调网络，DRAGNet将通过协调在世界各地的相同复制的、操纵土壤扰动和元素养分供应的因子实验，来比较不同草地环境下的群落反应。采用相同方法收集的植物和土壤反应数据将支持对植被和生物地球化学抗性、受到干扰时保持不变的趋势以及恢复（恢复到干扰前状态的速度）等假设的检验。通过协调不同场地条件下的重复实验，DRAGNet数据还将独特地阐明场地历史和条件下干扰后响应的环境依赖性。除了检验由生态学理论提出的假设外，项目数据还将通过比较不同场地条件下的恢复轨迹，支持建立一个框架，以理解草本系统对这些环境变化的响应。该网络将有四次面对面会议和四次虚拟会议，将贡献者聚集在一起分析数据、检验假设和推进理论框架。随着科学的进步，DRAGNet的合作，特别是会议，将有助于在美国和国外减少孤立，增加包容、多样性和科学能力。DRAGNet将推动研究，促进全球科学界的合作和知识共享。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Physical disturbances (like plowing or animal wallowing) and increased supply of nutrients (like nitrogen and phosphorus) are changing Earth's terrestrial environments. However, predicting how plants and soils will respond remains uncertain. The project, DRAGNet (Disturbance and Recovery Across Grasslands Network), aims to address this by coalescing over 120 scientists from 93 grassland sites across Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. All scientists will conduct identical soil disturbance and nutrient addition experiments to understand how and where grassland communities respond to repeated disturbances and increased nutrients, how grasslands will recover from disturbance, and why similar places exhibit different responses to these changes. DRAGNet requires relatively low investment of time and money from individual researchers, enabling contributions from ecologists globally. Beyond scientific discoveries, the project aims to foster a diverse and inclusive research community, offering networking and collaboration opportunities, particularly for early-career researchers and scientists from developing countries. The findings from DRAGNet will be shared through publications, educational materials, and public talks. Coordination of this collaborative, global research network will provide deeper understanding of how ecosystems respond to disturbances and changes caused by human activities across the globe to better protect and preserve, both, wild and human-occupied environments.As a research coordination network, DRAGNet will allow comparisons of community responses in different grassland environments by coordinating identically replicated, factorial experiments manipulating soil disturbance and elemental nutrient supply at sites around the world. The data on plant and soil responses, collected following identical methods, will support tests of hypotheses about vegetation and biogeochemical resistance, the tendency to remain unchanged when disturbed, and recovery, the speed of return to a pre-disturbance state. By coordinating replicated experiments across site conditions, DRAGNet data will also uniquely clarify the context-dependence of post-disturbance responses on site history and conditions. In addition to testing hypotheses arising from ecological theory, project data will support development of a framework for understanding herbaceous system responses to these environmental changes by comparing recovery trajectories among diverse site conditions. The network will have four in-person and four virtual meetings to bring contributors together to analyze data, test hypotheses, and advance theoretical frameworks. In concert with scientific advances, the DRAGNet collaboration, especially the meetings, will serve to reduce isolation and increase inclusion, diversity, and scientific capacity, both, in the US and abroad. DRAGNet will advance research and facilitate collaboration and knowledge-sharing in the global scientific community.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.