CAREER: Quantifying how and when global change alters the role of biodiversity in ecosystem functioning

人类正在推动全球环境变化，这种变化正在改变生物多样性，有可能改变支持人类福祉的生态系统功能。为了应对全球环境变化的重大挑战，科学家和实践者需要对全球变化如何以及何时影响生态系统有因果关系的因果理解--或强有力的证据。作为回应，这项职业计划将开发一个综合研究和教育平台，以改变对全球变化对生物多样性和生态系统功能影响的理解，并培训下一代全球变化科学家。为了促进这些进展，该项目将研究长期干旱如何影响美国西南部/中部草原生态系统的生物多样性和生态系统功能，因为它们对全球碳循环和当前该地区干旱加剧的预测非常重要。然后，这项研究将通过培养包容、协作的团队，利用NSF长期生态研究和霓虹灯数据来解决重点研究问题，从而拓宽对其他生态系统的洞察(例如，研究变暖对高山冻土带的影响)。这项研究的更广泛影响侧重于培训下一代科学家，以增强他们的方法论工具箱和领导促进不同观点的包容性团队的能力。为了实现这些目标，研究人员将领导一个分散的研究生研讨会，接受包容性团队科学方面的培训；创建创新的、开放源码的数据科学课程模块；并促进K12教师的专业发展。这项职业提案寻求改变用于获得因果理解的方法，并产生关于干旱和变暖将改变生物多样性并进而改变生态系统功能的机制的新的因果理解。该项目提出了一种新的集成现有的NSF数据，新的实验测试，以及目前在生态学中未得到充分利用的因果推理技术的最新多学科进展。这种趋同的方法将产生以下定量估计：(1)生物多样性变化为什么以及如何抑制或放大干旱对生态系统生产力的影响，以及生物多样性影响生产力的机制是否(2)土壤功能不同，(3)随场地的气候历史和植物功能特征而不同。通过一个分散的研究生研讨会，该项目将包括研究生团队，以综合(4)这些全球变化的直接和间接影响如何在驱动因素(例如，变暖、氮污染)和生态系统之间变化。这一综合方法将对全球变化改变生物多样性对生产力的影响的机制提供见解，并在生态学的因果推断方面产生更广泛的进展。为了产生更广泛的影响，研究人员将领导一个分散的研究生研讨会，提供一个工具，推动包容性团队科学的最佳做法的使用，并与教育学专家和研究生合作创建和评估数据科学模块。为了将福利扩展到科罗拉多州的K12教室和低收入社区，该项目将与CU Boulder的教师专业发展计划合作，与教师合作，将全球变化和数据素养的概念整合到他们的课堂上，潜在地惠及数千名学生。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。

Humans are driving global environmental change that is altering biodiversity with the potential to transform the ecosystem functions that support human well-being. To address the grand challenges of global environmental change, scientists and practitioners need a causal understanding – or robust evidence of cause-and-effect relationships – of how and when global change impacts ecosystems. In response, this CAREER proposal will develop an integrated research and education platform to transform understanding of global change impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and to train the next generation of global change scientists. To facilitate these advances, the project will study how chronic drought impacts biodiversity and ecosystem functioning of grassland ecosystems in the southwest/central US because of their importance to the global carbon cycle and current projections of intensifying drought in this region. Then, the research will broaden insights to other ecosystems (e.g., to study warming impacts on alpine tundra), through cultivating inclusive, collaborative teams to tackle focal research questions with NSF Long Term Ecological Research and NEON data. This research’s broader impacts focus on training the next generation of scientists to enhance their methodological toolbox and ability to lead inclusive teams that promote diverse perspectives. To achieve these goals, the researcher will lead a distributed graduate seminar with training in inclusive team science; create innovative, open-source course modules on data science; and catalyze professional development for K12 teachers.This CAREER proposal seeks to transform the methods used to acquire causal understanding and to generate new causal understanding about the mechanisms through which drought and warming will alter biodiversity and, in turn, ecosystem functioning. This project proposes a novel integration of existing NSF data, new experimental tests, and recent, multidisciplinary advances in causal inference techniques that are currently underutilized in ecology. This convergent approach will generate quantitative estimates of: (1) why and how biodiversity change dampens or amplifies the impacts of drought on ecosystem productivity, and whether the mechanisms through which biodiversity affects productivity (2) differ for soil functions and (3) vary with a site’s climate history and plant functional traits. Through a distributed graduate seminar, the project will include teams of graduate students to synthesize (4) how these direct and indirect effects of global change vary across drivers (e.g., warming, nitrogen pollution) and ecosystems. This integrated approach will deliver insights on the mechanisms through which global change alters the effect of biodiversity on productivity and generate broader advances in the causal inference in ecology. To deliver broader impacts, the researcher will lead a distributed graduate seminar that provides a vehicle to advance the use of best practices for inclusive team science and work with pedagogy experts and graduate students to create and evaluate data science modules. To extend benefits to K12 classrooms and low-income communities in Colorado, the project will work with CU Boulder’s Science Discovery’s Teacher Professional development program to collaborate with teachers to integrate concepts of global change and data literacy into their classes, potentially reaching thousands of students.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.