Potential of forest fertilization to alleviate effects of climate change-induced insect infestation

由于大规模的，气候引起的山和西部松甲虫的爆发，松树林的大部分林业在内部BC的基础上将在2013年基本消失。这将使许多林业支持的城镇和城市的经济状况得到改善。作为增加木材供应的一项干预战略，不列颠哥伦比亚省森林和牧场部建议广泛使用施肥，以加速现有林分的发展。考虑到不列颠哥伦比亚省去年有17，000公顷的土地进行了施肥，还有900万公顷的土地已经被松甲虫杀死，施肥的潜在面积非常大。欧洲、美国东北部和阿拉斯加的早期研究表明，向森林中添加高水平的氮可以减少根系生长，破坏微生物驱动的营养循环，并增加沥滤，但这种影响因生态系统而异，目前的理论无法预测。我们的研究会有所帮助。在内陆松树和云杉林中进行的一项现有长期施肥实验，旨在测试地下微生物群落及其提供的生态系统服务是否会因林分水平施肥而受到破坏。我们|将使用先进的方法来确定施肥对（i）N，P，K，S和B的养分供应率和（ii）凋落物和土壤有机质的化学组成的影响。然后，我们将使用生物化学，同位素和分子方法来确定微生物群落是否已经“适应”这些新的条件，或者土壤细菌和真菌循环改变的营养物质的能力是否受到损害。这将是加拿大首次将肥料引起的土壤有机物化学变化与森林土壤养分循环的相应变化联系起来。研究结果将使森林许可证持有者和政府监管机构能够确定肥料制度，从而实现增长促进和生态系统恢复力的最佳组合。

Due to the massive, climate-induced outbreak of the Mountain and Western Pine Beetles, the pine forests on which much of the forest industry in interior BC is based will largely disappear by 2013. This will devastate the economies of many forestry-supported towns and cities. As an intervention strategy to increase timber supply, the BC Ministry of Forests and Range has proposed widespread use of fertilization to accelerate the development of already-existing stands. Given that 17,000 ha were operationally fertilized in BC last year, and that a further 9 million ha have already been killed by pine beetles, the potential area for fertilization is extremely large. Earlier research in Europe, the NE USA, and Alaska has demonstrated that addition of high levels of nitrogen to forests can reduce root growth, disrupt microbially-driven nutrient cycles, and increase leaching, but that effects vary by ecosystem and are not predicted by current theory. Our study would make use. of an existing long-term fertilization experiment in interior pine and spruce forests to test whether belowground microbial communities and the ecosystem services they provide are disrupted by stand-level fertilization. We | will use cutting-edge approaches to determine the effect of fertilization on (i) nutrient supply rates of N, P, K, S, and B and (ii) chemical composition of litter and soil organic matter. We will then use biochemical, isotopic, and molecular methods to determine whether the microbial community has 'adapted' to these new conditions or whether the ability of soil bacteria and fungi to cycle the altered nutrients has been compromised. This will be the first time in Canada that fertilizer-induced changes in the chemistry of soil organic matter will be linked to corresponding changes in nutrient cycling in forest soils. The results will allow forest licensees and government regulators to identify fertilizer regimes that allow the best combination of growth enhancement and ecosystem resilience.