Fire and biogeoscience plant ecology

这四个拟议的研究项目以扩展两个学科的方式将生态和物理（火灾和地貌学）过程结合在一起。1)景观开发-植物容忍度项目开创性地利用河道坡地景观综合开发模型，创建已知气候、水文、地貌过程的地形，将不同物种容忍度的植物群落（对应真实群落）置于该地形的水分梯度上。该方法将有助于确定不同气候和地貌对物种多样性的作用。2)海拔林木线通常由气候（寒冷）狭义界定；在这个项目中，我们将研究影响树线的地貌过程（由斜坡过程引起的基底不稳定和缺水）。在气候变化的时期，这些其他的树线过程也可能发生变化。3)野火通过阴燃去除土壤中的F和H有机层，使树木更成功地再生。在这个项目中，我们将确定F层和H层的水分预算，这是阴燃最重要的过程。我们打算建立一个小流域（五阶流）分布模型，用于预测F层和h层的水分。4)最后，我们提出了地表火灾导致树木死亡的空间显式模型。该项目将Wildlands Fire Dynamics Simulator和我们开发的树木死亡率模型结合在一起，用于预测一系列火灾强度下的树木死亡。在越来越多地使用低强度管理烧伤的时候，重要的是要了解热量传递如何杀死树木，以便烧伤可以设计为期望的生态效果。

The four proposed research projects bring together ecological and physical (fire and geomorphology) processes in a manner that expands both disciplines. 1) The landscape development-plant tolerance project breaks new ground by using the Channel Hillslope Integrated Landscape Development Model to create a terrain with known climatic, hydrologic, and geomorphic processes and then putting plant communities of different species tolerances (corresponding to real communities) on this terrain's moisture gradients. The approach will help determine the role of different climates and geomorphology on species diversity. 2) Altitudinal treeline is usually narrowly defined by climate (cold); in this project we will examine the geomorphic processes (substrate instability and water shortage caused by slope processes) that also influence treeline. In a time of changing climate these other treeline processes may also change. 3) Wildfires remove the F and H organic layers of the soil by smoldering combustion and allow more successful tree regeneration. In this project we will determine the moisture budgets for the F and H layers-the most important process for smoldering combustion. We intend to create a small watershed (fifth-order stream) distributed model for the moisture budgets that can be used to predict F- and H-layer moisture. 4) Finally, we propose a spatially explicit model of tree mortality from surface fires. This project brings together the Wildlands Fire Dynamics Simulator and the tree mortality model which we have developed to predict tree death under a range of fire intensities. In a time of increased use of low intensity management burns, it is important to understand how heat transfer kills the trees so that the burns can be designed for the desired ecological effect.