The landscape of interaction: scaling up from local plant-plant and plant-soil relationships

相互作用的景观：从当地植物与植物以及植物与土壤的关系扩大

• 批准号: RGPIN-2014-03937
• 负责人: Lamb, Eric
• 金额: $ 1.75万
• 依托单位: University of Saskatchewan
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2014-01-01 至 2015-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=566186
• 关键词: landscape; interaction; scaling; up; local

My research program investigates how plant community diversity and composition are structured by interactions among plants and between plant and soil communities. My short-term (5 year) objectives for this proposal are to scale up from local-scale (millimetre-metre) plant competition and multitrophic plant-microbial interactions to landscape-scale (metre to kilometre) patterns of plant and soil microbial community composition. I will utilize a spatially explicit multi-year field study of plant competition and plant and soil microbial community composition to characterize the among plants and the cross-trophic level landscape of plant soil feedback. Through this program, I will test 1) the relative importance of competition as a mechanism structuring both local-scale and landscape-level patterns of plant community diversity and composition, 2) whether well understood rhizosphere plant-microbe linkagesare an important mechanism structuring landscape-scale plant and microbial community diversity and composition, and 3) how fine-scale soil nutrient heterogeneity influences plant-soil interactions under field conditions. My research program will support three graduate students, a MSc. student focused on plant competition, a PhD. student focused on plant-soil linkages, and a MSc. student focused on experimentally linking plant competition, root foraging dynamics, and plant-soil microbe interactions. This research program will bridge the gaps between well studied and fundamentally local plant – plant and plant-soil interactions occurring at scales of millimeters to centimeters and landscape level patterns of plant and soil community structure. There is substantial evidence for variation in the strength and importance of competition and plant-soil relationships along environmental gradients, yet few studies have examined these patterns from a landscape perspective. Scaling up to landscape level patterns and processes is challenging because the relative importance of multiple interacting ecological mechanisms need to be assessed, but new analytical tools make this possible. This research program will be the first to bridge these scales, developing clear links between the fine-scale of plant-plant and plant-soil interactions, meso-scale patterns relevant to many pressing issues in ecology, conservation biology, and community assembly, to broad-scale community structure. In this research program, I will work across scales by characterizing a conceptual topography, the “landscape of interaction”, where variation in the strength and importance of local-scale ecological processes are mapped across a grassland landscape. This conceptual tool is key to understanding larger scale patterns in plant and soil communities. Using a spatially explicit sampling design to characterizing patterns of competition between individual plants will allow me to make cross-scale tests of the importance of competition as a mechanism structuring local-scale and landscape level patterns of plant community diversity and composition. Similarly by characterizing the linkages between plant root, soil eubacteria, archaea, and fungal communities across scales, will allow me to test the role of these multitrophic relationships in structuring plant and soil community diversity and composition. Finally, by characterizing rooting patterns in relation to fine-scale soil nutrient heterogeneity and microbial community structure, I will be among the first to investigate the factors that influence plant root foraging patterns under field conditions.

我的研究计划调查植物群落的多样性和组成是如何通过植物之间的相互作用和植物和土壤群落之间的结构。我的短期（5年）目标是从局部规模（毫米）的植物竞争和多营养植物-微生物相互作用扩大到植物和土壤微生物群落组成的大规模（米到公里）模式。我将利用一个空间上明确的植物竞争和植物和土壤微生物群落组成的多年实地研究，以表征植物和植物土壤反馈的跨营养级景观。通过这个项目，我将测试1）竞争作为构建局部尺度和植物群落多样性和组成的水平模式的机制的相对重要性，2）充分理解的根际植物-微生物联系是否是构建局部尺度植物和微生物群落多样性和组成的重要机制，（3）田间条件下细尺度土壤养分异质性对植物-土壤相互作用的影响。我的研究计划将支持三名研究生，一名理学硕士。学生专注于植物竞争，博士学位。学生专注于植物与土壤的联系，并获得理学硕士学位。学生专注于实验性地将植物竞争、根系觅食动力学和植物-土壤微生物相互作用联系起来。这项研究计划将弥合充分研究和根本性的本地植物-植物和植物-土壤相互作用之间的差距，这些相互作用发生在毫米到厘米的尺度上，植物和土壤群落结构的景观水平模式。有大量的证据表明，竞争和植物-土壤关系的强度和重要性的变化沿着环境梯度，但很少有研究从景观的角度研究这些模式。扩大到景观一级的格局和进程是具有挑战性的，因为需要评估多种相互作用的生态机制的相对重要性，但新的分析工具使这成为可能。这项研究计划将是第一个弥合这些尺度，发展植物-植物和植物-土壤相互作用的精细尺度之间的明确联系，与生态学，保护生物学和社区组装中许多紧迫问题相关的中尺度模式，以广泛的社区结构。在这项研究计划中，我将通过表征概念地形，“相互作用的景观”，在当地规模的生态过程的强度和重要性的变化绘制在整个草原景观跨尺度工作。这个概念工具是理解植物和土壤群落中更大尺度模式的关键。使用空间显式的抽样设计，以表征单个植物之间的竞争模式，将使我能够跨尺度的竞争的重要性，作为一种机制结构的本地规模和景观水平的植物群落多样性和组成模式的测试。同样，通过表征植物根系，土壤真细菌，古细菌和真菌群落之间的联系，跨尺度，将允许我测试这些多营养关系在构建植物和土壤群落多样性和组成的作用。最后，通过表征与细尺度土壤养分异质性和微生物群落结构有关的生根模式，我将是第一个研究影响植物根系觅食模式的因素的人。