Northern peatland ecosystem responses to climate change

北部泥炭地是世界上最重要的碳储存地之一，并在全新世期间造成了显著的“气候变冷”。现在很明显，尽管数千年的碳积累，这些储存远不是不受气候变化的影响。最近重要的实验数据表明，在某些泥炭地类型中，温度和大气二氧化碳的增加会导致植物群落组成、水化学和生物多样性的突然变化。这些发现促进了NSERC研究工具和仪器的拨款，以安装一个全球独特的现场实验，实验评估二氧化碳升高和温度（使用直接地面加热）对安大略省北部两种尚未充分研究但普遍存在的沼泽泥炭地类型的相互作用。利用这一独特的基础设施，该战略合作伙伴基金组建了一个基因到生态系统的研究团队，以解决五个关键目标，跨越支持、提供、文化和调节生态系统服务，所有这些目标都以对泥炭地生物多样性的基本理解为基础。我们将利用我们的实验系统来了解气候变化对植物、动物和微生物群落的影响以及对生态系统功能的影响；地下碳化学和甲烷动力学变化；调节土壤-植物-大气交换的水文过程；以及影响汞转化和释放的生物地球化学过程的变化。这些数据将被纳入当前最先进的模型，以评估我们的实验结果，并测试模型处理动态不平衡的能力。我们的研究与我们已建立的支持组织，安大略省自然资源和林业部以及安大略省环境和气候变化部的科学和政策优先事项直接一致。这种耦合确保了这一独特实验的发现将直接从基础科学转化为政策。

Northern peatlands are one of the world's most important stores of carbon, and have contributed to significant 'climate cooling' over the Holocene. It is now apparent that despite millennia of carbon accumulation, these stores are far from invulnerable to climate change. Important recent experimental data has shown that in some peatland types, increases in temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide can result in sudden changes in plant community composition, water chemistry and biodiversity. These findings facilitated an NSERC Research Tools and Instruments grant to install a globally-unique field experiment to experimentally assess the interactive effects of elevated carbon dioxide and temperature (using direct ground heating) of two grossly understudied, yet ubiquitous fen peatland types in boreal Ontario. Taking advantage of this unique infrastructure, this Strategic Partnership Grant assembles a genes-to-ecosystems team of researchers to address five key objectives that cut across supporting, provisioning, cultural and regulating ecosystem services, all underpinned by a fundamental understanding of peatland biodiversity. We will use our experimental systems to understand the impacts of climate change on: plant, animal and microbial communities and impacts on ecosystem function; changes in belowground carbon chemistry and methane dynamics; hydrological processes that regulate the soil-plant-atmosphere exchanges; and changes in biogeochemical processes that affect mercury transformation and release. These data will be incorporated into current state-of-the-art models to both evaluate our experimental findings, and to test the ability of the models to handle dynamic disequilibria. Our research is directly aligned with the science and policy priorities of our established supporting organizations, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change. This coupling ensures that the findings of this unique experiment will translate directly from basic science to policy.