Boreal forest refugia for fire and climate change

生态学和保护的一个中心问题是生物多样性将如何应对气候变化--基本上是确定哪些物种和地方可能或多或少地脆弱。最近关于气候变化速度的研究表明，宏观地形和海洋特征如何降低气候变化速度，从而产生物种可能持续存在的可定义的大型避难所区域。虽然已经做了很多工作，以了解避难所在宏观尺度上，较小规模的景观特征也可以解耦一个位置的温度从其周围的气候，从而导致微避难所。与大型避难所不同的是，微型避难所不能轻易地从缩小规模的气候模型中预测，这导致了我们的理解和预测的差距。现有的工作microrefugia强调当地的地形，令人惊讶的是，很少的工作对邻近大陆的小气候，因此潜在的microrefugia地区的大型湖泊的影响。然而，一些大型湖泊已知有间断物种沿着其海岸线与人口>1,000公里以南的主要范围代表了以前的气候较冷的遗迹。了解这些模式有助于了解当前的威胁和未来的应对措施。大型湖泊的第二个方面往往被低估，是它们通过分散燃料和阻止火势蔓延来使火势多样化的能力。这不仅创造了火灾避难所，支持沿着海岸线和岛屿上的古老物种，而且还可能支持更高规模的生物多样性。当两者结合在一起时，湖泊衍生的气候和火灾避难所可以在其位置上协同作用，进一步加强避难所效应。 我的长期研究目标是了解物种和生态系统的分布，动态和相互作用的过程，并利用这些信息来告知生物多样性保护。我建议在两个互补的主题下，解决这些问题及其在保护中的应用。首先是了解与湖泊有关的因素，这些因素改变了小气候，促进了生物区系的间断模式，从而为当地的气候避难所提供了信息。这包括测量和预测小气候和生物反应沿着湖岸线，这些与现有的模式，在孑遗物种，并预测未来的变化。第二是了解这些湖泊如何改变加拿大西部易发生火灾的北方森林的火灾历史，包括火灾避难所的位置，以及如何调节古老森林和生物多样性的供应。这项工作将通过实地和遥感研究的结合来完成，最终为加拿大北方森林内的避难所（火灾和气候）和生物多样性提供新的见解，理解，方法和保护应用。这笔赠款还将用于培训高素质的人员，他们将有助于履行加拿大对保护生物多样性的承诺。

A central question in ecology and conservation is how biodiversity will respond to climate change - essentially identifying species and places that are likely to be more or less vulnerable. Recent work on the velocity of climate change has illustrated how macro-terrain and maritime features can reduce climate velocity resulting in definable areas of macrorefugia where species are likely to persist. Although much has been done to understand refugia at macro-scales, smaller scale landscape features can also decouple a location's temperature from its surrounding climate resulting in microrefugia. And unlike macrorefugia, microrefugia can not be easily predicted from downscaled climate models resulting in gaps in our understanding and predictions. Existing work on microrefugia emphasizes local topography with surprisingly little work on the effects of large lakes on adjacent mainland microclimates and hence areas of potential microrefugia. Yet some large lakes are known to have disjunct species along their shoreline with populations >1,000 km south of their main range representing relicts of a previous cooler climate. Understanding these patterns informs current threats and future responses. A second aspect of large lakes that is often underappreciated is their ability to diversify fire regimes by fragmenting fuel and blocking fire spread. This not only creates fire refugia that supports old-growth species along their shorelines and on islands, but also potentially supporting higher landscape-scale biodiversity. When taken together, lake-derived climate and fire refugia can be synergistic in their location strengthening further the refugia effect. My long-term research goals are to understand the processes governing the distribution, dynamics, and interactions of species and ecosystems and to use this information to inform biodiversity conservation. I propose to address these questions and their applications to conservation in this grant under two complementary topics. The first is in understanding the factors associated with lakes that alter microclimates and promote disjunct patterns in biota thus informing local climate refugia. This includes measuring and predicting microclimatic and biotic responses along lake shorelines, relating these to existing patterns in relict species, and predicting future change. The second is in understanding how these lakes alter fire history within fire-prone boreal forests of western Canada, including locations of fire refugia and how this regulates the supply of old growth forests and biodiversity. This work will be done through a combination of field and remote sensing studies ultimately providing new insights, understandings, methods, and conservation applications to refugia (fire & climate) and biodiversity within Canada's boreal forest. The grant will also result in training of highly-quality personnel who will contribute towards addressing Canada's commitment to biodiversity protection.