Boreal forest refugia for fire and climate change

生态和保护中的一个核心问题是生物多样性将如何应对气候变化--本质上是识别可能或多或少脆弱的物种和地区。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能够降低气候速度，从而形成物种可能持续存在的明确的大避难区。虽然在宏观尺度上理解避难所已经做了很多工作，但较小尺度的景观特征也可以将一个地点的温度与其周围的气候分离，从而产生微观避难所。与宏观避难所不同的是，从缩小尺度的气候模型中很难预测微型避难所，这导致我们的理解和预测存在差距。现有关于微型避难所的工作侧重于当地地形，而关于大型湖泊对邻近大陆小气候的影响以及潜在微型避难所地区的研究令人惊讶地少之又少。然而，众所周知，一些大型湖泊在其海岸线上有分离的物种，在其主要范围以南1000公里处的种群代表着先前较凉爽气候的残余。了解这些模式有助于了解当前的威胁和未来的应对措施。大型湖泊经常被低估的第二个方面是，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。这不仅创造了支持沿海岸线和岛屿上的古老物种的避难所，而且可能支持更高景观规模的生物多样性。当结合在一起时，湖泊衍生的气候和火灾避难所在各自的位置上可以协同作用，进一步加强避难效果。 我的长期研究目标是了解支配物种和生态系统的分布、动态和相互作用的过程，并利用这些信息为生物多样性保护提供信息。我建议在这笔赠款中通过两个互补的主题来讨论这些问题及其在保护方面的应用。首先是了解与湖泊相关的因素，这些因素改变了小气候，促进了生物群的分离模式，从而为当地的气候避难所提供了信息。这包括测量和预测湖岸线上的小气候和生物反应，将这些与残存物种的现有模式联系起来，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起火的北部针叶林内的火灾历史，包括避火点的位置，以及这如何调节古老森林的供应和生物多样性。这项工作将通过实地和遥感研究相结合的方式完成，最终为加拿大北方森林中的避难所(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。这笔赠款还将培训高素质的人员，他们将为实现加拿大对生物多样性保护的承诺做出贡献。

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.