US-Denmark Cooperative Research: Synthesis of Physio- logically Based Carbon Models for Salt Marsh Ecosystems

该奖项为南卡罗来纳大学的詹姆斯·T·莫里斯博士对丹麦的长期研究访问提供了部分支持。他将与奥胡斯大学植物研究所的Arne Jensen博士和其他人合作，对盐沼的碳循环进行比较研究。莫里斯博士多年来一直在研究沼泽中的二氧化碳交换、分解和养分吸收，并制作了几个关于这些过程的生理学模型。在詹森博士的帮助下，他将把这些模型应用于丹麦的斯卡林根盐沼，并利用这些模型来探索北欧和美国东南部气候不同的沼泽的碳循环差异。他们还计划将这些模型结合到一个综合的生态系统水平模型中，该模型将用于预测盐沼碳循环的动态，包括地下生产。这项合作计划为莫里斯博士提供了进入一个截然不同的湿地环境的途径，一个由詹森博士领导的出色的植物生态学家团队，以及一个世界知名的河口生物地球化学家团队。他希望学习植物生理学方面的遥感技术和新方法，并从欧洲不同的生态概念和方法中受益。作为回报，丹麦集团应该会受益于莫里斯博士在数值建模方面的专业知识。盐沼是高生产力的生态系统，存在于世界各地的温带大陆边缘。这些生态系统的初级生产被认为是具有重要商业价值的鱼类的重要营养来源。盐沼也可以作为有机碳的汇；然而，关于盐沼中的碳循环的知识还不完整。地下初级生产量的速度特别难以测量，而且由于抽样误差，存在很大的不确定性。预计拟议的合作将产生一个理论上可靠的模型，该模型将有助于预测或评估盐沼中的初级生产和其他碳循环过程。该模型的结构具有通用性，经标定后可推广到其他系统。

This award provides partial support for a long-term research visit to Denmark by Dr. James T. Morris of the University of South Carolina. He will collaborate with Dr. Arne Jensen and others of the Botanical Institute of the University of Aarhus in a comparative study of salt marsh carbon cycles. Dr. Morris has studied carbon dioxide exchange, decomposition and nutrient uptake in marshes for many years, and has produced several physiologically based models of these processes. With Dr. Jensen, he will adapt these models to Skallingen salt marsh in Denmark, and use the models to explore differences in the carbon cycles of climatically dissimilar marshes from Northern Europe and the Southeastern United States. They also plan to combine these models into an integrated ecosystem level model that will be used to predict the dynamics of salt marsh carbon cycles, including below- ground production. The collaborative plan provides Dr. Morris with access to a vastly different marsh environment, an excellent group of plant ecologists, led by Dr. Jensen, and a world renowned group of estuarine biogeochemists. He expects to learn remote sensing skills and new methods in plant physiology, as well as benefit from the different concepts and approaches to ecology in Europe. In return, the Danish group should benefit from Dr. Morris'expertise in numerical modelling. Salt marshes are highly productive ecosystems that exist worldwide along continental margins in the temperate zone. Primary production in these ecosystems is thought to be an important source of nutrition for commercially important fishes. Salt marshes also function as sinks for organic carbon; however, knowledge of the carbon cycle in salt marshes is incomplete. The rate of below-ground primary production has been especially difficult to measure and is subject to great uncertainty due to sampling error. The proposed collaboration is expected to result in a theoretically robust model that will be useful for predicting or evaluating primary production and other carbon cycle processes in salt marshes. The structure of the model is general and could be applied to other systems when calibrated.