RUI: Databases and Database Tools for Canopy Science - What Trees Can Teach Us about Integrating Database Use into the Research Process

该项目将开发数据库工具，以提高研究人员在一个新兴的跨学科领域-森林冠层研究-收集，分析，链接和存档他们的数据的能力。森林冠层领域目前正处于青春期，并在科学界，公众和政策制定者的兴趣方面迅速增长。林冠的协调研究开始于共享的研究地点，但林冠研究人员认为，他们回答新出现的问题的主要障碍是缺乏数据库工具，使他们能够以协调的方式收集数据，并将数据链接起来进行比较研究。以前NSF赞助的合作研究开发了初步的数据库工具和数据集，基于在风河林冠起重机研究设施进行的森林林冠结构/功能关系的试点研究。这些工具包括数据模型、元数据数据库和一个基于网络的多PI全球气候变化研究项目清单。该项目通过收集存档和当前数据来进一步开发这些工具，以测试不同结构多样性的针叶林梯度中冠层结构/功能关系的假设，从结构非常复杂的（后期演替的原始森林）到结构非常简单的（年轻的单一物种种植园林）。这些工具将扩大到包括来自巴拿马和澳大利亚的另外两种森林类型的不同结构成分的森林，这两种森林都有树冠起重机设施，支持树冠的合作研究。安德鲁斯实验森林、俄勒冈州州立大学森林科学数据库中心、史密森尼热带研究所和热带森林研究中心的研究人员将参与合作。该项目将通过研讨会和建立林冠研究“虚拟中心”来传播研究结果，建立在现有的国际林冠网络，这是设在万年青国家。研究活动将纳入本科生和研究生的机会。

This Project will develop database tools that will enhance the ability of researchers in one emerging and interdisciplinary field -- forest canopy studies -- to collect, analyze, link, and archive their data.The field of forest canopies is currently in its adolescence, and is growing rapidly in terms of interest from the scientific community, the general public, and policy makers. Coordinated study of the canopy is beginning at shared research sites, but canopy researchers view their major obstacle to answer emerging questions as the lack of database tools that would allow them to gather their data in harmonized ways and to link their data to enable comparative studies.Previous NSF-sponsored collaborative research developed preliminary database tools and datasets, based on pilot studies of forest canopy structure/function relationships at the Wind River Canopy Crane Research Facility. These tools included data models, a metadata database, and a web-based project inventory for a multi-PI global climate change study.This project develops these tools further by gathering archived and current data to test hypotheses on canopy structure/function relationships in a gradient of coniferous forests of differing structural diversity, ranging from very structurally complex (the late-successional primary forests) to very structurally simple (young monospecific plantation forests). These tools will be extended to incorporate forests of different structural constituents from two other forest types in Panama and Australia, both of which have a canopy crane facility and support collaborative canopy research. Researchers at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, the Forest Science Database Center at Oregon State University, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and the Centre for Tropical Forest Studies will participate as part of a collaboration.The project will disseminate findings through workshops and through the development of a "virtual center" of canopy research, building upon the existing International Canopy Network which is housed at Evergreen State. Research activities will be incorporated into opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students.