Collaborative Research (SIMS): An Integrated Approach to Understanding the Role of Climate-Vegetation-Fire Interactions in Boreal Forests Responses to Climatic Change

PI建议使用古植物学和古地球化学数据与模型开发的理解植被分布的现代控制，探索复杂的前进，后退背后的基本机制，并沿着布鲁克斯在阿拉斯加的沿着北方苔原交错带进一步推进。 古植物学的证据将被用来检查几种不同的方法来辨别生态交错带的运动与气候变量（温度，降水量和降水的季节性）的变化的物种水平的分辨率。 分析将提供独立的气候和植被数据集。 气候数据集将用于驱动生态系统模型，以模拟气候变化下植被的变化。 这项研究的结果将提供一个有用的预测能力，分离气候引起的变化，在气候-植被系统的反馈所造成的，当试图预测北方森林生态系统对未来气候变化的反应。

The PIs propose to use paleobotanical and paleogeochemical data with a model developed for understanding modern controls on vegetation distribution to explore the fundamental mechanisms behind complex advance, retreat, and further advance of a boreal-tundra ecotone along the Brooks Range in Alaska. The paleobotanical evidence will be used to examine several different approaches to discern movements of the ecotone with a species-level resolution with the changes in climate variables (temperature, precipitation amount, and seasonality of precipitation). The analysis will provide independent climate and vegetation datasets. The climate dataset will be used to drive an ecosystem model to simulate changing vegetation under changing climate. The results of the study will provide a useful predictive capability for separating climate-induced changes from those caused by feedbacks in the climate-vegetation system when attempting predictions of boreal forest ecosystem responses to future climate change.