SGER: RUI: Collaborative: Mechanisms of Community Re-Assembly After a Catastrophic Fire

2002年夏天，北美西部经历了有史以来最大的森林火灾之一。 比斯韦尔大火烧毁了俄勒冈州和加州近50万英亩的原始栖息地。该项目将利用这场火灾留下的复制的燃烧和未燃烧的地点的马赛克，并应用实验方法来解决社区生态学中的一般问题。 由于P.I.s已经收集了关于该地区植物和蚂蚁群落结构的燃烧前数据，因此与初始条件相比，他们处于一个独特的位置，可以跟踪群落重新组装的轨迹。 在重复的地点，他们将建立障碍，以排除蚂蚁，一个主要的种子传播媒介，并测试对植物群落组装的速度和轨迹的影响，特别是在孤立的沼泽。 这项工作将显着扩展我们的知识蚂蚁植物群落的相互作用和灾难性火灾后的重新组装。

During the summer of 2002, western North America experienced one of the largest forest fires in recorded history. The Biscuit Fire burned nearly one half million acres of mostly pristine habitats in Oregon and California. This project will exploit the mosaic of replicated burned and unburned sites left by this fire, and apply an experimental approach to address general questions in community ecology. Because the P.I.s had collected pre-burn data on the structure of the plant and ant communities in this area, they are in a unique position to follow trajectories of community re-assembly compared to initial conditions. At replicated sites they will erect barriers to exclude ants, a major seed dispersal agent, and test for effects on rates and trajectories of plant community assembly, especially in isolated fens. This work will significantly extend our knowledge on ant-plant community interactions and re-assembly after catastrophic fire.