LTREB: KLEE (Kenya Long-term Exclosure Experiment): Pattern and Process in an African Savanna

这项提议是为了支持继续进行肯尼亚长期围封实验，该实验测试了本地和家养食草动物对彼此及其共享景观的影响。食草动物和植物之间的相互作用受到许多因素的影响，包括降雨、土壤结构、营养物质、捕食者和疾病。为了将食草动物的影响与其他影响分开，8年前在肯尼亚的半干旱生态系统中开始了一项大规模实验。这个实验既证明了不同类型的食草动物的主要影响，也证明了这些生物在组合考虑时的影响（它们的相互作用）。在接下来的五年里，这个正在进行的实验将继续研究这个生态系统在包括多年天气周期的时间跨度内对食草动物的反应;它将更具体地专注于梳理大型食草动物与土壤和植被空间变化之间存在的复杂关系，并研究树木和草之间发生的相互作用。草地生态系统对牲畜和野生动物以及对维持生物多样性都很重要。这项研究的结果将为世界上最重要的生物群落之一的保护生物学，生态系统管理和畜牧业生产提供重要的见解。这项研究还涉及来自肯尼亚和美国几个机构的科学家，其中许多人是代表性不足的少数民族和妇女。研究结果将在科学界、公众和该地区的利益攸关方中广泛传播。

This proposal is a request to support continuation of the Kenya Long-term Exclosure Experiment, which tests the effects of native and domestic herbivores on each other and on their shared landscape. Interactions between herbivores and their plants are affected by many factors, including rainfall, soil structure, nutrients, predators, and disease. In order to separate the effects of herbivores from these other influences, a large-scale experiment was started 8 years ago in a semi-arid ecosystem in Kenya. This experiment has demonstrated both the main effects of different types of herbivores and the effects of these organisms when considered in combination (their interactive effects). Over the next five years, this ongoing experiment will continue to examine the response of this ecosystem to herbivores over a time span that includes multi-year weather cycles; it will focus more specifically on teasing apart the complex relationships that exist between large herbivores and spatial variation in soils and in vegetation, and on examining the interactions that take place between trees and grasses when both are exposed to herbivory. Grassland ecosystems are important worldwide for both livestock and wildlife, and for the maintenance of biodiversity. Results from this study will contribute important insights to conservation biology, ecosystem management, and livestock production in one of the world's most important biomes. The study also involves scientists from several institutions in Kenya and the United States, many of whom are under-represented minorities and women. Results will be broadly communicated within the scientific community, to the public, and to stakeholders in the region.