Effects of Wildfire Disturbance on Water Budgets of Boreal Black Spruce Forests

作为世界上第二大陆地生物群落，北方森林在全球水循环中起着至关重要的作用。该项目的目标是量化和了解从自然野火干扰中恢复的北方森林的生物大气水分损失。生物控制发生是因为植物在光合作用过程中调节水分的流失。目前关于从北方森林蒸发到大气中的水的模型过于简单，因为缺乏区分树木和苔藓水分流失的数据，前者对水分流失的控制明显不同于后者。该项目将使科学界和土地管理界能够评估，要充分预测正在经历并可能继续经历野火频率增加的北方森林的水损失，需要多大的复杂性。该项目将成为未来科学家和土地管理人员的理想培训基地，他们通过培训博士后、研究生和本科生，研究可能改变植被和水循环的系统。该项目将继续项目负责人目前的努力，通过与当地土著人民、高中和社区大学的联系，将科学和教育结合起来。

As the world's second largest terrestrial biome, the boreal forest plays a crucial role in the global water cycle. The goal of this project is to quantify and understand biological atmospheric losses of water from boreal forests recovering from natural wildfire disturbances. Biological control occurs because plants regulate the amount of water lost while photosynthesizing. Current models of evaporated water into the atmosphere from boreal forests are to simplistic because of a lack of data separating water lost from trees versus mosses, of which the former has markedly different controls than the latter over water loss. This project will enable the scientific and land management communities to assess how much complexity is required to adequately predict water losses from boreal forests that are experiencing and may continue to experience increased wildfire frequency. The project will serve as an ideal training ground for future scientists and land managers who work on systems that may modify the vegetation and thus water cycle by training post-docs, graduate and undergraduate students. The project will continue current efforts by the project leaders to integrate science and education through ties with local native peoples, high schools and community colleges.