Collaborative research: Mechanisms Influencing Seedling Recruitment and Establishment in a Fragmented Amazonian Landscape

热带地区的森林砍伐正在以前所未有的速度继续，导致物种丰富的热带雨林支离破碎。碎片化的最常见后果之一是减少苗木的建立，特别是对森林下层中发现的物种。这项提议有两个目标。首先，Bruna和Uriarte将确定安全地点和种子限制如何相互作用，影响亚马逊林下植物Heliconia acumata的招募。其次，该项目将确定这些过程是如何在森林碎片中改变的。这些目标将通过实地研究与创新的空间显式建模框架相结合来实现。尽管有充分的证据表明，在森林碎片中，耐荫植物物种的招募减少，但几乎对生境碎片化影响植物招募的机制知之甚少。通过促进我们对这些机制的理解，这项工作将有助于改善热带森林的管理和保护工作。此外，这项研究还提供了一个独特的机会，用林下草本植物来研究植物生态学中的一个中心问题。林下草本植物是一组在生态上至关重要但明显未被研究的植物。最后，它将促进两名少数民族科学家的职业生涯，并为本科生、研究生和博士后研究亚马逊生态系统生态提供支持。

Deforestation in the tropics is continuing at rates that lack historical precedent, resulting in the fragmentation of species-rich rain forests. One of the most common consequences of fragmentation is reduced seedling establishment, particularly for species found in the forest understory. This proposal has two objectives. First, Bruna and Uriarte will determine how safe-site and seed limitation interact to influence the recruitment of Heliconia acuminata, an Amazonian understory plant. Second, the project will ascertain how these processes are altered in forest fragments. These objectives will be addressed using field studies coupled with an innovative spatially-explicit modeling framework. Despite ample evidence that the recruitment of shade-tolerant plant species declines in forest fragments, almost nothing is known about the mechanisms by which habitat fragmentation influences plant recruitment. By advancing our understanding of these mechanisms, this work will help improve management and conservation efforts for tropical forests. Furthermore, this study provides a unique opportunity to investigate a central issue in plant ecology with understory herbs, a group of plants that is ecologically critical but conspicuously understudied. Finally it will advance the career of two minority scientists and provide support for undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers to study the ecology of Amazonian ecosystems.