Shortgrass Steppe Long Term Ecological Research

25年的深入研究揭示了短草草原（SGS）生态系统，尽管长期缺水、严重干旱和大型食草动物的密集放牧，其基本生态结构和功能仍保持完整。然而，随着全球变化，预计一系列条件的发展将远远超出过去几千年的经历。预测SGS将如何应对取决于对关键生态系统驱动因素的理解，包括气候、地貌、生物结构、自然干扰和人类土地利用。受自然变化限制但被人类影响打断的有弹性的生态系统，可能会被人类扮演更直接角色的陌生生态系统所取代。这项研究的目标是通过继续过去的工作和在新的实验中实验操纵从以前的工作中已知的重要因素，来测试SGS的弹性、功能和结构的极限。多种时间尺度的变化以及长期监测、短期和长期实验相结合，将能够预测全球变化对SGS的影响。实验将涉及操纵未来最有可能发生变化的因素，并选择以前确定为易受变化影响或可能影响多种其他相互作用的生态属性和相互作用。该项目被组织成专注于生物相互作用和生态系统过程的研究小组，通过跨lter研究、数据综合和建模将多个跨学科研究结合起来。除了在全球范围内出版数百篇同行评议的期刊文章和学术书籍，包括最近的SGS综合卷，SGS- lter影响着科罗拉多州立大学、科罗拉多州内外的社区和土地使用者。活动包括与牧场主、非政府组织和土地管理者（特别是来自美国农业部）的联系；一个涵盖K-12的大型教育项目；由数百名本科生作为现场工作人员、独立研究学生和REU学生参与；还有一个活跃的研究生项目。SGS的许多教育工作涉及STEM学科中代表性不足的群体。最近在实地完成的新教学楼大大提高了提供外联服务的能力。SGS维护了一个主动的信息管理系统，旨在改善对长期数据集的访问，项目网页正在重新设计，以方便数据访问。

Twenty-five years of intensive study has revealed a Shortgrass Steppe (SGS) ecosystem for which, despite chronic water stress, periods of severe drought, and intensive grazing by large herbivores, the essential ecological structure and functioning remain intact. With global change, however, a range of conditions is anticipated to develop far outside those experienced during the last several thousand years. Forecasting how the SGS will respond depends on understanding of key ecosystem drivers, including climate, physiography, biotic structure, natural disturbance, and human land use. The resilient ecosystem, bounded within natural variation but interrupted by human influence, may be supplanted by an unfamiliar one, with humans playing a much more direct role. The goal of the proposed research is to test the limits of resilience, function and structure of the SGS, by both continuing past work and by experimentally manipulating factors in new experiments that are known from previous work to be important. Multiple temporal scales of change and a combination of long-term monitoring, short- and long-term experiments will enable forecasts of the impacts of global change on the SGS. Experiments will involve manipulating factors that will most likely change in the future, and selecting ecological attributes and interactions previously identified either as vulnerable to change or likely to influence multiple other interactions. The project is organized into research groups that focus on biotic interactions and ecosystem processes, with multiple interdisciplinary studies united by cross-LTER studies, data synthesis and modeling. Besides publishing hundreds of peer-reviewed journal articles and scholarly books in outlets with global reach, including a recent SGS synthesis volume, SGS-LTER impacts Colorado State University, communities and land users within Colorado, and beyond. Activities include outreach to ranchers, non-governmental organizations and land managers (especially from the U.S. Department of Agriculture); a large educational program integrated across K-12; involvement by hundreds of undergraduates as field crew, independent study students, and REU students; and an active graduate program. Much SGS education work reaches out to groups underrepresented in STEM disciplines. The ability to provide outreach is vastly improved upon recent completion of new classroom building at the field site. SGS maintains a proactive Information Management system that works to improve access to long-term data sets and the project web page is being redesigned to facilitate data access.