Ecosystem Response to Disturbance from Decadal to Millennial Timescales: Support for the PROBE Workshop - at Konza Prairie Biological Station near Manhattan, Kansas - April 2012

甲虫暴发、灾难性火灾、风暴和干旱等干扰的频率、严重程度和程度增加，引起了人们对生态系统健康的广泛关注。由于干扰的后果可能需要很多年才能显现出来，如果没有跨越几十年到几千年的生态系统过程的基线记录，很难评估其潜在影响。两组科学家，生态系统生态学家和古生态学家，研究这些过程，但他们通常检查不同时间尺度上的事件和后果。来自每个小组的研究人员将被召集在一个Probe(古生物地球化学环境重建)研讨会上描述过去的生态系统，在该研讨会上，将检查包括沉积物记录、树轮记录、土壤记录和长期仪器测量在内的几个数据集，以评估生态系统过程(特别是碳和氮循环)如何对干扰做出反应。探测讲习班将造福社会和更大的科学界。研讨会将包括早期职业参与者，提供机会培训年轻科学家如何进行21世纪所需的协作和跨学科研究。一些与会者开发了木炭分析和稳定同位素解释等专门技术，这些技术的知识将在讲习班上分享。最后，一些参与者正在与政府机构和非政府组织合作，提供有关干扰的影响的信息，特别是昆虫暴发和荒地火灾管理。研讨会将提供对管理人员有帮助的信息，特别是那些试图制定应对骚乱战略的管理人员。

Increased frequency, severity, and extent of disturbances such as beetle outbreaks, catastrophic fires, windstorms, and droughts, have caused widespread concern about ecosystem health. Because the consequences of disturbance can take many years to play out, evaluation of their potential impacts is difficult without a baseline record of ecosystem processes that spans decades to a few thousand years. Two groups of scientists, ecosystem ecologists and paleoecologists, study these processes, but they typically examine events and consequences on different time scales. Researchers from each group will be brought together to characterize past ecosystems in a PROBE (Paleo Reconstructions Of Biogeochemical Environments) workshop, where several datasets, including sediment records, tree-ring records, soil records, and long-term instrumental measurements will be examined to assess how ecosystem processes (particularly carbon and nitrogen cycling) have responded to disturbance. The PROBE workshop will benefit society and the larger scientific community. The workshop will include early career participants, providing opportunities to train young scientists how to conduct collaborative and interdisciplinary research that is needed for the 21st century. Several participants have developed specialized techniques such as charcoal analysis and stable isotope interpretation and knowledge of these techniques will be shared at the workshop. Finally, several participants are working with government agencies and NGOs to provide information about the effects of disturbance, especially insect outbreaks and wildland fire management. The workshop will provide information that will be helpful to managers, particularly those trying to develop strategies for dealing with disturbances.