Collaborative Research: LTREB: The role of ecological heterogeneity in a long-term grassland restoration experiment

由于人类对环境的干扰，植物群落结构和生态系统功能的许多方面已经退化，如果没有人类的干预，可能无法通过生态恢复恢复。在受干扰的生态系统中恢复生物多样性几乎是一个普遍的挑战，也是一个测试物种共存的一般生态原则的机会。该项目将延续一项为期14年的测试，即环境的异质性是否会产生空位和可获取的资源，从而允许新物种在群落中建立和共存。新物种的种子将被添加到1997年开始的草原恢复实验中。试验包括4级土壤异质性的样地，这导致不同土壤处理和不同年份植物群落的发展在物种数量和丰度上存在差异。本实验对植物群落的14年分析表明，随着时间的推移，植物多样性有所下降，但在土壤资源变化的样地，植物多样性得到了保持。如果生态变异性较大的地块在空间和时间上包含更多可供新物种开发的资源，那么本研究将证明“异质性产生多样性”的一般生态学原理可以应用于增加恢复草原的生物多样性，而植物多样性随着时间的推移而下降是一种普遍现象。此外，本研究将确定哪些植物性状有助于成功建立和持续存在，这将为物种选择提供信息，以长期保持生物多样性。该项目还将为研究生教育提供支持，为本科生提供恢复实践培训，并促进草原恢复公共教育，作为讲解员培训、自然资源管理人员、高中教师和公众的示范场所和资源。

Many aspects of plant community structure and ecosystem functioning have been degraded by human disturbance to the environment, and may not return without human intervention through ecological restoration. Restoring biodiversity in disturbed ecosystems is a nearly-universal challenge, as well as an opportunity to test general ecological principles about species coexistence. This project will extend a 14-year test of whether heterogeneity in the environment creates vacancies and accessible resources that allow new species to establish and coexist in a community. Seeds of new species will be added to a prairie restoration experiment that was initiated in 1997. The experiment includes plots with up to four levels of soil heterogeneity, which has resulted in the development of plant communities that vary in the number and abundance of species among soil treatments and different years. The 14-year analysis of plant communities in this experiment demonstrated that plant diversity has declined over time, but more species have been maintained in plots with variable soil resources. If plots with greater ecological variability contain more resources for new species to exploit in space and time, then this study will demonstrate that the general ecological principle "heterogeneity begets diversity" can be applied to increase biodiversity in restored grasslands, where declining plant diversity over time is a common phenomenon. Further, this study will identify which plant traits contribute to successful establishment and persistence, which will inform species selection to maintain biodiversity over the long term. This project will also provide support for graduate education, offer hands-on training in restoration to undergraduates, and foster public education about prairie restoration as a demonstration site and resource for docent training, natural resource managers, high school teachers, and the general public.