LTER: LTER 5: Understanding Environmental Change in Northeast Puerto Rico

卢基洛长期生态研究计划(LUQ)通过关注21世纪社会面临的两大挑战--气候变化和土地利用变化--将研究和教育活动结合在一起。目标是了解：1)波多黎各东北部的环境正在如何变化；2)这种变化对生物多样性、生物地球化学和生态系统服务的影响；以及3)社会如何管理或适应这些变化。研究将包括继续沿着气候和土地利用梯度进行长期研究、建模和综合，以及长期实地实验和一个新的地貌水平项目，旨在从机制上了解长期变化的关键驱动因素的影响。利用综合的理论、实验和观测方法，LUQ 5将为评估热带生态系统的管理及其服务提供一个全面的科学框架。该计划将继续培训大量的研究生和本科生，特别是代表人数不足的群体的成员，培养一支协作的多学科科学家队伍，他们可以将人口、社区和生态系统方法联系起来，提供对环境变化的预测性理解。Luq 5的校园LTER将通过实地研究和基于网络的中学生态教学课程接触到教师和数百名初中生。

The Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Program (LUQ) integrates research and educational activities through a focus on two great challenges confronting society in the 21st Century: climate change and land use change. The goal is to understand: 1) how the environment of northeast Puerto Rico is changing; 2) the consequences of such change for biodiversity, biogeochemistry, and ecosystem services; and 3) how society can manage or adapt to these changes. Research will involve continuing long-term studies along climate and land use gradients, modeling and synthesis, and long-term field experiments and a new landscape-level project that are designed to provide a mechanistic understanding of the effects of key drivers of long-term change. Using integrated theoretical, experimental, and observational approaches, LUQ 5 will provide a comprehensive scientific framework for evaluating the management of tropical ecosystems and their services. The program will continue to train numerous graduate and undergraduate students, especially members of underrepresented groups, producing a cadre of collaborative, multidisciplinary scientists who can link population, community, and ecosystem approaches to provide a predictive understanding of environmental change. Schoolyard LTER in LUQ 5 will reach teachers and hundreds of middle and high school students through field research and via a web-based middle school curriculum for teaching ecology.