RAPID: Using open-source ecology to examine tree physiological response and mortality across species during the 2012 United States drought

这个探索性项目考察了干旱如何影响美国大陆的树木死亡。对干旱和树木死亡的研究通常是在特定地点和少数物种上进行的，部分原因是区域范围内的重大干旱相对罕见，很难预测，也很难研究。与此形成对比的是，该项目采用了一种独特的合作方式，称为开源生态，以便根据正在进行的2012年西部地区大旱灾，从更广泛的角度研究树木对水分胁迫的脆弱性。该项目将记录一些不同地点和物种的树木的生理状况、生长和年死亡率，利用来自国家监测项目的数据，如森林调查和分析和霓虹灯，并涉及许多机构、研究人员和学生，以展示未来如何全面实施协调一致的大陆测量计划。干旱导致的树木死亡是一个重要但知之甚少的过程，导致气候变化对生物多样性、生态群落和陆地碳循环的影响存在重大不确定性。例如，当前的碳循环模型要么假设长期的背景死亡率，要么假设死亡率可以对火灾等干扰做出反应，而不是对众所周知的重要压力因素做出反应。事实上，目前还不存在跨物种或跨生态系统的干旱导致树木死亡的预测模型。为了进行这项试验，超过45名科学家承诺与许多本科生和研究生一起进行实地和实验室测量。在2012年美国生态学会会议上举行的启动会议将激励这些承诺，并通过欧空局的生态教育、多样性和可持续发展战略计划招募更多元化的国家学生群体。该项目还将为国家和潜在的跨生态学科的国际协调奠定基础，这些学科包括大气建模、生理学、水文学、遥感和生物地球化学。最后，该项目汇集了多个社区的广泛支持，创造了一个独特的智力论坛，以共享、协作和开放的方式发展必要的理解和工具，以预测和管理干旱对森林生态系统的影响。

This exploratory project examines how drought affects tree death across the continental United States. Research on drought and tree mortality is typically carried out at particular locations and on few species, in part because major droughts at the regional scale are relatively rare, hard to anticipate and hard to study. In contrast, this project uses a uniquely collaborative approach, referred to as open-source ecology, in order to develop a broader perspective of tree vulnerability to water stress based on the on-going major western regional drought of 2012. The project will document the physiological status, growth and annual mortality of trees across a number of different locations and species, leveraging data from national monitoring programs, such as the Forest Inventory and Analysis and NEON, and involving many institutions, investigators and students, to demonstrate how a coordinated continental measurement program could be fully implemented in the future. Drought-induced tree mortality is an important but poorly understood process that leads to major uncertainties regarding the impacts of climate change on biodiversity, ecological communities, and the terrestrial carbon cycle. For example, current models of the carbon cycle either assume long-term background rates of mortality, or that mortality can be modeled in response to disturbances like fire, not in response to particular stressors that are well known to be important. In fact, no predictive model of drought-driven tree death across species or ecosystems currently exists. To carry out this pilot, more than 45 scientists have committed to work with many undergraduate and graduate students on field and lab measurements. A kick-off meeting at the 2012 Ecological Society of America Meeting will galvanize these commitments and enable recruitment of a more diverse national student group through the ESA program, Strategies for Ecology Education, Diversity and Sustainability. The project will also lay the foundation for national and potentially international coordination across disciplines beyond ecology, including atmospheric modeling, physiology, hydrology, remote sensing, and biogeochemistry. Finally, broad support from multiple communities assembled by the project creates a unique intellectual forum for a shared, collaborative, and open approach to developing the understanding and tools necessary to predict and manage drought impacts on forest ecosystems.