Collaborative Research: Geomorphic Control of the Lowland Tropical Forest Nitrogen Cycle

热带森林是地球的一部分吗？最重要和最受威胁的生物群落。它们占据了地球的很大一部分？它们每年与大气交换的碳和能量比任何其他主要陆地生态系统类型都要多。这种碳和能量交换受到营养限制的性质和强度的强烈调节，通常是由于氮、磷或两种元素的组合的短缺。热带森林在控制氮和磷循环的关键方面的各个尺度上都具有巨大的异质性，使得对养分限制的大规模预测非常困难。这项工作将针对低地热带森林氮循环的一个很大程度上尚未开发但潜在重要的驱动因素：地貌的作用。研究人员将结合生态系统生态学、生物地球化学、地貌学和遥感技术来评估区域尺度上氮和磷循环的变化，重点关注地形地形的变化和演变如何影响养分限制。该项目还包括首个同类伙伴关系，将生物地球化学的地面技术与来自包括激光和光学传感器的平台的机载遥感数据的使用和解释相结合。这项研究的最终目标是建立更好的热带生态系统功能预测模型。该项目的结果将有助于提高预测地球如何？最重要但最不为人所知的生物群落在未来可能会发生变化，从而有助于实现各种管理和保护目标。这个项目还将有助于延续PI长期以来的外联和公共沟通记录。它将包括与科罗拉多大学环境新闻中心（CEJ）及其斯克里普斯环境奖学金计划的新合作伙伴关系，其中斯克里普斯研究员（访问专业记者）将被嵌入。和这个项目一起。CEJ团队还将包括一名新闻学硕士学生。CEJ将提供多种通信平台，以加强这种伙伴关系；其中包括一个屡获殊荣的视频播客（科罗拉多大学科学更新），以及学生经营的多媒体杂志《巨石站》。一系列传播策略，从传统的杂志式文章到视频播客，到实时博客和社会媒体的使用，将通过对每个参与机构的班级以及Aldo Leopold Leadership和谷歌科学传播网络成员的正式调查来评估。最后，在这个项目中使用的原子遥感系统直接导致了在新的NEON机载观测平台（AOP）中使用的那些系统，并且在这个项目中所做的工作将有助于告诉NEON将AOP数据与一套基于地面和建模的方法集成在一起的目标，以解决大陆尺度上的生态动力学。

Tropical forests are one of Earth?s most important and threatened biomes. They house a large fraction of the planet?s biodiversity, and they exchange more carbon and energy with the atmosphere each year than any other major terrestrial ecosystem type. This carbon and energy exchange is strongly regulated by the nature and strength of nutrient limitation, typically due to shortages of nitrogen, phosphorus or a combination of both elements. Tropical forests also contain enormous heterogeneity at every scale in the factors that control key aspects of nitrogen and phosphorus cycling, rendering large-scale predictions of nutrient limitation very difficult. This work will target a largely unexplored but potentially important driver of the lowland tropical forest nitrogen cycle: The role of geomorphology. The investigators will combine techniques from ecosystem ecology, biogeochemistry, geomorphology and remote sensing to assess variations in both nitrogen and phosphorus cycling across a regional scale, with a focus on how changes in landform topography and evolution affect nutrient limitation. The project also includes a first-of-its-kind partnership that combines on-the-ground techniques in biogeochemistry with the use and interpretation of airborne remote sensing data derived from a platform that includes both laser and optical sensors. The ultimate goal of the research is to produce better predictive models of tropical ecosystem function. The project results will contribute to an improved ability to predict how one of Earth?s most critical but least-understood biomes may change in the future, thus aiding a variety of management and conservation goals. This project will also help extend a long record of outreach and public communication by the PI's. It will include a new partnership with the University of Colorado Center for Environmental Journalism (CEJ) and its Scripps Environmental Fellowship Program, where a Scripps Fellow (a visiting professional journalist) will be ?embedded? with the project. The CEJ team will also include a Masters student in journalism. The CEJ will provide access to multiple communication platforms to enhance this partnership; these include an award-winning video podcast (CU Science Update), and The Boulder Stand, a student-run multi-media magazine. A suite of communication strategies, ranging from traditional magazine-style articles, to video podcasts, to live blogging and the use of social media, will be assessed via formal surveys of classes at each participating institution, as well as of members of the Aldo Leopold Leadership and Google Science Communication networks. Finally, the AToMS remote sensing system used in this project led directly to those to be used in the new NEON Airborne Observing Platforms (AOP), and the work done in this project will help inform NEON goals of integrating AOP data with a suite of ground- and modeling-based approaches to resolving ecological dynamics at continental scales.