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、磷或这两种元素的组合短缺。热带森林在控制氮和磷循环的关键方面的因素中，在每一个尺度上都包含着巨大的异质性，这使得对养分限制的大尺度预测非常困难。这项工作将针对一个基本上未经探索，但潜在的重要驱动力的低地热带森林氮循环：地貌的作用。研究人员将联合收割机从生态系统生态学，地球化学，地貌和遥感技术，以评估在整个区域范围内的氮和磷循环的变化，重点是地形地貌和演变的变化如何影响养分限制。该项目还包括一个首创的伙伴关系，将地球化学的地面技术与使用和解释从包括激光和光学传感器的平台获得的航空遥感数据相结合。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？世界上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。该项目还将有助于扩大PI的外联和公众沟通的长期记录。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伙伴关系，斯克里普斯研究员（访问专业记者）将在哪里？嵌入式？这个项目。CEJ团队还将包括一名新闻学硕士生。CEJ将提供多个通信平台，以加强这种伙伴关系;其中包括获奖的视频播客（CU科学更新）和The Boulder Stand，一个学生经营的多媒体杂志。一套沟通策略，从传统的杂志风格的文章，视频播客，现场博客和社交媒体的使用，将通过在每个参与机构类的正式调查进行评估，以及阿尔多利奥波德领导和谷歌科学通信网络的成员。最后，在这个项目中使用的AToMS遥感系统直接导致那些被用于新的氖机载观测平台（AOP），在这个项目中所做的工作将有助于通知氖目标整合AOP数据与一套地面和建模为基础的方法，以解决在大陆尺度的生态动态。

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.