Collaborative Research: The Ecological Drill Hypothesis: Biotic Control on Carbonate Dissolution in a Low Relief Patterned Landscape

生物过程在塑造土地方面扮演着重要但未得到充分认识的角色。事实上，在一些地方，动植物是控制地形变化的最重要因素，从而控制着陆地表面的栖息地和水文模式。这项工作探索了生物在塑造大柏树国家保护区(BICICE)陆地表面中的作用，BICICE是佛罗里达州西南部由柏树湿地、松树高地和深水泥滩组成的复杂而美丽的马赛克。冰川是一种喀斯特地貌，地表存在石灰岩基岩。虽然地貌几乎完全平坦，但刻在石灰岩上的小湿地凹地对于储存水至关重要，因此为各种动植物提供了栖息地。这些湿地洼地的起源尚不清楚。这项研究将确定这些凹陷及其在地形上非常规则的间距是否由湿地中自然发生的生物过程造成的，这些生物过程加速了石灰岩的溶解速度。这创造了一种诱人的可能性，即栖息在这些湿地上的生物正在通过启动和扩大地形凹陷来慢慢创造自己的栖息地。研究团队由不同学科的科学家组成，包括水文学家、地质学家、生物学家和模型师，创造了回答这些类型的研究问题所需的协作整合类型。将卫星和航空数据与详细的现场测量相结合，该团队将能够研究这些凹陷形成的方式和速度，这对区域水流和水质意味着什么，以及地形和由此产生的陆地表面栖息地模式是如何形成的。这项工作有助于理解生态和地质过程如何共同作用来塑造陆地表面。地球表面的图案是由植物和动物以及岩石和水之间的相互作用自发产生的，这一中心思想提醒人们，生态系统中存在着强大的、有时令人惊讶的联系。在这种情况下，湿地生态系统被认为通过溶解岩石来改变数千年来陆地的形状。这种洞察力将有助于理解这一景观的起源，它支持着一系列非凡的有机体和栖息地。它还将提高对水文特征的了解，以及水运动对大南佛罗里达系统的影响，包括大沼泽地的重要元素。此外，这项工作将有助于预测随着海平面上升改变这片非常低海拔的地貌，生态系统和生物过程可能会发生什么变化。最后，这项工作的影响超出了佛罗里达州南部，因为该项目将有助于理解喀斯特景观是如何形成的(占地球陆地表面的20%)，以及地理上孤立的小湿地如何与周围环境相互作用，这是一个与联邦湿地保护相关的话题。已经与国家公园管理局的科学家建立了合作伙伴关系，以帮助交流工作的结果，研究人员将带领游客参观，让公众欣赏这一迷人景观的微妙之处。学生参与者将接触到各种各样的学科和方法，这是解决社会面临的复杂问题和挑战的培训不可或缺的一部分。

Biological processes play an important but under-appreciated role in shaping the land. Indeed, in some places, plants and animals are the most important factors controlling variation in topography and thus patterns of habitats and hydrology on the land surface. This work explores the role of biology in shaping the land surface in Big Cypress National Preserve (BICY), a complex and beautiful mosaic of cypress wetlands, pine uplands and deep water sloughs in southwest Florida. BICY is a karst landscape, where limestone bedrock is present at the land surface. While the landscape is almost perfectly flat, small wetland depressions carved into the limestone rock are crucially important for storing water and thus providing habitat for a wide array of plants and animals. The origin of these wetland depressions is unknown. This research will determine if these depressions, and their remarkably regular spacing on the landscape, are created by biological processes that naturally occur in wetlands that accelerate the rate at which limestone dissolves. This creates the tantalizing possibility that the organisms populating these wetlands are slowly creating their own habitat by initiating and expanding topographic depressions. The research team consists of scientists across a variety of disciplines, including hydrologists, geologists, biologists and modelers, creating the type of collaborative integration required to answer these types of research questions. Combining satellite and airborne data with detailed field measurements will allow the team to address how and how fast these depressions form, what that means for regional water flow and water quality, and how the topography and resulting patterns of habitats on the land surface were created.This work contributes to an understanding of how ecological and geological processes work together to shape the land surface. The central idea that patterns on the earth's surface arise spontaneously from interactions between plants and animals, on one hand, and rocks and water on the other, is a reminder of the strong and sometimes surprising links that exist in ecosystems. In this case, wetland ecosystems are thought to change the shape of the land over thousands of years by dissolving rock. This type of insight will contribute to understanding the origins of this landscape, which supports a remarkable array of organisms and habitats. It will also improve understanding of hydrologic characteristics, and the impact of water movements on the greater South Florida system, including important elements of the Everglades. Moreover, this work will help predict how ecosystem and biological processes may change as this very low altitude landscape is altered by sea-level rise. Finally, the impacts of this work extend beyond south Florida because the project will contribute to an understanding of how karst landscapes form (20% of the earth's land surface) and how small geographically-isolated wetlands interact with their surroundings, a topic relevant to federal wetland protections. A partnership with scientists within the National Park Service has been established to help communicate the results of the work, and the researchers will lead tours that allow the public to appreciate the subtleties of this captivating landscape. The student participants will be exposed to a wide variety of disciplines and approaches, which is integral to training to address the complex questions and challenges society faces.