Long-Term Ecological Research at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest (LTER7)

太平洋西北部的气候变化预测预示着干旱，积雪减少和野火增加。预测太平洋西北部生态系统将如何应对气候变化面临科学和社会挑战。首先，该区域观测到的气候变化速率在空间和时间上都各不相同。第二，森林治理系统在提供木材、恢复生态进程、维持生物多样性和促进森林适应气候变化方面面临相互冲突的压力。这一长期项目的目标是确定森林山区生态系统如何应对气候变化、土地利用及其相互作用的机制。在今后六年中，研究将侧重于确定空气、水、营养物、生物体和信息的间歇性、空间可变流动如何可能减少或加剧区域和全球气候变化和土地使用对山区生态系统的影响。同时，研究人员将研究人类和机构如何做出影响森林治理的决策。这些方法结合起来，将使公众、资源管理人员和决策者参与研究影响森林景观的不断变化的社交网络，并对森林治理中使用的论点进行养护伦理分析。与艺术和人文学科的合作将提高公众对科学的认识，展示长期生态研究的价值，并传达改善社会中个人福祉所必需的强烈的地方感。该项目将继续为K-12、本科生、研究生和教师以及公众提供教育、外展和STEM发展，明确强调加强妇女、残疾人和代表性不足的少数群体的参与。该项目解决了气候、自然扰动和森林治理控制的土地使用如何与生物多样性、水文、以及森林生态系统中的碳和养分动态。研究将使用“连通性”的透镜来评价和表征安德鲁斯森林山地景观的古老温带森林、溪流和山地草甸的时空模式和过程。对长期气候和水文记录的分析以及短期机制研究将调查景观中空气和水流的模式和驱动因素，以评估森林山地生态系统中的温度、湿度以及相关的碳和养分通量如何与区域和全球气候相联系或脱钩。 长期植被记录的分析，结合短期的物候和生物体运动的研究，将研究在森林和山地草甸的群落结构和功能的营养连接和景观连接的时间的影响。 溪流生态系统的长期研究和短期实验将测试溪流群落结构和功能如何依赖于网络水平的连接。研究人员将研究对景观的看法如何影响社会期望、社交网络和社会运动，并研究支持森林政策的论点与这些论点的有效性和合理性之间的关系。 安德鲁斯森林科学，联邦森林政策制定和联邦森林管理沿着与生态系统功能的变化的影响之间的关系不断变化的历史研究将有助于理论的作用，社交网络在治理和景观改造，以及社会生态系统的功能。

Climate change forecasts for the Pacific Northwest portend drought, decreased snow packs, and increased wildfire. Predictions for how Pacific Northwest ecosystems will respond to climate change face both scientific and social challenges. First, observed rates of climate change in this region vary in both space and time. Second, forest governance systems face conflicting pressures to provide timber, restore ecological processes, maintain biodiversity, and facilitate adaptation of forests to climate change. The goal of this long-term project is to identify the mechanisms that determine how forested mountain ecosystems respond to changes in climate, land-use, and their interactions. Over the next six years, research will focus on determining how intermittent, spatially variable flows of air, water, nutrients, organisms, and information may reduce or accentuate the effects of regional and global climate change and land use in mountain ecosystems. Simultaneously, researchers will examine how humans and institutions make decisions that affect forest governance. These approaches in combination will engage the public, resource managers, and policymakers in studies of changing social networks influencing forest landscapes and conservation ethics analyses of arguments used in forest governance. Collaborations with arts and humanities will enhance public literacy about science, demonstrate the value of long-term ecological research, and convey the strong sense of place necessary to improve the well being of individuals in society. The project will continue education, outreach and STEM development for K-12, undergraduate, and graduate students and teachers as well as the public, with explicit emphasis on enhancing participation of women, people with disabilities, and under-represented minorities.The project addresses the central question of how climate, natural disturbance, and land use as controlled by forest governance interact with biodiversity, hydrology, and carbon and nutrient dynamics in a forested ecosystem. Research will use the lens of "connectivity" to evaluate and characterize spatial and temporal patterns and processes in the old-growth temperate forests, streams, and montane meadows of the mountain landscape of the Andrews Forest. Analyses of long-term climate and hydrology records and short-term mechanistic studies will investigate patterns and drivers of air and water flow in the landscape to assess how temperature, moisture, and associated fluxes of carbon and nutrients in forested mountain ecosystems are connected to or decoupled from regional and global climate. Analyses of long-term vegetation records combined with short-term studies of phenology and organism movement will examine the implications of timing of trophic connections and landscape connectivity for community structure and function in forests and montane meadows. Long-term studies of stream ecosystems and short-term experiments will test how stream community structure and function depend on network-level connectivity. Researchers will study how perceptions of the landscape influence societal expectations, social networks, and social movements, and examine the relationship between the arguments underpinning forest policy and the validity and soundness of those arguments. Research on the changing history of relations between Andrews Forest science, federal forest policymaking, and federal forest management along with the implications of that change for ecosystem function will contribute to theories regarding the role of social networks in governance and landscape transformation, and the functioning of social-ecological systems.