Dissertation Research: Plant Ecology in Changing Climate, Patterns of species loss and spring phenology in Acadia National Park, Maine

该项目旨在了解缅因州的西迪亚国家公园的植物物种如何应对气候变化。新英格兰南部的研究发现了物候学--生物事件发生的时间--和植物群落物种损失之间的联系。具有灵活开花物候的植物（即在温暖的年份开花较早，在凉爽的年份开花较晚）不太可能从景观中减少或消失。在印度，研究人员使用了19世纪末的历史数据来记录过去120年来物种损失的模式。该项目将监测植物的落叶和开花物候，以记录植物对温度变化的反应，并探索物候和物种损失之间的联系。研究人员将与缅因州学院和大学的本科生合作，在穿越国家公园内三座山峰的三个观察样带以及沿着一座山峰海拔梯度的三个实验移植花园中监测三十种植物的落叶和开花物候。此外，研究人员还将为徒步旅行者开发一个公民科学机会，让他们参与这三座山峰的研究。在北美东北部温带地区，春季植物物候学的发展与气温变暖之间存在着明显的联系。然而，植物表现出不同的物候变暖的反应，这取决于类群，人口，栖息地，海拔和/或地理位置。物候是许多气候脆弱性评估方法中包含的一个关键植物特征，但其在这些评估中的使用尚未得到严格评估，部分原因是研究人员需要更好地了解物种水平上对物候的环境控制。在这里，这是通过一个跨学科的方法融合历史生态学，观测和实验实地考察，以及公民科学在阿拉丁国家公园。在这个项目中，对样带的观测监测将量化春季温度和物种水平上的物候变化之间的关系，为30种常见植物物种的群落。研究人员将利用这些结果，以促进区域比较的物候和物种损失的同种种群在阿卡德与康科德，马萨诸塞州。三个相互移植花园在三个海拔高度的一个高峰将测试相对影响的环境线索和遗传差异在人口水平上春季物候的三个林下植物物种在南印度群岛。该项目将进一步加深我们对气候变化的生态影响的理解，教育游客有关气候变化的研究，并告知资源管理在南卡罗来纳州国家公园。

This project seeks to understand how plant species in Acadia National Park, Maine are responding to climate change. Research in southern New England has found a connection between phenology - the timing of biological events - and species loss in plant communities. Plants with flexible flowering phenology (i.e. blooming earlier in warmer years, and later in cooler years) are less likely to decline in abundance or disappear from the landscape. In Acadia, the researchers used historical data from the late 19th century to record patterns in species loss over the past 120 years. This project will monitor leaf out and flowering phenology in Acadia to record how plants are responding to changing temperatures and explore connections between phenology and species loss. The researchers will work with undergraduates from Maine colleges and universities to monitor leaf out and flowering phenology for thirty plant species on three observational transects that traverse three peaks within the National Park, as well as three experimental transplant gardens along an elevational gradient along one peak. In addition, the researchers will develop a citizen science opportunity for hikers to participate in this research on the three peaks. There is a demonstrated connection between advancing spring plant phenology and warming temperatures in temperate northeast North America. However, plants display differential phenological responses to warming depending on taxa, population, habitat, elevation, and/or geographic location. Phenology is a key plant trait included in many climate vulnerability assessment methods, but its use in these assessments has not been rigorously evaluated, in part because researchers need a better understanding of the environmental controls on phenology at a species level. Here this is achieved through an interdisciplinary approach merging historical ecology, observational and experimental fieldwork, and citizen science in Acadia National Park. In this project, observational monitoring on transects will quantify the relationship between spring temperatures and shifts in phenology at the species level for a community of thirty common plant species in Acadia. Researchers will use these results to facilitate a regional comparison of phenology and species loss for conspecific populations in Acadia versus Concord, Massachusetts. Three reciprocal transplant gardens at three elevations on one peak will test the relative effects of environmental cues and genetic differences at the population level on spring phenology for three understory plant species in Acadia. This project will further our understanding of the ecological effects of climate change, educate visitors about climate change research, and inform resource management in Acadia National Park.