Collaborative Research: Can disturbance history predict plant species responses to environmental change?

我们这个时代最大的挑战之一是预测环境变化将如何改变我们在生态系统中发现的动植物类型。在北纬地区，冬天变短了，雪深变小了，气温变得更加多变。这项研究项目使用并继续进行长期的实地调查(65年以上)，以确定这些变化的冬季是否影响了草原群落中发现的植物类型。这项工作考察了物种的哪些特征可能使它们最容易丢失，以及土地管理活动(如规定的火灾)如何防止它们丢失。项目调查人员将开发课程来培训学生关于生态复杂性的知识，并将与地方和国家团体一起举办研讨会和网络研讨会，向公众宣传草原生态和保护。总体而言，这项研究考察了植物特性如何影响它们的损失和持久性，并确定如何最好地管理草原和稀树草原这两个受到全球威胁和具有重要经济意义的生态系统。这项研究考察了植物的功能特征在草原物种对不断变化的冬季条件和环境干扰的反应和持久性中所起的作用。该项目利用历史和当前调查的数据，研究了美国东北部草原植物群落在过去65多年里是如何变化的，以及这些变化在多大程度上是由火灾干扰的频率和不断变化的气候条件来解释的。利用功能性状方法，操纵性田间实验将被用来确定物种对干扰(燃烧、割草)、冬季条件(积雪深度)及其相互作用对物种持久性、建立和群落稳定性的反应。这项工作检验了耐寒性作为一种与持续性有关的性状的重要性，并检验了火制度通过选择耐胁迫植物和影响植物建立和定殖率而有利于保护草原多样性的假设。这项工作增加了我们对草原和稀树草原生态系统的生态学和管理的了解，并将通过几个在线资源提供功能特征数据。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

One of the greatest challenges of our time is anticipating how environmental change will alter the types of plants and animals we find within an ecosystem. At northern latitudes, winters have become shorter, snow depth has decreased, and temperatures have become more variable. This research project uses and continues long-term field surveys (65+ years) to determine whether these changing winters have affected the types of plants found within grassland communities. This work examines which characteristics of species may make them most vulnerable to being lost and how land management activities, such as prescribed fires, may prevent their loss. Project investigators will develop courses to train students about ecological complexity, and will develop workshops and webinars with local and national groups to inform the public about grassland ecology and conservation. Overall, this research examines how plant characteristics may influence their loss and persistence and determines how to best manage grasslands and savannas, two globally threatened and economically important ecosystems. This research examines the role that the functional traits of plants play in the responses and persistence of grassland species to changing winter conditions and environmental disturbances. Using data from historic and current surveys, this project examines how grassland plant communities in the North Eastern United States have changed over the past 65+ years and the degree to which these changes are explained by the frequency of fire disturbances and changing climatic conditions. Using a functional traits approach, manipulative field experiments will be used to determine species responses to disturbances (burning, mowing), winter conditions (snow depth), and their interactions, on species persistence, establishment, and community stability. This work examines the importance of freeze tolerance as a persistence related trait and tests the hypothesis that fire regimes are beneficial to preserving grassland diversity through their selection of stress-tolerant plants and influence on plant establishment and colonization rates. This work adds to our understanding of the ecology and management of grassland and savanna ecosystems and would make functional trait data available through several on-line resources.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.