LTER: Drivers of Abrupt Change in the Florida Coastal Everglades

像佛罗里达大沼泽地这样的沿海生态系统为社会提供了许多好处。它们保护海岸线免受风暴的侵袭，并储存碳。它们为重要的渔业提供栖息地和食物。它们还支持旅游业和当地经济，并为数百万人储存淡水。佛罗里达海岸大沼泽地长期生态研究(FCE LTER)计划致力于研究沿海生态系统如何以及为什么会随着海平面上升和人类行动而发生变化。像许多沿海生态系统一样，佛罗里达大沼泽地受到淡水分流的威胁，以支持城市和农业扩张。与此同时，海平面上升导致沿海生态系统变得更咸，威胁淡水供应，给淡水植物带来压力，并导致土壤崩塌。当海岸湿地下面的土壤消失时，海水入侵的速度更快。FCE LTER的研究人员正在继续进行长期研究和实验，以了解这些变化如何影响生态系统功能和服务。他们还在为资源管理者开发工具，以创建有效的淡水恢复计划。科学团队包括一个活跃的研究生社区。作为一个小组，他们通过教育和外展活动接触到公众，并定期就资源管理决策向决策者提供建议。FCE LTER研究计划通过以下方式解决变化的淡水和海洋供应如何影响沿海生态系统动态：(I)继续长期评估沿淡水-海洋梯度的生态系统中生物地球化学、初级生产力、有机质和营养动态的变化，(Ii)维持现有的现场和异地长期实验，(Iii)使用高分辨率遥感，结合预测景观规模变化的模型，(4)增设气象卫星站点，以捕捉对间歇性扰动的离散时空反应；(5)启动新的实验操作，以确定对咸水入侵的复原力的驱动因素和机制。数据合成将逐月和年际数据整合到整个大沼泽地景观的水、养分、碳和物种动态模型中，以比较具有不同生产力和碳储量的生态系统如何对水文连通性的短期(脉冲)和长期变化(压力)做出反应(保持、增加或下降)。了解和预测生态系统突然变化的驱动因素是生态系统生态学中的一项关键挑战。这一奖项反映了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。

Coastal ecosystems like the Florida Everglades provide many benefits to society. They protect coastlines from storms and store carbon. They provide habitat and food for important fisheries. They also support tourism and local economies, and store freshwater for millions of people. The Florida Coastal Everglades Long Term Ecological Research (FCE LTER) program addresses how and why coastal ecosystems are changing in response to sea level rise and the actions of people. Like many coastal ecosystems, the Florida Everglades are threatened by the diversion of freshwater to support urban and agricultural expansion. At the same time, sea level rise has caused coastal ecosystems to become saltier, threatening the freshwater supply, stressing freshwater plants, and causing the soils to collapse. When the soils beneath coastal wetlands disappear, seawater invades even more quickly. Researchers in the FCE LTER are continuing long-term studies and experiments to understand how these changes influence ecosystem functions and services. They are also developing tools for resource managers to create an effective freshwater restoration program. The science team includes an active community of graduate students. As a group, they reach the public through education and outreach activities, and regularly advise policy-makers on resource management decisions.The FCE LTER research program addresses how changing fresh and marine supplies of water influence coastal ecosystem dynamics through: (i) continued long-term assessment of changes in biogeochemistry, primary production, organic matter, and trophic dynamics in ecosystems along freshwater-to-marine gradients, (ii) maintenance of existing in situ and ex situ long-term experiments, (iii) use of high-resolution remote sensing, coupled with models to forecast landscape-scale changes, (iv) addition of synoptic satellite sites to capture discrete spatio-temporal responses to episodic disturbance, and (v) initiation of new experimental manipulations to determine drivers and mechanisms of resilience to saltwater intrusion. Data syntheses integrate month-to-annual and inter-annual data into models of water, nutrients, carbon, and species dynamics throughout the Everglades landscape to compare how ecosystems with different productivities and carbon stores respond (maintain, increase, or decline) to short- (pulses) and long-term changes (presses) in hydrologic connectivity. Understanding and predicting the drivers of abrupt changes in ecosystems is a key challenge in ecosystem ecology.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.