LTREB Renewal: Collaborative Research: Understanding the strength, duration, and stability of connectivity effects on community diversity

栖息地丧失是物种多样性丧失的最大原因，因为它将小片栖息地与这些碎片中的动植物种群隔离开来。该项目审查景观连通性，以及碎片之间的自然植被景观廊道在多大程度上促进了生物体的移动，并缓解了碎片的隔离效应。尽管景观连通性被认为是维持物种多样性的基础，但记录走廊对物种多样性影响的证据非常少。研究人员将扩展一项正在进行的实验，明确旨在测试景观连通性对多样性的影响。到目前为止的结果表明，当碎片通过走廊连接时，植物的物种多样性增加，但问题仍然是这些反应是短期的还是持久的。该项目将生成长期数据，以解决连通性、多样性和时间之间的关系，以确定连通性影响是长期的还是短暂的，并评估这种关系的根本原因。一个致力于将保护走廊的科学与实践联系起来的网站--保护走廊网站--将为这些努力做出贡献。研究生和本科生将通过参与研究来参与和培训，继续与美国林业局成功合作，培训和指导来自代表性不足群体的妇女和学生。景观连通性，即景观促进扩散的程度，被视为调节物种多样性的最基本的重要因素。这导致在多样性生态学理论中以及在保护受生境碎片化和环境变化影响的生态系统方面的连通性受到越来越多的重视。连通性如何影响时间可变的社区，例如那些正在经历继承或受到干扰事件或气候变化影响的社区，目前尚不确定。这项研究将使用长期数据集促进我们对连通性对社区多样性的重要性的理解。研究小组将继续收集核心数据以延长时间序列，以及关于物种丰度的新数据，并创建植物物种功能特征数据库。这项拟议的研究将确定导致观察到的物种丰富度随时间推移的模式的生态机制，包括连接是否增加了殖民率或减少了灭绝速度。这项裁决反映了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。

Habitat loss is the greatest cause of species diversity loss, as it isolates small patches of habitat along with the plant and animal populations in these fragments. This project examines landscape connectivity, and the degree to which landscape corridors of natural vegetation among fragments facilitate the movement of organisms and alleviate the isolating effects of fragmentation. Although landscape connectivity is considered to be fundamental to the maintenance of species diversity, there is remarkably little evidence documenting the effects of corridors on species diversity. The investigators will extend an ongoing experiment explicitly designed to test the effects of landscape connectivity on diversity. Results to date show that species diversity of plants increases when fragments are connected by corridors, but the question remains whether these responses are short-term or persistent. The project will generate long-term data to resolve the relationship between connectivity, diversity, and time, in order to determine whether connectivity effects are long-lasting or transient, and evaluate underlying causes of this relationship. A website dedicated to bridging the science and practice of conservation corridors, ConservationCorridor.org, will contribute to these efforts. Graduate and undergraduate students will be engaged in and trained through participation in the research, continuing a successful collaboration with the US Forest Service to train and mentor women and students from underrepresented groups.Landscape connectivity, or the degree to which the landscape facilitates dispersal, is viewed as afundamentally important factor regulating species diversity. This has led to a large and growing emphasis on connectivity in ecological theories of diversity and in conservation of ecosystems impacted by habitat fragmentation and environmental variation. How connectivity affects temporally variable communities, such as those undergoing succession or being influenced by disturbance events or climate variability is uncertain. This research will advance our understanding of the importance of connectivity for community diversity using a long term dataset. The research team will continue to collect core data to extend the time series, as well as new data on species abundances, and create a database of plant species functional traits. The proposed research will identify the ecological mechanisms responsible for observed patterns of species richness over time, including whether connectivity increases colonization rates or decreases extinction rates.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.