EAGER: A novel investigation of population and community temporal trajectories leveraging experimental disturbances from Konza Prairie Long-Term Ecological Research Network site

物种并不生活在一个恒定的环境中。相反，每个物种都表现出生长、繁殖、死亡和运动模式，这些都是变化条件的结果。自然和人为干扰可能对物种种群产生短期或长期的重大影响，进而对系统内的整体生物多样性产生影响。被称为“脉冲干扰”的短期干扰可对物种种群产生迅速的积极或消极影响，随后是恢复期。长期干扰，称为“压力干扰”，是对环境的长期或持续变化，预计会导致物种种群和总体生物多样性的方向性变化（增加或减少）。为了充分了解干扰对生物多样性的影响，有必要区分物种随时间进入和离开群落的模式。这样的方法将允许识别物种，成为当地连根拔起，建立，或表现出经常性或随机发生随着时间的推移。这项研究将使用长期生态实验的火（脉冲）和放牧（新闻）干扰治疗的影响，从完善的Konza草原长期生态研究（LTER）网络网站在植物，昆虫，鸟类和小型哺乳动物。这项研究将支持一所小型文理学院的本科生研究和教育活动，研究结果将通过开放获取出版物分享。这项工作探讨了一种新的分类方法，连续物种的存在和不存在（发病率）的模式，并使用长期的控制实验比较15年或更长时间的数据来测试物种的生态干扰水平，以“切换”他们的发病率。这项工作将在代表脉冲（火）和压力（放牧）干扰类型的两种主要治疗方法中重复进行，并将在植物和动物（昆虫，鸟类，小型哺乳动物）分类组中比较研究结果。该研究将产生人口丰度的变化估计，目前的年的比例，和每个物种的人口的发病率分类和控制和干扰处理之间的比较。物种水平的数据将有助于了解种群丰度、持久性和发病率趋势，以及这三种措施的协变或解耦，并有助于了解脉冲和压力扰动制度如何影响种群，最终影响群落结构和生物多样性。发病率的分类方法是不是系统或类群的具体和这项研究将提供一个新的方法在受干扰的系统，有可能发现新的趋势，不确定使用丰富或持久性methods.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Species do not live in a constant environment. Rather, each species exhibits growth, reproduction, mortality, and movement patterns that are the result of changing conditions. Natural and human-driven disturbances can have substantial short-term or long-term effects on species populations, and in turn, on the overall biodiversity within a system. Short-term disturbances, known as “pulse disturbances”, can have rapid positive or negative impacts on species populations, followed by periods of recovery. Long-term disturbances, known as “press disturbances”, are chronic or ongoing changes to the environment that are predicted to cause directional (increased or decreased) changes in species populations and overall biodiversity. To fully understand the effects of disturbance on biodiversity, it is necessary to distinguish the patterns of species that are entering and exiting the community through time. Such a method will allow identification of species that are becoming locally uprooted, establishing, or exhibiting recurrent or random occurrence through time. This study will use long-term ecological experiments on the effects of fire (pulse) and grazing (press) disturbance treatments from the well-established Konza Prairie Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) network site across plants, insects, birds, and small mammals. The research will support undergraduate research and education activities at a small liberal arts college and findings will be shared through open access publication. This work investigates a novel classification methodology for sequential species presence and absence (incidence) patterns and uses long-term control-experiment comparisons with 15 or more years of data to test the level of ecological disturbance needed for species to “switch” their incidence. The work will be repeated across two main treatments representing pulse (fire) and press (grazing) disturbance types, and will compare the findings across plant and animal (insect, bird, small mammal) taxonomic groups. The research will generate estimates of changes in population abundance, the proportion of years present, and the incidence classification for each species population and compare among the controls and disturbance treatments. Species-level data will inform understanding of population abundance, persistence, and incidence trends, the co-variation or decoupling of these three measures, and inform how pulse and press disturbance regimes impact populations and ultimately community structure and biodiversity. The incidence classification methodology is not system- or taxa- specific and this research would provide a first test of the new approach in disturbed systems that has the potential to uncover new trends not identified using abundance or persistence methodologies alone.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.