Conference: Forest biodiversity response to changing climate across the Americas: Synthesis of long-term ecological data

森林群落正在迅速变化。很难确定这些变化是由于气候变化还是栖息地破坏等其他因素造成的。许多研究都是在短时间内跟踪森林群落的变化，因此很难确定变化的驱动因素。长期研究通常在特定地点进行，时间跨度长达数十年，可提供有关物种、个体和环境条件的当地信息。该研讨会汇集了生态学家，数据管理员和统计学家，以协调森林生态系统长期研究地点的数据。这些地点包括长期生态研究网络、美国林务局实验林、国家生态观测网络和国家公园管理局生物多样性监测地点。其目标是评估气候变化对美洲森林社区的长期影响，这些社区尚未受到栖息地丧失的影响。讲习班期间产生的数据集通过环境数据倡议提供。该研讨会还为所有参与者提供持续的专业发展。研讨会的跨学科性质促进了合作，以减轻从个人长期生态研究地点到宏观系统规模的信息扩展的障碍。这些障碍仍然限制了生态研究的规模和范围。为期两天的研讨会协调了来自不同地点以及空间和时间尺度的数据集，以调查气候变化对美洲森林生态系统生物多样性的影响。由此产生的综合研究论文描述了森林生物多样性在过去40年中的变化以及气候在推动这些变化中的作用。该研讨会汇集了生态学、数据管理、统计和气候变化领域的专家。结果包括一个强大的生态学家研究网络，研究广泛的分类群体，重点是了解森林生态系统在地方和大陆尺度上的长期变化。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Forest communities are changing rapidly. It has been difficult to determine if those changes are due to climate change or other factors like habitat destruction. Many studies follow forest community change over short periods of time, making it difficult to identify drivers of change. Long-term research, often spanning decades at specific locations, provides local information about species, individuals and environmental conditions. This workshop brings together ecologists, data managers, and statisticians to harmonize data from long-term research sites in forest ecosystems. Sites include those from the Long-Term Ecological Research network, United States Forest Service experimental forests, the National Ecological Observation Network, and National Park Service biodiversity monitoring sites. The goals is to assess the long-term effects of climate change on forest communities across the Americas that have not been impacted by habitat loss. The data sets generated during the workshop are made available through the Environmental Data Initiative. This workshop also provides ongoing professional development for all participants. The inter-disciplinary nature of the workshop fosters collaborations to alleviate barriers for scaling the information from individual long-term ecological research sites to the macrosystem scale. Such barriers still limit the scale and scope of ecological research. The two-day workshop harmonizes data sets from different locations as well as spatial and temporal scales to investigate the effects of climate change on biodiversity in forest ecosystems across the Americas. The resulting synthesis research paper describes how forest biodiversity has changed over the past ~ 40 years and the role of climate in driving those changes. This workshop brings together experts in the fields of ecology, data management, statistics and climate change. Results include a strong research network of ecologists that study a broad range of taxonomic groups focused on understanding the long-term changes in forest ecosystems both at local and continental scales.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.