RCN: PSInet - A Global Water Potential Network

要为在变暖的地球上生活做好准备，就需要对日益严重的干旱和高温胁迫将如何影响陆地植物及其提供的许多服务，包括粮食和木材生产、碳封存和储存，以及维持生物多样性生态系统，有一个预见性的了解。土壤和植物的水势--可以想象为自然界的血压--直接控制着水在生态系统中的流动，是干旱和热浪期间植物死亡风险的关键调节因素。然而，对水势(通常缩写为希腊字母“Psi”)的观测经常是稀缺的、难以获得的，而且受到方法学挑战的困扰，这些挑战阻碍了预测和准备自然和管理生态系统中气候变化影响所需的综合研究。PSINet--一个新的数据和人员网络--将通过以下方式应对这一信息差距：[1]通过共享的协议、最佳做法和早期职业培训，促进全球科学家社区对水势数据的一致收集和解释，[2]创建一个开放的全球植物和土壤水势时间序列数据库，[3]支持由不同的科学家和从业人员社区综合PSInet数据库，以解决以前关于植物应对干旱和高温胁迫的棘手问题。水势的梯度是植物中水分流动的能量基础，水势是植物从大气中清除多少碳、在这个过程中消耗多少水以及植物在干旱中生存的可能性的决定因素。然而，植物水势的研究虽然理论丰富，但数据相对贫乏。土壤和植物中的水势观测是相对稀疏的、不连续的和非聚集的。缩小这一信息差距对于解决有关植物对干旱和高温胁迫的反应的悬而未决的理论争议，以及对变暖世界中的生态系统功能做出自信的预测是至关重要的。PSINet将通过建立一个与相关环境观测网络有多个连接点的全球水势数据库来应对这一挑战，实现区域和全球范围内推理所需的跨地点综合，并为测试和完善建模方案提供亟需的平台。我们还将制定社区推动的议定书和最佳做法，以支持水势测量和解释，特别强调新出现的连续水势观测方法，这些方法前景广阔，但目前受到方法学困难的阻碍。最后，该项目将创建PSInet“实践社区”，以鼓励数据提交，提高数据库的最终用途，并扩大生态生理学研究的智力、人口和地理多样性。总而言之，PSInet将提供必要的数据、协作平台和培训，以应对以前关于植物对干旱和高温胁迫的反应的棘手问题。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。

The ability to prepare for life on a warming planet requires a predictive understanding of how increasing drought and heat stress will affect terrestrial plants and the many services they provide, including food and timber production, carbon sequestration and storage, and the maintenance of biodiverse ecosystems. The water potential of soils and plants – which can be imagined as the blood pressure of the natural world – directly controls the flow of water through ecosystems and is a key regulator of the risk of plant mortality during droughts and heat waves. However, observations of water potential (commonly abbreviated with the Greek letter ‘Psi’) are frequently scarce, inaccessible, and plagued by methodological challenges that hinder the synthetic research necessary to anticipate, and prepare for, climate change impacts in natural and managed ecosystems. PSInet – a new network of data and people - will confront this information gap by: [1] promoting consistent collection and interpretation of water potential data by a global community of scientists through shared protocols, best practices, and early career training, [2] creating an open, global database for plant and soil water potential time series, and [3] supporting the synthesis of the PSInet database by a diverse community of scientists and practitioners to address previously intractable questions concerning plant responses to drought and heat stress. Gradients in water potential are the energetic basis for the flux of water through plants, and water potential is a determinant of how much carbon plants remove from the atmosphere, how much water they use in the process, and the likelihood that plants survive droughts. However, while the study of plant water potential is theory rich, it is relatively data poor. Observations of water potential in soils and plants are relatively sparse, discontinuous, and unaggregated. Closing this information gap is fundamental for addressing unresolved theoretical controversies about plant response to drought and heat stress, and for making confident predictions about ecosystem function in a warming world. PSInet will rise to this challenge by building a global water potential database with multiple points of connection to related environmental observation networks, enabling cross-site synthesis necessary for inference at regional and global scales, and providing a much-needed platform for testing and refining modeling schemes. We will also craft community-driven protocols and best practices to support water potential measurement and interpretation, with a particular emphasis on emerging approaches for continuous water potential observations, which hold tremendous promise but are currently hampered by methodological difficulties. Finally, the project will create a PSInet ‘Community of Practice’ to encourage data submissions, elevate the end-use of the database, and broaden the intellectual, demographic, and geographic diversity of ecophysiological research. Together, PSInet will provide the data, collaborative platforms, and training necessary to confront previously intractable questions about plant responses to drought and heat stress.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.