Resistance and resilience of mountain soils in the face of change

山区生态系统是极端环境，在气候上经历了强烈的季节性差异。在那里发现的动植物群落独特地适应了这些极端，共同创造了一幅熟悉而壮丽的风景。对于许多人来说，这片风景代表着一片美丽的、表面上空旷的荒野，但它提供了许多我们都依赖的好处，如水的储存和净化、土壤中碳和养分的储存、农业(如放牧)以及许多稀有动植物物种的栖息地。山地生态系统支持这些属性的能力取决于对极端条件的抵抗力，而这一点在任何地方都比土壤更重要。山地土壤通常很薄，很浅，通过循环碳和营养物质，支持整个生态系统的功能，并为数十亿微生物和数百种植物提供栖息地。关于这些土壤和栖息在其中的微生物的知识非常贫乏，这种知识差距极大地降低了我们理解山脉生态系统在气候变化或土地利用变化时可能发生变化的能力。变化的一个方向很少被考虑，那就是改变我们山区的积雪。有越来越多的数据显示，北半球的积雪正在减少，预计随着我们进入本世纪，这种情况将继续下去。雪就像一条毯子，覆盖着土壤，使其免受极端温度的影响。雪的流失将使土壤暴露在这些极端情况下，但也会减少植物和土壤微生物的水可获得性，对这些生态系统的功能可能产生强烈的负面影响。这在西欧的山区尤为显著，那里储存着大量非常古老的土壤碳，如果由于气候变暖而释放出来，可能会极大地改变生态系统的功能，并通过反馈机制促进气候变化。土壤安全主题旨在了解我们的土壤将如何应对变化，以及土壤中发现的微生物群落如何承受变化的阻力，并从极端的弹性中恢复。该项目旨在了解山地土壤对极端气候和长期气候变暖的抵抗力和恢复力。在这个项目中，将研究来自英国不同地区和欧洲大陆的土壤。将对这些土壤进行检查，以了解可以发现哪些微生物，以及它们如何促进碳和养分的循环。通过将这些土壤暴露在模拟的极端气候事件中，如冰冻和高降雨量，我们可以探索它们的抵抗力和弹性。这将使我们能够预测我们的山地土壤在未来几年可能会发生什么变化。该项目还将使用苏格兰阿尔卑斯山现有的一个研究地点，自2004年以来，那里一直在进行气候变暖模拟。在那里，我们可以使用使用碳同位素的尖端技术(在环境中发现不同数量的不同形式的碳，可以用来跟踪过程)来探索土壤在中期(超过十年)的反应，以及随着气候继续变暖，这种反应可能会如何继续。这将利用自然环境研究委员会在东基尔布莱德的放射性碳实验室的世界级设施。然后，我们可以使用这些数据来改进用于预测生态系统将如何应对气候变化的模型，以及我们如何将这些知识纳入政策和土地管理，以保护这个至关重要的生态系统。该项目以兰开斯特大学环境中心为基础，将借鉴英国在陆地生态学方面的世界领先专业知识，并引入欧洲合作伙伴来应对这一紧迫的生态挑战，以了解山地土壤在面对变化时的抵抗力和弹性。

Mountain ecosystems are extreme environments, experiencing strong seasonal contrasts in climate. The plant and animal communities that are found there are uniquely adapted to these extremes, and together create a familiar and magnificent landscape. This landscape represents a beautiful, apparently empty wilderness to many, yet it provides numerous benefits upon which we all rely, such as water storage and purification, storage of carbon and nutrients in soils, agriculture (such as grazing), as well as a habitat for many rare plant and animal species. The ability for mountain ecosystems to support these attributes depends upon the resistance to extreme conditions, and this is nowhere more important than in the soils. Often thin and superficial, mountain soils support the very functioning of the ecosystem as a whole, by cycling carbon and a nutrients, and providing habitats for billions of microbes, and hundreds of plant species. Knowledge about these soils, and the microbes that inhabit them is very poor, and this knowledge gap vastly reduces our ability to understand how mountain ecosystems might change under a changing climate, or due to alterations in land use. One direction of change, which is rarely considered, is changing snow cover in our mountains. There are increasing data which show snow cover reducing in the northern hemisphere, and this is predicted to continue as we move through the century. Snow acts like a blanket, covering the soil and insulating it against extremes of temperature. Loss of snow will expose the soil to these extremes, but also reduce the availability of water for plants and soil microbes, with potentially strong negative impacts on the functioning of these ecosystems. This is nowhere more significant than in the mountains of Western Europe, which hold large stores of very old soil carbon, which if released due to climate warming, could drastically change the functioning of the ecosystem, and also contribute towards climate change through a feedback mechanism. The soil security theme aims to understand how our soils will respond to change, and how the microbial communities that are found in soils can withstand change - resistance, and recover from extremes - resilience. This project aims to understand the resistance and resilience of mountain soils to climate extremes, and to long-term climate warming. In this project, soils from different regions of the UK and continental Europe will be studied. These soils will be examined to see what kind of microbes can be found, and how they contribute to the cycling of carbon and nutrients. By exposing these soils to simulated extreme climatic events such as freezing, and high rainfall, we can explore how resistant and resilient they are. This will allow us to forecast how our mountain soils might change over the coming years. The project will also use an existing research site in the Scottish alpine, where a climate simulation of warming has been running since 2004. There, we can use cutting edge techniques using isotopes of carbon (different 'forms' of carbon that are found in varying quantities in the environment, and can be used to track processes) to explore how the soil has responded in the medium term (over a decade), and how this might continue as the climate continues to warm. This will take advantage of the Natural Environment Research Councils world-class facilities at the Radiocarbon Lab in East Kilbride. We can then use these data to improve models that are used to predict how ecosystems will respond under climate change, and how we can incorporate this knowledge into policy and land management to safeguard this vital ecosystem. Based at the University of Lancaster's Environment Centre, this project will draw on the world-leading expertise in terrestrial ecology found in the UK, and bring in European partners to tackle this highly pressing ecological challenge to understand the resistance and resilience of mountain soils in the face of change.