"Disturbance, dynamics and resilience of understory plant communities in northern forests"

干扰是大多数植物群落组成和生物多样性的重要驱动力。了解有助于植物群落在面对干扰时保持稳定（抵抗力）或从干扰中恢复（恢复力）的能力的因素对于受干扰生态系统的可持续管理和恢复以及保护生物多样性非常重要。在这个人类对生态系统的干扰日益增加的时代，以及当气候变化等现象可能导致极端或不寻常的干扰事件（例如，山松甲虫或极端野火的爆发）。植物物种的耐荫性、扩散和更新策略等性状不同，这些性状将影响它们的抗性或恢复力。当生态系统受到干扰时，一些物种将拥有使它们比其他物种表现得更好的特性。这些抗性物种在干扰发生后仍保留在原地，对干扰发生后植物群落的发展，进而对未来的生物多样性和生态系统功能产生重要影响。 森林林下植物群落（灌木和非木本植物）是森林生物多样性的重要组成部分;它们为动物提供生境和食物，并推动水和养分循环等生态系统进程。近年来，我们已经了解了很多关于森林冠层如何影响这些群落以及它们如何受到冠层干扰的影响。 然而，我们对它们在不同类型的干扰后的抵抗力和恢复力的机制了解甚少。在这项研究中，我们将研究物种的性状如何影响他们的表现，在应对干扰，然后如何这些抗性物种的性状影响干扰后的社区重建。研究结果将应用于生物多样性保护、可持续森林管理和开垦受其他工业活动干扰的森林。

Disturbance is an important driver of the composition and biodiversity of most plant communities. Understanding the factors that contribute to the ability of a plant community to remain stable in the face of disturbance (resistance) or to recover from disturbance (resilience) is important for sustainable management and restoration of disturbed ecosystems and for conservation of biodiversity. This is particularly true in this era of increasing human disturbance of ecosystems and when phenomena such as climate change may be leading to extreme or unusual disturbance events (e.g., outbreaks of the Mountain Pine Beetle or extreme wildfires). Plant species differ in traits such as shade tolerance, dispersal, and regeneration strategy that will influence their resistance or resilience. When an ecosystem is disturbed, some species will possess traits that allow them to perform better than others. These resistant species that remain on a site after disturbance can have a very important influence on the post-disturbance development of the plant community, and thus on the future biodiversity and ecosystem function. Forest understory plant communities (shrubs and non-woody plants) are an important component of forest biodiversity; they provide habitat and food for animals and drive ecosystem processes such as water and nutrient cycling. In recent years we have learned a lot about how the forest canopy influences these communities and something about how they are affected by disturbance to the canopy. However, we have a poor understanding of the mechanisms underlying their resistance and resilience following different types of disturbance. In this research, we will examine how species' traits affect their performance in response to a disturbance and then how the traits of those resistant species affect post-disturbance community redevelopment. The results will have applications to biodiversity conservation, sustainable forest management and to reclamation of forests disturbed by other industrial activities.