Urgent requirement of a leaf and soil gas analyzer for climate change research

作物对环境因素非常敏感。气候变化是对全球农业的经济、生态和社会可持续性的最大威胁之一。日益频繁的极端气候事件（高温、干旱、洪水、森林火灾）和有限的资源可用性（干旱、营养缺乏）正在给全球作物生产系统和整个加拿大农业地区带来前所未有的压力。科学家必须更好地了解气候变化对作物生理和生态的影响，包括作物-土壤生物地球化学的变化，并向农民提供适应/缓解战略，以便在气候变化的情况下维持作物生产。本提案要求资助购买便携式CO2/H2O气体分析系统，用于分析叶片和土壤气体交换。该设备将用于直接测量作物（葡萄藤、蓝莓、土豆等）和泥炭地的气孔行为和光合效率，以及评估这些生态系统中土壤的气体交换。这种测量和评估对于确定植被的生理反应以及土壤和大气之间的气体通量对特定气候条件和/或环境压力的反应是必要的。该设备将由土地和粮食系统学院的Castellarin和Black以及不列颠哥伦比亚大学地理系的Knox使用，旨在阐明i)控制作物对温度、水分和营养等因素的生理反应的机制，以及ii)暴露于气候压力（如火灾）的农业和非农业土壤的气体交换和蒸散作用。对该设备的需求是迫切的，因为申请人实验室中的类似设备已经过时，其维护不再由生产公司（LI-COR Inc.）支持。申请人的研究项目——由NSERC DG、CRC计划、BC投资农业基金会、AAFC加拿大农业伙伴关系和大温哥华可持续发展创新计划资助——强烈依赖于这些设备。使用这种设备进行的研究将提供关键知识，支持不列颠哥伦比亚省、加拿大和国际科学家和农民制定作物管理战略，以在未来气候情景下优化生产，最大限度地减少投入（肥料）和负产出（温室气体排放）。此外，该设备将允许更好地评估气候变化和干扰（火灾）对土壤-大气气体交换的影响。该设备是研究植物生理和生产力以及土壤生态和气体交换的关键仪器，是支持大量当前和未来本科生、研究生和博士后培训所必需的。

Crops are very sensitive to environmental factors. Climate change is one of the single biggest threats to the economic, ecological, and social sustainability of global agriculture. Increasing frequency of extreme climatic events (heat, drought, floods, forest fires) and limited resource availability (drought, nutrient deficiencies) are putting unprecedented strains globally on crop production systems, and across Canadian agricultural regions. Scientist must develop a better understanding of the impacts of the changing climate on crop physiology and ecology, including changes to crop-soil biogeochemistry, and provide farmers with adaptation/mitigation strategies for sustaining crop production in a changing climate. This proposal requests funding support for the purchase of a portable CO2/H2O gas analysis system for analyzing leaf and soil gas exchanges. The equipment will be used to perform direct measurements of stomatal behavior and photosynthetic efficiency in crops (grapevine, blueberries, potatoes, etc.) and peatlands as well to assess the gas exchanges of soils in these ecosystems. Such measurements and assessment are necessary to determine the physiological responses of vegetation as well as the gas fluxes between the soil and the atmosphere in response to specific climatic conditions and/or environmental stresses. The equipment will be used by Castellarin and Black in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems, and Knox in the Geography Department at the University of British Columbia to work on projects that aim to elucidate i) the mechanisms controlling the crop physiological response to factors such as temperature, water availability, and nutrition, and ii) gas exchange and evapotranspiration of agricultural and non-agricultural soils exposed to climatic stressors such as fires. The need for this equipment is urgent as similar equipment in the applicants' labs is obsolete and its maintenance is not supported any longer by the production company (LI-COR Inc.). The applicants' research projects - funded by NSERC DG, the CRC Program, the BC Investment Agriculture Foundation, the AAFC Canadian Agricultural Partnership, and Metro Vancouver's Sustainability Innovation Program - strongly rely on such equipment. The research conducted with such equipment will provide critical knowledge to support BC, Canadian, and international scientists and farmers in developing crop management strategies to optimize production, minimizing inputs (fertilizers) and negative outputs (greenhouse gases emission) under future climate scenarios. Furthermore, this equipment will allow for better assessment of the impacts of climate change and disturbance (fire) on soil-atmosphere gas exchange. The requested equipment is necessary to support the training of a large number of current and future undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows, as it is a key instrument to study plant physiology and productivity as well as soil ecology and gas exchanges.