Forests and Global Change

气候变暖在加拿大北部发生得最快，导致包括永久冻土融化和野火在内的自然干扰制度加剧，并促使北部北方森林的结构、组成和功能发生变化。这些变化可能会改变北方森林提供的生态系统服务，鉴于这一生态系统的全球相关性，预测变化至关重要。拟议的计划将重点关注北方土地覆盖变化的两个方面：永久冻土融化和野火，这两种干扰随着气候变暖而加速，是目前为止高纬度生态系统变化的最重要驱动因素。被提名者和她的团队将结合实地研究、永久样地数据和数据合成来推动这一领域的发展，并将这些进展整合到大规模预测工作中。综合起来，这将有助于评价变化的速度和轨迹，确定变化的基本机制及其所涉功能，以及对这些反应的一般性进行全球相关的评价。拟议的研究计划将促进我们对干扰将导致这些森林状态变化的条件的理解，并利用对这一过程的理解来支持扩大规模和预测，从而支持北部社区和政府的决策。

Climate warming is occurring most rapidly in Canada's North, resulting in the intensification of natural disturbance regimes including both permafrost thaw and wildfire, and driving changes to the structure, composition and function of northern boreal forests. These changes can alter the ecosystem services provided by northern forests making the projection of change critical, given the global relevance of this ecosystem. The proposed program will focus on two aspects of boreal land cover change: permafrost thaw and wildfire, disturbances that are accelerating with climate warming and are by far the most important drivers of change in high latitude ecosystems. The nominee and her team will combine field-based studies, permanent sample plot data, and data synthesis to advance this field and integrate these advances into large-scale forecasting efforts. Combined, this will support an evaluation of rate and trajectory of changes, determination of underlying mechanisms of change and their functional implications, and globally relevant evaluations of the generality of these responses. The proposed research program will advance our understanding of the conditions under which disturbance will drive state change in these forests and use this process understanding to support upscaling and forecasting, thereby supporting decision making in northern communities and governments.