Predicting changes in carbon cycling services provided by soil arthropods

随着持续的气候变化，扰乱加拿大森林的昆虫和疾病爆发的频率和强度预计将急剧增加。虫害和病原体对树木造成的损害对木材生产和生态系统服务产生重大影响。NSERC国际联盟的赠款将使加拿大研究人员能够参加在美国进行的一项独特而大规模的实验，在该实验中，3,500棵树被实验性地杀死，以模拟昆虫和病原体造成的死亡。这一实验提供了一个前所未有的机会，可以跟踪森林动态的长期变化，并研究在面临干扰时促进森林健康和复原力的机制。具体而言，该项目将有助于阐明森林干扰对土壤节肢动物多样性影响的基本过程，并揭示节肢动物在面临干扰时对生态系统的稳定性和恢复力可能发挥的作用。据估计，蚂蚁和其他土壤节肢动物的生物量中储存了约1200万吨的干碳，它们可以帮助缓冲或加剧干扰对陆地生态系统营养物质循环和储存的影响。然而，土壤节肢动物对养分循环的贡献仍然很少记录，往往被忽视的生态地球化学模型。从项目中获得的知识将用于多种目的。在节肢动物多样性和养分循环之间建立明确的联系将有助于开发更准确的生化模型，考虑分解者在养分循环中的作用。然后，这些模型可以为森林管理实践提供信息，最大限度地增加碳固存和温带森林遏制气候变化的能力。

With ongoing climate change, the frequency and intensity of insect and disease outbreaks perturbing Canadian forests are expected to increase sharply. Damage to trees due to insect pests and pathogens have major impacts on timber production and ecosystem services. The NSERC Alliance International grant will enable Canadian researchers to take part in a unique and massive experiment in the USA, where 3,500 trees were experimentally killed to mimic death caused by insects and pathogens. This experiment offers an unprecedented opportunity to track long-term changes in forest dynamics and to study the mechanisms promoting forest health and resilience in the face of disturbance. Specifically, the project will help elucidate the processes underlying the impact of forest disturbance on soil arthropod diversity and uncover the role that arthropods might play in the stability and resilience of ecosystems in the face of disturbance. With an estimated ~12 Mt of dry carbon stored into their biomass, ants and other soil arthropods can help buffer or exacerbate the impact of disturbance on the cycling and storage of nutrients in terrestrial ecosystems. Nevertheless, the contribution of soil arthropods to nutrient cycling remains poorly documented and often ignored in biogeochemical models. Knowledge derived from the project will serve multiple purposes. Establishing clear links between arthropod diversity and nutrient cycling will help develop more accurate biochemical models that consider the role of decomposer in nutrient cycling. These models can then inform forest management practices that maximize carbon sequestration and the capacity of temperate forests to curb climate change.