Novel forestry practices for mitigating global change: investigating effects of legacy trees on plant-soil microbial networks, carbon cycling and forest recovery

由于采伐和气候变化，加拿大的森林正以前所未有的速度受到干扰。在森林实践中，主要是砍伐森林，然后重新组合成快速生长、物种贫乏的人工林，但在人工林失败和干扰制度改变方面，缺点很明显。虽然竞争仍然是生态和进化以及资源管理的核心，但认识到相互作用的多样性的更全面的理论将提高我们以更大的生物多样性、碳储量和适应能力重建森林的能力。认识到生态系统是复杂适应系统理论框架下的动态相互作用网络，有望改善我们看待和管理森林的方式。我的项目将继续研究森林中植物-微生物-土壤的相互作用。一个关键的发现是，连接树木的菌根网络介导了残树和再生幼苗之间的相互作用。这是“母树项目”设计中不可或缺的一部分。“母树项目”是nserc资助的一项实验，旨在比较在不列颠哥伦比亚省长达900公里的道格拉斯冷杉森林气候梯度中，遗留树木保留水平对森林恢复的影响。本文的总体目标是使用母树框架来研究气候变化时，传统树木和再生幼苗之间的竞争性和促进性相互作用在森林恢复力中的作用。基本的前提是，弹性植根于物种之间相互作用的平衡，与复杂适应系统理论保持一致。在未来五年，我将实现三个目标：1。确定气候和采伐制度如何影响遗产树木和再生幼苗之间的竞争性和促进性相互作用，以及这些如何影响植物、真菌和微生物群落的聚集；2. 了解这些群落的聚集如何影响碳和养分循环；3. 在不断变化的气候条件下，将对相互作用的新认识纳入采伐和再生战略，以增加碳储存、生物多样性和森林恢复。为了实现这些目标，我将在本科、硕士、博士和PDF级别培养HQP。这不仅包括科学研究方面的培训，还包括文化、专业和个人智能方面的指导，包括建立合作关系、解决问题、批判性思维和沟通。我将以我在HQP培训方面的良好记录为基础，这在我的毕业生、出版物和早期的CREATE项目中得到了证明。这项研究测试了经典的生态学理论，但对加拿大和世界范围的森林具有实际意义。我之前的研究已经开始改变加拿大西部的森林管理以及碳和生物多样性保护实践和政策。我期待在接下来的五年里，随着这项研究产生新的理解并进入公共领域，它将继续取得成功。

Canada's forests are being disturbed at unprecedented rates because of harvesting and climate change. Clearcutting followed by reassembly with fast-growing, species-poor plantations dominates forest practices, but shortcomings are evident in plantation failures and altered disturbance regimes. While competition remains central to ecology and evolution, as well as resource management, a more holistic theory recognizing the multiplicity of interactions would improve our ability to regenerate forests with greater biodiversity, carbon storage, and adaptive capacity. Recognizing ecosystems as such dynamic networks of interactions, as framed by complex adaptive systems theory, has promise for improving how we view and steward forests. My program will continue to investigate plant-microbe-soil interactions in forests. A key discovery has been that mycorrhizal networks linking trees mediate interactions between residual trees and regenerating seedlings. This has been integral in the design of the Mother Tree Project, an NSERC-funded experiment that compares effects of legacy tree retention levels on forest recovery across a 900 km-long climatic gradient of Douglas-fir forests in British Columbia. The overall goal herein is to use the Mother Tree framework to investigate the role of competitive and facilitative interactions between legacy trees and regenerating seedlings in forest resilience as climate changes. The underlying premise is that resilience is rooted in the balance of interactions among species, in keeping with complex adaptive systems theory. Over the next five years, I will meet three objectives: 1. Determine how climate and harvesting regimes affect competitive and facilitative interactions between legacy trees and regenerating seedlings, and how these influence the assembly of plant, fungal and microbial communities; 2. Understand how the assembly of these communities affect carbon and nutrient cycling; 3. Integrate new understanding of interactions into harvesting and regeneration strategies to augment carbon storage, biodiversity and forest recovery under changing climatic conditions. To meet these objectives, I will train HQP at the undergraduate, MSc, PhD and PDF levels. This will involve not only training in scientific research, but also mentoring for cultural, professional and personal intelligences, including building collaborative relationships, problem solving, critical thinking, and communication. I will build on my strong track-record of HQP training as evidenced in my graduates, publications and earlier CREATE program. This research tests classic ecological theory, but has practical implications for forests in Canada and world-wide. My previous research has already started changing forest management as well as carbon and biodiversity conservation practices and policies in western Canada. I anticipate continued success over the next five years as new understandings emerging from this research and reach the public sphere.