Hierarchical Consequences of Intraspecific Variation on Community and Ecosystem Re-assembly

种内变异对群落和生态系统重组的分层后果

• 批准号: 0516429
• 负责人: Sara Baer
• 金额: $ 44.5万
• 依托单位: Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-09-01 至 2011-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0516429&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Hierarchical; Consequences; Intraspecific; Variation; Community

Humans play an important role in restoring disturbed environments to their original structure (e.g., composition of vegetation) and function. Tallgrass prairie restoration, in particular is a timely issue because most of the historic extent of this ecosystem has been converted to agriculture. Despite much effort and interest, little is known about many factors that could influence restoration success. Widespread commercial production of prairie grass cultivars has resulted from efforts to develop native plants best for erosion control. Commercial production selects for vigorous traits to increase plant establishment. These traits, however, may increase the competitive ability of plants relative to plants of the same species from native prairie. Experimental plots will be established with cultivar or native prairie sources of the dominant prairie grasses along with a mix of prairie wildflowers in an agricultural field in southern Illinois. This experiment will monitor plant traits for four years and evaluate whether sources of grasses (i.e., cultivar and native prairie) influence the establishment of other species (i.e., wildflowers) and the recovery of other important processes that occur during restoration such as overall plant growth and improvements in soil health. Two additional sites in central Illinois and Kansas, containing similar experimental plots, will be monitored to generalize results to the tallgrass prairie region as a whole. Although cultivars are widely used in prairie restorations, the long-term consequences (for community assembly and ecosystem recovery) of restoring habitats by introducing potentially more competitive plants are unknown. If cultivars are superior competitors, they may increase the difficulty in restoring the less abundant non-grass species that are critical to biodiversity. The nearly irreversible nature of plant composition once established from seed mixtures underscores the need for information on the ecological effects of species used in restorations. This is particularly relevant to tallgrass prairie, where restoring a variety of species is difficult to achieve.

人类在恢复受干扰环境的原始结构（例如植被的组成）和功能方面发挥着重要作用。 塔格拉斯草原修复尤其是一个及时的问题，因为该生态系统的大部分历史范围已转变为农业。 尽管付出了很多努力和兴趣，但对可能影响恢复成功的许多因素知之甚少。 大草原草品种的广泛商业生产是为开发最适合侵蚀的本地植物而造成的。 商业生产选择有力的特征来增加植物的建立。 但是，这些特征可能会提高植物相对于本地草原的同一物种的植物的竞争能力。 在伊利诺伊州南部的农业领域中，将建立实验地块，以主要草原草的品种或本地草原来源以及大草原野花的混合物建立。 该实验将监测植物特征四年，并评估草的来源（即品种和土著草原）是否会影响其他物种的建立（即野花），并恢复在恢复过程中发生的其他重要过程，例如整体植物生长和土壤健康的改善。 将监视伊利诺伊州中部和堪萨斯州中部的另外两个地点，这些地点将受到监测，以将结果推广到整个塔格拉斯草原地区。尽管品种被广泛用于草原修复体中，但通过引入潜在的竞争性植物的恢复栖息地的长期后果（对于社区组装和生态系统恢复）尚不清楚。 如果品种是优越的竞争者，他们可能会增加难以恢复对生物多样性至关重要的较少丰富的非草种。 曾经从种子混合物中建立的植物成分的几乎不可逆转的性质强调了对修复体中使用物种的生态影响的信息的需求。 这与塔格拉斯草原尤其重要，那里很难恢复各种物种。