Ecological forecasting for boreal conservation: fire, owls and woodpeckers

北方保护的生态预测：火、猫头鹰和啄木鸟

• 批准号: RGPIN-2020-07192
• 负责人: Cumming, Steven
• 金额: $ 2.04万
• 依托单位: Université Laval
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=718628
• 关键词: Ecological; forecasting; boreal; conservation; fire

The boreal biome is a vast wilderness, considered one of the last remaining frontier ecosystems on the planet. The footprint of European colonisation remains relatively light, invasive species are few, predator-prey relationships are substantially intact, and there is relatively little control over natural disturbances. Industrial impacts have been limited to the south but are expanding northwards, and the indirect impacts of anthropogenic climate change have already reached critical levels in some areas. The phenomena of “polar amplification” is resulting in warming rates three times higher than the global average, with possibly enormous and far-reaching consequences that we can not yet foresee in detail enough to plan ahead. The art and science of looking into the future in order to make such plans is known as “ecological forecasting”. As I approach the matter, it involves the synthesis of statistical data analysis and computer simulation. This proposal builds on a large body of work to develop the data and methods to enable forecasting tools. It addresses two specific problem areas: wildfire, and biodiversity. We know that climate warming will tend to increase the amount of fire in many parts of the boreal forest. This could in turn cause or facilitate large changes in the nature of forest, with big effects on the forest industry and the humans and other animals who live there. However, the tools available to predict these changes need some improving: they don't yet account for important interactions between fire and vegetation that could partially or largely mitigate the effects of warming, as these are inferred from correlations between recent fire activity and annual fire weather conditions. Biodiversity refers to the entirety of life on earth, but our ability to forecast biodiversity responses to changes in boreal systems is limited to only a very few species, such as trees, songbirds, ducks and caribou. In this proposal, I will expand on my past work on songbirds and ducks to develop new predictive models for species of boreal-breeding owls and woodpeckers. To do this, I will use some extensive but long-neglected data sets that citizen scientists have been collecting over the last 30 years.

北方生物群落是一片广阔的荒野，被认为是地球上仅存的边境生态系统之一，欧洲殖民的足迹仍然相对较小，入侵物种很少，捕食者与猎物的关系基本完好，对自然的控制相对较少。工业干扰仅限于南方，但正在向北方扩展，而人为气候变化的间接影响在某些地区已经达到临界水平，“极地放大”现象导致变暖速度比全球高出三倍。平均，可能有我们还无法详细预见未来以制定此类计划的艺术和科学，这被称为“生态预测”。该提案建立在开发数据和方法以实现预测工具的基础上，它解决了两个特定的问题领域：野火和生物多样性。 我们知道，气候变暖往往会增加北方森林许多地区的火灾数量，这反过来可能会导致或促进森林性质的巨大变化，对林业以及人类和其他动物产生重大影响。然而，可用于预测这些变化的工具需要一些改进：它们尚未考虑到火灾和植被之间的重要相互作用，而这些相互作用可以部分或很大程度上减轻变暖的影响，因为这些是从最近火灾活动之间的相关性推断出来的。和每年的火灾天气情况。 生物多样性指的是地球上的整个生命，但我们预测生物多样性对北方系统变化的反应的能力仅限于极少数物种，例如树木、鸣禽、鸭子和驯鹿。在本提案中，我将详细阐述我的观点。为了做到这一点，我将使用公民科学家一直在收集的一些广泛但长期被忽视的数据集。过去30年。