Alabama A&M University in Normal, Alabama will initiate a Center for Forest Ecosystem Assessment (CFEA) as a 5-year Center for Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST: Phase II). The Center renews a previous project, funded as HRD-0420541. Al-AMU is one of the few Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) with a doctoral program in natural resources and environmental sciences, and the renewal of this CREST program will serve to maximize NSF?s investment in long term ecological research and for increasing minority presence in natural resource professions. The goal for the Phase II of the CFEA is to enhance and expand the effort at Al-AMU to be the leading research Center in forest ecosystem ecology and assessment in the southern Cumberland region, educating future natural resource scientists, particularly from groups that are currently underrepresented in the sciences, expanding the temporal and spatial database for long-term climate change study, and enhancing faculty capacity and intra-and inter-institutional collaborations to make CFEA self-sustaining in the future.
Long-term forest ecosystem research and assessment can provide important ecological insights and are crucial for improving management of ecosystems and natural resources. The underlying research theme is to systematically and synergistically examine the relationship between forest disturbances and the forest ecosystem dynamics, at the temporal scale from immediate to long-term responses, at a spatial scale from individual genetic makeup to landscape patterns and process, at non-living level from carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus to ecosystem processes such as carbon balance and storage, and at the biological level from individual wildlife behavior to biodiversity, community dynamics, and ecosystem services. The Center is organized into three subprojects: (1) Ecological Community Responses and Dynamics, (2) Ecosystem Functions and Processes, and (3) Coupled Dynamics of Human and Landscapes. The participants will emphasize inter- and trans-disciplinary synergies and continue to enhance the research productivity of individual faculty and expand the presence of students historically underrepresented in natural resource sciences.
Intellectual Merit The proposed Center will build upon the accomplishments of the first CFEA funding period to examine the relationships between forest disturbances and the ecosystem dynamics that occur over scales from the molecular to the regional. The research will improve the knowledge of disturbance ecology under changing environment and climate, and will contribute significantly to the disciplines of forest management, restoration ecology and conservation biology. The work will involve a number of agencies, from federal through local communities. The investigators and their students will have access to an uncommonly large scale field ecological experiment, and the results will have direct impact on forest ecosystem management practices.
Broader Impact Al AMU has a strong record of preparing underrepresented minority students, particularly African Americans, for STEM careers, including advanced degree education. During the previous 5-plus years of the CFEA, 25 faculty members (more than 60% minorities), 35 graduates (awarded 20 MS and 7 PhD, more than 70% minority), 100 undergraduates and 35 high school students have been involved in the research. Continuation of the project will contribute substantially to increase the ethnic diversity of natural resource scientists serving society. The project will support the first professionally accredited Forestry Program at a Historically Black College or University as well as one of the few doctoral programs in natural resources and environmental sciences at an HBCU. The renewal project will involve significant outreach into communities and high schools to enhance recruitment and public awareness of environmental issues, especially in the Southern Cumberland Plateau Region that comprises parts of Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. The collaborations with federal and local agencies, as well as private landowners, will benefit the research efforts, establish future sustainability for the CFEA, and help to promote ecologically sustainable resource management practices.
