Biocomplexity Incubation Activity: Integrating Social Science Into Long-Term Ecological Research

对人类和自然系统在广泛的环境中相互作用的复杂方式的理解迅速增长，导致社会科学家和自然科学家在长期环境变化研究中加强合作的呼声越来越高。 理论观点、词汇、组织结构和科学文化的重大差异抑制了这些合作，但越来越多的人文科学和自然科学研究人员现在正在寻求弥合以前将他们分开的差距。 这项生物复杂性孵化活动奖将提供支持，使中央亚利桑那州-凤凰城长期生态研究（CAP LTER）项目与巴尔的摩生态系统研究（BES LTER）合作举办一系列研讨会，以促进社会科学融入长期生态研究。 该项目的主要目标将是激发科学上令人兴奋的跨学科研究，汇集社会，生物和物理科学家，以更好地了解人类生态系统。 该项目是在前一次讲习班的基础上进行的，在讲习班上，社会和生物物理科学家就调查人类生态系统的广泛概念框架达成了共识，并提出了一套对其研究至关重要的社会模式和进程。 由于对人类生态系统的统一理解需要逐步进行，因此将确定四个研究项目，其中研究人员同意将社会，生物和物理科学家聚集在一起，从而更好地了解管理生态系统动态的机制。 第一次讲习班侧重于实际问题，将有助于四个研究项目实施综合研究。 第二个讲习班将深入讨论拟议的社会模式和进程，并就如何在试点项目中落实这些核心议题提出建议。 最后一个研讨会将制定具体的方法，拟议的项目可以适应人类生态系统的多个空间和时间尺度。 这一项目将促进融合战略的制定和传播。 重点放在四个试点项目上将使务实的解决方案得以出现，这些解决方案提供的见解将有助于规划更多的LTER站点，以加强社会科学家的参与。 这一持续的努力将促进逐步将社会科学纳入长期的生态研究，并对人类生态系统形成统一的认识，这是理解生物复杂性和环境的最紧迫挑战之一。

The rapid growth in understandings of the complex ways that human and natural systems interact in a broad range of environments have led to intensified calls for greater collaboration among social and natural scientists in the study of long-term environmental change. Major differences in theoretical perspectives, vocabulary, organizational structure, and scientific culture have inhibited these collaborations, but increasing numbers of researchers in both the human and natural sciences now are looking to bridge the gaps that previously separated them. This Biocomplexity Incubation Activity award will provide support to enable the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) project in collaboration with the Baltimore Ecosystems Study (BES LTER) to hold a series of workshops to promote the integration of social sciences into long-term ecological research. The project's primary objective will be to spark scientifically exciting interdisciplinary research that brings together social, biological, and physical scientists to better understand human ecosystems. The project is based on a previous workshop where social and biophysical scientists reached a consensus on a broad conceptual framework for investigating human ecosystems and proposed a set of social patterns and processes key to their study. Because a unified understanding of human ecosystems needs to be taken in incremental steps, four research projects will be identified where investigators agree that bringing together social, biological, and physical scientists would lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms that govern ecosystem dynamics. An initial workshop focusing on the practical issues will help the four research projects implement integrated research. A second workshop will focus in depth on the proposed social patterns and processes and suggest ways these core topics can be implemented in the pilot projects. A final workshop will develop specific ways the proposed projects can accommodate the multiple spatial and temporal scales of the human ecosystem. This project will facilitate the development and dissemination of strategies for integration. The focus on four pilot projects will enable pragmatic solutions to emerge, with these solutions providing insights that will facilitate planning for enhanced involvement of social scientists by additional LTER sites. This sustained effort will foster progressive steps toward the integration of the social sciences into long-term ecological research and development of a unified understanding of human ecosystems, one of the most urgent challenges to understanding biocomplexity and the environment.