Monitoring the Human Impact and Environmental Variability on Adelie Penguins at Palmer Station, Antarctica

监测南极洲帕尔默站阿德利企鹅的人类影响和环境变化

• 批准号: 0130525
• 负责人: William Fraser
• 金额: $ 54.46万
• 依托单位: Polar Oceans Research Group
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-06-01 至 2006-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0130525&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Monitoring; Human; Impact; Environmental; Variability

0130525FraserThe potential consequence of human impact on wildlife in Antarctica has been debated for many decades. Scientists, support staff and visitors in Antarctica may have an effect on the behavior and population dynamics of marine mammals and seabirds. Since the early 1970's, shipboard tourism has expanded to the point where it is timely to address the question, using a scientific research approach. The focus of this study is to examine the potential effect of tourist activities on the Adelie Penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) in the Antarctic Peninsula. The topic has gathered the interest and opinions of those in private industry, the scientific community, government organizations and environmental groups. A key concern is that increases in these activities may eventually overcome the ability of research to address critical issues in a timely and biologically meaningful manner. The approach to understanding how tourism might affect Adelie Penguins must involve both a study of human activity and a study of natural variability in the physical environment. The ongoing Palmer Long Term Ecological Research program focuses on the ecosystem and its components and thus addresses the issues of natural variability. This project focuses on the human dimension and continues a tourist-monitoring program begun as a pilot project near Palmer Station. This site is in a geographic location that mirrors current patterns in tourism and tourist-wildlife interactions in the western Antarctic Peninsula. It also offers a setting that provides unique opportunities for human impacts research. This includes the presence of long-term databases that document environmental variability over multiple time and space scales in both marine and terrestrial habitats, and the ability to examine potential tourist impacts as part of controlled experiments. The results of the study will have important implications to understanding interactions between climate change and ecosystem response, and for detecting, mitigating and managing the consequences of human activities such as tourism.

0130525弗雷泽人类对南极洲野生动物的影响的潜在后果已经争论了几十年。南极洲的科学家、支助人员和游客可能对海洋哺乳动物和海鸟的行为和种群动态产生影响。自20世纪70年代初以来，船上旅游业已经扩大到使用科学研究方法解决这个问题的时候了。本研究旨在探讨旅游活动对南极半岛阿德利企鹅的潜在影响。这一主题引起了私营企业、科学界、政府组织和环保团体的兴趣和意见。一个关键的问题是，这些活动的增加可能最终会克服研究的能力，以及时和生物意义的方式解决关键问题。了解旅游业如何影响阿德利企鹅的方法必须涉及人类活动的研究和自然环境的自然变化的研究。正在进行的帕尔默长期生态研究计划的重点是生态系统及其组成部分，从而解决自然变化的问题。该项目的重点是人的方面，并继续游客监测计划开始作为一个试点项目附近的帕尔默站。该地点所处的地理位置反映了南极半岛西部目前的旅游业和游客与野生动物互动模式。它还为人类影响研究提供了独特的机会。 这包括建立长期数据库，记录海洋和陆地生境在多个时间和空间尺度上的环境变化，并有能力作为受控实验的一部分，审查潜在的旅游影响。该研究的结果将对了解气候变化与生态系统响应之间的相互作用以及检测、减轻和管理旅游等人类活动的后果具有重要影响。