PIRE Collaborative Research and Training in Social Context, Population Processes, and Environmental Change

[0729709]国际研究与教育伙伴关系：社会背景、人口过程和环境变化的合作研究与培训国际研究与教育伙伴关系（PIRE）汇集了来自美国五所大学和尼泊尔和中国四所机构的研究人员和学生，对人口-环境相互作用的动态进行比较研究。首席研究员，密歇根大学的William Axinn和来自密歇根州立大学、圣地亚哥州立大学、北卡罗来纳大学和亚利桑那州立大学的同事将与尼泊尔社会与环境研究所和特里布万大学农业与动物科学研究所的合作伙伴合作。并与中国科学院生态环境科学研究中心和卧龙自然保护区的中方合作伙伴合作。尼泊尔和中国是两个备受瞩目的地区，人口众多且不断增长，经济变化迅速，独特的生物多样性和复杂的制度结构为研究和教育提供了绝佳的机会。合作研究的五年计划侧重于提高对影响三种濒危物种（大熊猫、犀牛和老虎）植被和栖息地的模式和过程的理解，实现尼泊尔和中国人口-环境相互作用动态的跨案例比较，并建立在其他环境中进行此类比较所需的广泛适用工具。合作的教育目标将利用每个伙伴的智力和物质资源，培养下一代科学家，使他们能够熟练地对人与环境的相互作用进行新的国际跨案例比较。这项活动为40名美国研究生和12名本科生提供了独特的国际研究和培训经验。在追求引人注目的研究问题的同时，教育和研究活动密切结合在一起，重点是学习和实践桥梁关键学科和促进国际合作所需的概念和方法。详细的单点案例研究提供了微观层面的信息，大大提高了人们对人与环境相互作用的认识，但为了更好地理解全球环境变化，跨案例比较现在是一项极其重要的科学优先事项。具体而言，尼泊尔案例研究的优势，即丰富的社区背景动态测量，将适用于中国案例研究。同样，中国案例研究的优势，遥感数据分析和基于主体的建模研究森林和栖息地动态，将应用于尼泊尔的研究。这种整合将增加这些重要案例之间的数据和方法的可比性，而不同案例研究之间的交叉受精研究将提高每个案例研究的价值。更重要的是，这项工作将使人与环境相互作用的比较研究成为可能，从而推动该领域从单一案例研究转向多边研究设计。该项目有可能大大加快对重要环境变化的调查，最终有助于确定保护生物多样性的有效策略。研究结果有望确定研究人与环境相互作用的模型，这些模型可以跨环境转移，以互利的方式将各种研究联系起来。此外，该项目将培养新一代科学家，开创人口-环境相互作用的国际跨案例比较。在未来几十年里，这些科学家将对具体案例的详细理解整合到全球环境变化的研究中，发挥至关重要的作用。该奖项由国际科学与工程办公室与社会、行为与经济科学理事会共同资助。

0729709AxinnPIRE: Collaborative Research and Training in Social Context, Population Processes, and Environmental ChangeThis Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE) brings together researchers and students from five U.S. universities and four institutions in Nepal and China to undertake comparative studies on the dynamics of population-environment interaction. Principal investigator, William Axinn of the University of Michigan and colleagues from Michigan State University, San Diego State University, the University of North Carolina, and Arizona State University will collaborate with Nepalese partners from the Institute for Social and Environmental Research and Tribhuvan University's Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, and with Chinese partners from the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Wolong Nature Reserve. The field sites in Nepal and China are two high-profile settings where large, growing populations, rapidly changing economies, unique biodiversity and complex institutional structures offer exceptional research and educational opportunities.The five-year plan for collaborative research focuses on improving understanding of patterns and processes affecting vegetation and habitats for three endangered species (pandas, rhinos, and tigers), achieving cross-case comparisons of the dynamics of population-environment interaction for Nepal and China, and establishing widely applicable tools needed to make such comparisons in other settings. The educational objectives of the collaboration will draw upon the intellectual and physical resources of each partner to train a next generation of scientists skilled in conducting new international cross-case comparisons of the human-environment interaction. This activity provides a unique international research and training experience for forty U.S. graduate and twelve undergraduate students. Educational and research activities are closely integrated with a focus on learning and practicing concepts and methods needed to bridge key disciplines and foster international collaboration while pursuing compelling research questions. Detailed single site case studies that provide micro-level information have greatly advanced knowledge about human-environment interaction, but cross-case comparison is now an extremely high scientific priority needed for better understanding of global environmental change. Specifically, the strengths of the Nepal case study, which is rich in dynamic measurements of community context will be applied to the China case study. Likewise, the strengths of the China case study, the analysis of remote sensing data and agent-based modeling to study forest and habitat dynamics, will be applied to the Nepal study. The integration will increase the comparability of data and methods across these important cases and the cross-fertilization of research among different case studies will enhance the value of each case study. More importantly, this work will enable the comparative study of human-environment interaction that pushes the field past singular case studies toward multilateral research designs. This project has the potential to greatly accelerate investigation of important environmental change, ultimately helping to identify effective strategies for preserving biodiversity. The findings are expected to identify models of studying human-environment interaction that transfer across settings to link various studies in a mutually beneficial manner. Further, this project will train a new generation of scientists pioneering international cross-case comparisons of population-environment interactions. Such scientists will be crucial in the coming decades to integrate detailed understandings of specific cases into studies of global environmental change.This award is funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering together with the Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences.