Dimensions US-BIOTA-Sao Paulo: Assembly and evolution of the Amazonian biota and its environment: an integrated approach

亚马逊是地球上最具标志性的生物多样性和地方性中心，由于其对全球系统生态的贡献，它是最重要的陆地生物群之一。这个项目试图回答生物多样性科学中的一个首要问题：现代亚马逊生物群及其环境是如何跨越空间和时间组装起来的？这项研究旨在通过一种比较的方法，综合系统学、种群生物学、生态系统结构和功能、地质学、地球系统模拟和遥感以及环境史等学科，了解新近纪晚期-现代亚马逊的进化和环境生态史。该项目还调查了生物和环境在这一时期的变化如何影响亚马孙地区生物地球化学流动中的功能多样性，以及这些变化又如何影响今天看到的生物多样性的维度以及生物地球化学循环中全球范围变化的历史。该项目是与巴西科学家和资助机构合作的，是迄今为止对亚马逊生物多样性及其历史进行的最全面的研究。所采取的方法描述了一种方法模板，用于分析可推广到其他系统的大型、生态复杂地貌的生物和环境变化历史信息。该项目为正规和非正规教育创建了一个大型框架，包括对学生进行培训，制作关于亚马逊的大型博物馆展览，为K-12 STEM教师举办讲习班，在专业教育期刊上发表出版物，以及一个门户网站--亚马逊生物多样性进化百科全书--将向公众公布所有成果，并作为一个关于亚马逊生物多样性及其全球重要性的信息平台。该奖项由美国国家科学基金会国际科学与工程办公室共同资助。

Amazonia is Earth's most iconic center of biological diversity and endemism and is among the most important terrestrial biomes due to its contributions to global systems ecology. This project seeks to answer an overarching question in biodiversity science: How was the modern Amazonian biota and its environment assembled across space and time? The research is designed to understand the evolutionary and environmental-ecological history of late Neogene-Recent Amazonia through a comparative approach that integrates across the disciplines of systematics, population biology, ecosystem structure and function, geology, Earth systems modeling and remote sensing, and environmental history. The project also investigates how biotic and environmental change over this time-period influenced Amazonian functional diversity in biogeochemical flows, and how these, in turn, shaped the dimensions of biodiversity seen today as well as the history of global-scale changes in biogeochemical cycling. The project, which is a collaboration with Brazilian scientists and funding agencies, represents the most integrative examination of Amazonian biodiversity and its history to date. The approaches taken describe a methodological template for analyzing information about the history of biotic and environmental change across large, ecologically complex landscapes that can be generalized to other systems. The project creates a large framework for formal and informal education including the training of students, development of a major museum exhibit on Amazonia, workshops for K-12 STEM teachers, publications in professional educational journals, and a web portal, The Evolutionary Encyclopedia of Amazonian Biodiversity, that will make all results available to the public, as well as serve as an informational platform about Amazonian biodiversity and its global importance. This award is being co-funded by NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering.