Coastal SEES (Track 1), Collaborative: Adaptive Capacity, Resilience, and Coral Reef State Shifts in Social-ecological Systems

本项目将评估珊瑚礁社会生态系统的复原力。在过去的几十年里，法属波利尼西亚的太平洋莫奥利亚岛周围的珊瑚礁在受到重大扰动的影响后，不断地重新组合成珊瑚主导。对干扰的恢复能力是沿海可持续性的关键组成部分，因为它使珊瑚礁保持在能够提供关键生态系统服务的状态。考虑到许多地区的珊瑚礁经历了从结构复杂、鱼类群落丰富的珊瑚主导状态到鱼类较少的大型藻类主导状态的突然且可能不可逆转的转变，Mo'orea珊瑚礁的恢复能力尤其引人注目。该项目将通过确定赋予恢复力的途径，突出新出现的脆弱性，并在沿海地区综合管理和可持续发展规划等领域提出政策倡议，促进珊瑚礁的更可持续管理。将采用一种综合的社会和自然科学方法，解决有关沿海系统的复原力、可持续性和适应能力的基于地点的问题。将制定一个框架，以解决有关Mo'orea社会生态系统的更复杂问题，这将为将生态学和社会科学整合到其他沿海系统中提供一个模型。研究成果将通过利益相关者研讨会广泛传播，研究生将参与工作的各个方面。虽然状态变化的动态是理解珊瑚礁社会生态系统的恢复力和长期可持续性的基础，但在这些系统中，人类和生态反馈之间的相互作用知之甚少。人口密度高、沿海开发广泛和资源开发密集的系统通常表现出支撑对当地环境变化的复原力的关键适应能力下降。然而，尽管Mo’orea发展迅速，但它一直保持着韧性。本项目将探讨moorea珊瑚礁社会生态系统的复杂反馈如何维持其承受大规模生态干扰的能力。这项研究将涉及社会科学家和自然科学家之间的跨学科合作。人类学田野调查侧重于珊瑚礁利用、传统治理和土著生态知识的人类层面，将记录当地社区如何感知、应对和管理生态系统状态的变化。生态模型将描述珊瑚、藻类和鱼类群落的动态，包括使这些群落易受生态系统状态突变影响的反馈。这些组成部分将被整合到一个系统建模框架中，该框架包括人类和自然群落内部和之间的反馈，定量模拟人类如何改变其行为作为生态系统状态的函数，以及生态系统如何反过来受到人类活动的影响。一个关键目标是弥合社会科学家收集的数据与生态学家开发的动态生态系统模型之间的差距，因为这对于理解全球沿海社会生态系统的恢复力和长期可持续性至关重要。该项目得到了美国国家科学基金会沿海可持续发展科学、工程和教育项目的支持。

This project will assess resilience in a coral reef social-ecological system. Over the last several decades, reefs around the Pacific island of Mo'orea, French Polynesia, have consistently reassembled to coral dominance after being impacted by major perturbations. Resilience to disturbance is a key component of coastal sustainability, as it maintains the reefs in a state capable of providing critical ecosystem services. The resilience of reefs in Mo'orea is particularly striking, given that coral reefs in many regions have experienced abrupt and potentially irreversible shifts from a coral dominated state, with complex structure and a rich fish community, to a macroalgae dominated state with fewer fish. This project will contribute to more sustainable management of coral reefs by identifying pathways that confer resilience, highlighting emerging vulnerabilities, and suggesting policy initiatives in areas such as integrated coastal zone management and sustainable development planning. An integrative social and natural science approach will be employed that addresses place-based questions about resilience, sustainability and adaptive capacity of coastal systems. A framework will be developed for addressing more complex questions about the Mo'orea social-ecological system, and this will provide a model for the integration of ecology and social science in other coastal systems. Research results will be disseminated broadly through stakeholder workshops, and graduate students will be engaged in all aspects of the work.While the dynamics of state shifts are fundamental to understanding the resilience and long-term sustainability of coral reef social-ecological systems, the interplay between anthropogenic and ecological feedbacks is poorly understood in these systems. Systems with high population densities, widespread coastal development and intense resource exploitation typically show declines in the critical adaptive capacities that underpin resilience to local environmental variability. However, Mo'orea has maintained its resilience despite rapid development. This project will explore how the complex feedbacks in the Mo'orea coral reef social-ecological system maintain its capacity to withstand large-scale ecological disturbances. The study will involve interdisciplinary collaboration between social and natural scientists. Anthropological fieldwork focusing on the human dimensions of coral reef use, traditional governance, and indigenous ecological knowledge, will document how local communities perceive, respond to, and manage changes in ecosystem state. Ecological models will describe the dynamics of coral, algal and fish communities, including the feedbacks that make these communities susceptible to abrupt shifts in ecosystem state. These components will be integrated in a systems modeling framework that includes feedbacks both within and between the human and natural communities, quantitatively modeling how humans change their behavior as a function of ecosystem state and how the ecosystem is affected in turn by human activities. A key objective is to bridge the gap between data collected by social scientists and the dynamic ecosystem models developed by ecologists, as this is crucial to understanding the resilience and long-term sustainability of coastal social-ecological systems worldwide.This project is supported under NSF's Coastal SEES (Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability) program.