NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2014

NSF生物学博士后研究奖学金将研究和培训结合在一起，为年轻科学家在新兴领域的职业生涯做好准备，这些领域的生物学与其他科学学科交叉，在这种情况下与数学和经济学交叉。预计这些研究员将成为国家未来科学劳动力的领导者。与Zak Ratajczak的这笔奖学金支持研究和培训，以解决这样一个问题：“经济联系是否会破坏环境稳定？”该奖学金的主办机构是弗吉尼亚大学和斯德哥尔摩大学，赞助科学家分别是保罗·多多里科博士和卡尔·福尔克博士。该奖学金的培训目标包括发展现代社会生态系统理论建模的技能，包括非线性动力学和网络理论。预计研究结果将有助于公共政策，并通过有多个利益攸关方群体和政策建议的讲习班加以传播。面向K-12和本科生群体的教育宣传旨在培养对人类和生态系统如何相互影响的更深层次思考。该奖学金由国际科学与工程办公室、地球科学理事会和生物科学理事会共同资助。这项研究探讨了生态系统和社会生态系统能够在多大程度上发生突变和难以逆转的转变，这些转变被称为“临界点”。这项研究将生态系统描述为一系列由人类经济远距离相互连接的生态系统组成部分，这比许多只考虑生态系统之间自然发生的联系的模型有所进步。它探讨了这些经济联系是否加剧了现有的临界点，并创造了在没有人类的情况下不存在的大规模生态临界点。利用这些模型，这项研究试图确定避免临界点的适应性策略，包括改变潜在的生物多样性。对市场行为和资源共享的不同模式的分析应为驾驭自然资源的随机波动提供战略。此外，通过将生态系统结构的显著组成部分和关键生物产品的价格指数明确地整合到模型中，应该可以检测到社会生态网络中经常出现在临界点附近的动态行为。意识到这类行为可以帮助避免在重要的经济生态系统，如农田、牧场和渔业中出现大规模的生态倾倒。

NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology combine research and training to prepare young scientists for careers in emerging areas where biology intersects with other scientific disciplines, in this case with mathematics and economics. The Fellows are expected to be leaders of the nation's scientific workforce of the future. This fellowship to Zak Ratajczak supports research and training that address the question, "Does economic connectedness undermine environmental stability?" The host institutions for this fellowship are the University of Virginia and Stockholm University and the sponsoring scientists are Drs. Paolo D'Odorico and Carl Folke, respectively. Training goals for the fellowship include developing skills in theoretical modeling of modern social-ecological systems, including nonlinear dynamics and network theory. The research results are expected to be useful to public policy and are being disseminated through workshops with multiple stakeholder groups and policy recommendations. Educational outreach to K-12 and undergraduate groups seeks to foster deeper thinking of how humans and ecosystems affect each other. This fellowship is jointly funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering, the Directorate for Geosciences, and the Directorate for Biological Sciences.This research addresses the extent to which ecological and social-ecological systems are capable of abrupt and difficult-to-reverse transitions, referred to as 'tipping points.' The research represents ecosystems as a series of ecological components interconnected over long distances by human economies an advance over many models that consider only naturally occurring connections between ecosystems. It addresses whether these economic connections accentuate existing tipping points and create large-scale ecological tipping points that do not exist in the absence of humans. Using these models, the research seeks to identify adaptive strategies to avoid tipping points, including alterations of underlying biological diversity. Analyses of different modes of market behavior and resource sharing should provide strategies for navigating stochastic fluctuations in natural resources. Furthermore, by explicitly integrating conspicuous components of ecosystem structure and the price indexes of key biological goods into the models, it should be possible to detect dynamic behaviors that often emerge near tipping points in social-ecological networks. Being aware of such behaviors could help avoid large ecological tipping in economically important ecosystems such as croplands, rangelands, and fisheries.