Collaborative Research: US-Mexico planning visit: Mexican urban stream ecology (MUSE)

城市直接影响流经城市流域并流向下游人口的水的质量和数量。虽然受到发展的影响，但城市河流和溪流为周围人口提供了重要的生态系统服务，包括饮用水和雨水排水。然而，在发展中经济体，如墨西哥，城市河流可能被人类直接用作未经处理的饮用水来源、污水的直接管道和淡水渔业。为了适当地管理这些地区的城市流域，了解生物群落和生物过程如何受到城市化进程的影响是很重要的。这项名为“墨西哥城市河流生态合作”（MUSE）的提案将汇集一群河流生态学家、鱼类生物学家以及来自美国和墨西哥的学生，开始了解墨西哥南部城市化、河流生态和淡水渔业之间的联系。在MUSE中开展的活动将为更好地了解世界各地的城市河流生态学和城市渔业奠定基础，并将启动一项新的合作，为科学家、学生和自然资源管理者提供知识和资源。城市化被认为是全球溪流和河流完整性下降的一个重要驱动因素；然而，受影响的系统继续提供基本的生态系统服务，包括雨水排水、饮用水和淡水渔业。城市化对鱼类结构和营养关系的影响以及对鱼类在生态系统过程中的功能作用的影响尚不清楚。通过MUSE，美国和墨西哥的研究人员将开始了解墨西哥南部城市化、生物地球化学和淡水渔业之间的协同联系。具体而言，MUSE研究人员将研究城市化对墨西哥恰帕斯州和塔巴斯科州Usumacinta-Grijalva流域淡水鱼群落和能量和营养动态的影响。通过这个项目，城市生态学和热带生态学将为合作研究人员和学生开辟新的科学方向。

Cities directly influence the quality and quantity of water that moves through urban watersheds and to the human populations located downstream. Though impacted by development, urban rivers and streams provide important ecosystem services, including drinking water and stormwater drainage to surrounding human populations. However, urban rivers in developing economies, such as Mexico may be directly utilized by humans for sources of untreated drinking water, direct conduits for sewage, and freshwater fisheries. To appropriately manage urban watersheds in these regions, it is important to understand how biological communities and biological processes are affected by increasing urbanization. This proposal, the Mexican Urban Stream Ecology Collaboration (MUSE), will bring together group of stream ecologists, fish biologists, and students from the United States and Mexico to begin to understand the links among urbanization, stream ecology, and freshwater fisheries in southern Mexico. The activities conducted in MUSE will provide the foundation for greater understanding of urban stream ecology and urban fisheries throughout the world and will initiate a new collaboration that will generate knowledge and resources for scientists, students, and natural resource managers.Urbanization is considered to be an important driver of global decline in the integrity of streams and rivers; yet, affected systems continue to provide essential ecosystem services including stormwater drainage, drinking water, and freshwater fisheries. The influence of urbanization on the structure and trophic relationships of fishes and on the functional role of fishes in ecosystem processes is not well understood. Through MUSE, U.S. and Mexican researchers will begin to understand synergistic links among urbanization, biogeochemistry, and freshwater fisheries in southern Mexico. Specifically, MUSE researchers will investigate the influence of urbanization on freshwater fish communities and energy and nutrient dynamics in the Usumacinta-Grijalva watershed in Chiapas and Tabasco, Mexico. Through this project new scientific directions in urban ecology and tropical ecology will open for collaborating researchers and students.