IRES: Changing Landscapes, Biodiversity, and Ecosystem Function in an African Global Biodiversity Hotspot in Swaziland

这个国际学生研究经验（IRES）项目将让美国本科生在非洲南部国家斯威士兰进行实地生态学和保护研究。该项目将通过指导、团队合作和创新研究来训练学生解决地球上一些最紧迫的保护问题。学生们将与美国和非洲的科学家合作，研究人类生计和农业生产需求与维持多样化和充满活力的生态系统的需要的整合，使人类社区得以繁荣发展。在斯威士兰的国际工作中，学生将首先了解区域文化、自然历史、生态理论和研究技术。学生们将在暑假期间进行独立的研究项目。在项目的过程中，学生的研究项目将研究最近转换的农业用地如何改变野生动物群落和整个生态系统的健康。随着全球生物多样性的持续下降和农业景观的增加，该项目将帮助我们了解如何维持生物多样性、健康的生态系统和人类生计。此外，该计划将培养新一代的科学家，他们将把他们新发现的知识传播给当地和全球的观众，并为面对我们星球日益增长的保护挑战做好准备。全球保护工作必须包括农业景观，因为农业已经并将继续在土地利用实践中发挥主导作用。然而，人们对农业景观如何改变生物多样性和生态系统的理解有限。为人类提供资源的能力（生态系统服务）。农业生产与生物多样性和生态系统功能平衡的一个主要假设是生境异质性假设。斯威士兰和美国的科学家将与学生合作，了解异质性对动物生物多样性和生态系统功能的作用。一组学生将把动物群落分布的变化与景观异质性的模式联系起来。第二组学生将测试在农业为主的景观中驱动动物群落变化的机制。最后一组学生将研究景观异质性和动物群落如何影响生态系统功能。

This International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) project will engage U.S. undergraduate students in field-based ecology and conservation research in the southern Africa country of Swaziland. The project will use mentoring, teamwork and innovative research to train students to address some of the planet's most pressing conservation issues. Students will work with American and African scientists to study the integration of human livelihoods and needs for agricultural production with the need to maintain the diverse and vigorous ecosystems that allow human communities to thrive. Working internationally in Swaziland, students will first gain an understanding of regional cultures, natural history, ecological theory and research techniques. Students will then spend their summer conducting independent research projects. Over the course of the project student research projects will examine how recently converted agricultural lands may alter wildlife communities and the health of entire ecosystems. As global biodiversity continues to decline and agricultural landscapes increase, this project will help us understand how to maintain biodiversity, healthy ecosystems, and human livelihoods. Additionally, the program will produce a new generation of scientists who will spread their newly found knowledge to local and global audiences and be well prepared to face our planet's growing conservation challenges.Global conservation efforts must embrace agricultural landscapes, because agriculture has and will continue to play a dominant role in shaping land-use practices. Nonetheless, there is only a limited understanding of how agricultural landscapes alter biodiversity and ecosystems? ability to provide resources for humans (ecosystem services). One major hypothesis for balancing agricultural production with biodiversity and ecosystem functioning is the habitat heterogeneity hypothesis. Swazi and American scientists will work with students to understand the role of heterogeneity on faunal biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. One cohort of students will relate variation in the distribution of faunal communities to patterns in landscape heterogeneity. A second cohort of students will test the mechanisms that drive faunal community changes in agriculturally dominated landscapes. A final cohort of students will examine how landscape heterogeneity and faunal communities influence ecosystem functions.