CNH: Socio-Ecosystem Dynamics of Human-Natural Networks on Model Islands

该项目将增进我们对自然--人类耦合系统的了解，推进自然科学和社会科学的前沿，通过侧重于在人类占领千年之前和之后由四个经过充分研究的岛屿组成的模型系统，将它们结合起来。该项目团队将开发和测试概念和量化理论，强调人类与支持他们的复杂生态系统之间的反馈。该项目采用考古学和古生态学方法，以增进对四项研究的社会生态系统的初始条件和随后的发展轨迹之间的关系的了解。这种理解将被用来开发和约束计算模型，这些模型将被用来测试有关长期人类生态反馈的理论。该项目特别寻求将人类作为资源的自给自足消费者和以市场为导向的资源开采者的双重作用结合起来。理解和综合模型将用于探索在生态系统服务和环境变化的背景下，人们从复杂生态系统中提取生物量(例如，鱼、纤维、燃料和木材)的可持续性。这项工作包括三项活动：1)建立动态耦合自然-人类系统的综合网络理论，包括它们对外部和内部变化的稳健性和弹性；2)将该理论应用于四个太平洋岛屿上的波利尼西亚人的引入、持续和动态，并对其进行测试；3)探索该理论的发展和应用如何支持我们对多样性和复杂性及其与生态系统管理的相互作用的进一步了解。该项目将帮助我们理解人类如何以及为什么在其环境中成功或失败地可持续地生存。这项研究考察了大约1000年前人类到达的四个法属波利尼西亚岛屿，在一些岛屿上可持续地生活，但在另一些岛屿上却不是。将利用历史和当前数据帮助更清楚地了解自岛屿首次被占领以来发生的社会和生态变化。该项目团队将建立和测试人类与野生和受管理的生态系统相互作用的复杂计算机模型。这些数据和模型将有助于更全面地描述和解释基本属性，如人类人口所需的资源，以及数百年来生态系统为人类提供食物和住所的能力。它们还将强调生态系统服务与人类对岛屿资源的利用和开发之间的相互作用。这种知识对于了解人类在这些岛屿以外的生态系统和环境方面的作用至关重要。该项目将提供有关人类如何更可持续和有益地与各种陆地和水生生态系统互动的基本知识。这项工作还将展示如何将生态学、水文学、海洋学、考古学、人口学和经济学等环境和社会科学结合起来，推动跨学科科学的前沿。这些进展对于解决社会科学和自然科学交叉的关键问题至关重要，这些问题包括资源过度消耗、气候破坏和文明崩溃。

This project will improve our understanding of coupled natural-human systems and advance the frontiers of natural and social sciences, integrating them through a focus on model systems comprising four well-studied islands before and after a millennium of human occupation. The project team will develop and test conceptual and quantitative theory that emphasizes feedbacks between humans and the complex ecological systems that support them. The project applies archaeological and paleo-ecological methods to increase understanding of the relationships between initial conditions and subsequent developmental trajectories in the four study socio-ecosystems. This understanding will be used to develop and constrain computational models which will be used to test theories regarding long-term human-ecology feedbacks. The project seeks in particular to integrate the dual roles of humans as subsistence consumers of resources and as market-driven exploiters of resources. The understanding and integrated models will be used to explore the sustainability of people's extraction of biomass (e.g., fish, fiber, fuel, and timber) from complex ecosystems in the context of ecosystem services and environmental change. This work includes three activities: 1) Build a comprehensive network theory of dynamic coupled natural-human systems including their robustness and resilience to external and internal change; 2) apply the theory to, and test it against, the introduction, persistence, and dynamics of Polynesians on four Pacific Islands; and 3) explore how the development and application of the theory might support further advances in our understanding of diversity and complexity and their interactions with ecosystem management.This project will help us to understand how and why humans succeed or fail to live sustainably within their environment. The research examines four French Polynesian islands where humans arrived about one thousand years ago and lived sustainably on some islands but not on others. Historical and current data will be used to help develop a clearer picture of the social and ecological changes that have taken place since the islands were first occupied. The project team will build and test sophisticated computer models of humans interacting with wild and managed ecosystems. The data and models will help more fully describe and explain fundamental properties such as the resources required by human populations and the ability of ecosystems to provide food and shelter for humans over hundreds of years. They will also highlight interactions between ecosystem services and the human use and exploitation of the islands' resources. Such knowledge is critical to understanding the role of humans with respect to ecosystems and environments well beyond these islands. The project will provide fundamental knowledge about how humans can interact more sustainably and beneficially with a wide variety of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. This work will also demonstrate how environmental and social sciences such as ecology, hydrology, oceanography, archaeology, demography and economics can be integrated to push forward the frontiers of interdisciplinary science. Such advances are vital for addressing critical problems at the intersection of social and natural sciences including resource overconsumption, climate disruption and the collapse of civilizations.