CNH: Feedbacks Between Human Community Dynamics and Socioecological Vulnerability in a Biodiversity Hotspot

这个跨学科研究项目将重点关注人、社区组织和支持人们生计的自然生态系统的长期健康。早期关于人类福祉和环境的研究表明，强有力的集体治理机构有助于人们以增强生态系统服务和生活质量的方式管理公共土地。这方面的知识是全世界农村社会生物多样性保护和复原力的一个关键方面。在快速变化和不确定的条件下，一些社区能够比其他社区更好地适应管理其自然资源。什么因素使集体治理的管理机构能够有效地应对潜在的灾难性环境干扰？在正在城市化的农村社会中，日常生活活动越来越多地在家庭之外的“非家庭组织”中进行，这些组织扩大了人们的视野和选择，如学校、商店、雇主和诊所。这些非家庭组织不是集体管理的，除了对其服务、商品和经验的供求作出反应外，没有明确的组成部分或责任。在这个项目中，研究人员将检验这样一个假设，即资源管理机构对快速环境变化的反应最终与社区内市场驱动的非家庭组织的分布和类型有关。他们将在尼泊尔奇旺国家公园的森林缓冲地带进行研究，这是一个生物多样性热点，是濒临灭绝的孟加拉虎和20多万在附近生活和耕作的尼泊尔人的家园。薇甘菊（Mikania micrantha）是世界上最具入侵性的植物之一，它最近在社区森林中蔓延，并破坏了影响野生动物栖息地和居民生计的关键生态系统服务。为了探索非家庭组织、管理制度与薇甘菊传播之间的联系，研究人员将收集21个异质群落森林的社会生态数据，建立社会生态脆弱性和对环境变化的恢复力模型。他们将进行两个实验，以测试与薇甘菊成功相关的因素的相对强度，包括管理机构的教育干预，以及操纵与薇甘菊生长有关的环境变量的普通花园实验。该项目将测试“组织的家庭模式”框架的能力，这是人口统计学中一个强有力的解释工具，可以确定导致自然和人类系统易受快速变化影响或具有弹性的因素。该项目将成为“转化科学”的典范，即专注于当前问题的实际解决方案的跨学科研究。研究人员将通过干预措施将研究成果转化为当地行动，旨在减缓威胁生物多样性和人类福祉的外来入侵物种的灾难性传播。更广泛地说，这项研究将通过与一个专注于解决农业和环境问题的非营利组织建立伙伴关系，帮助南亚和太平洋其他地区的可持续发展努力。该项目还将为一批新的初级学者提供教育和培训机会，让他们参与以现实世界问题及其解决办法为重点的跨学科国际研究。该项目由美国国家科学基金会自然与人类系统耦合动力学（CNH）计划和美国国家科学基金会国际科学与工程办公室支持。

This interdisciplinary research project will focus on people, community organizations, and the long-term health of natural ecosystems that support people's livelihoods. Early research on human well-being and the environment showed that strong, collectively governed institutions help people to manage common lands in ways that enhance ecosystem services and quality of life. This knowledge has been a key facet of biodiversity conservation and resilience of rural societies worldwide. Some communities are able to adaptively manage their natural resources much better than others under conditions of rapid change and uncertainty. What factors enable collectively governed management institutions to effectively respond to potentially catastrophic environmental disturbances? In rural societies that are urbanizing, activities of daily life increasingly take place outside the family home, in "non-family organizations" that expand people's perspectives and choices, such as schools, stores, employers, and health clinics. These non-family organizations are not collectively governed and have no clear constituents or responsibilities other than to respond to supply and demand for their services, goods, and experiences. In this project, the researchers will test the hypothesis that the responsiveness of resource- management institutions to rapid environmental change is ultimately tied to the distribution and types of market-driven, non-family organizations within communities. They will conduct their research in the forested buffer zone of the Chitwan National Park, Nepal, a biodiversity hotspot that is home to the endangered Bengal tiger and more than 200,000 Nepali people who live and farm nearby. One of the world's most invasive plants, Mikania micrantha ("mile-a-minute weed") recently has spread through community forests and degraded critical ecosystem services that affect wildlife habitat and the livelihoods of residents. To explore the links among non-family organizations, management institutions, and the spread of Mikania, the researchers will collect social and ecological data in 21 heterogeneous community forests to develop models of social-ecological vulnerability and resilience to environmental change. They will conduct two experiments to test the relative strength of factors related to Mikania success, including an educational intervention with management institutions, and a common garden experiment that manipulates environmental variables linked to Mikania growth.This project will test the ability of the "family modes of organization" framework, a powerful explanatory tool in demography, to identify factors that cause coupled natural and human systems to be vulnerable or resilient to rapid change. The project will be an exemplar of "translational science," interdisciplinary research focused on practical solutions to current problems. The investigators will translate research findings into local action through an intervention aimed to slow the catastrophic spread of invasive, exotic species that threatens biodiversity and human well-being. More broadly, the research will aid sustainable development efforts in other settings in south Asia and the Pacific through partnership with a non-profit organization focused on solving issues in agriculture and the environment. The project also will provide education and training opportunities for a new cohort of junior scholars by involving them in interdisciplinary, international research focused on real world problems and their solutions. This project is supported by the NSF Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) Program and the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering.