IRES: Sustainable Development of a Tropical Agroforestry Program in the Rural Borneo Highlands

该项目将收集基线生态数据，以记录婆罗洲高地退化的热带森林对引入农林复合系统的反应。在上个世纪的两次砍伐之后，高地被归还给马来西亚婆罗洲的土著(卡达赞)人；农林复合系统旨在恢复森林树冠。来自STEM学科中代表性不足群体的11名本科生和2名MS学生将在为期8周的夏季生态实地考察中收集数据。数据包括土壤性质(有机质、化学成分、pH值、持水能力、真菌与细菌的比率)、节肢动物多样性(甲虫、蚂蚁和蝴蝶)以及食果和食虫蝙蝠群落。这些数据记录了生产者所在地的生态变化，并将与邻近受保护国家森林范围内相同海拔的地点进行比较，以作为生态基准。基准有助于为国际绿色产品标签确定农林做法的资格，这将大大提高生产者的收入。结果将提高对热带森林生态群落之间从土壤到树冠之间联系的科学理解；最后，学生将在设计生态实地实验、收集和分析数据以及在专业会议上与来自不同文化的利益攸关方和学者交流结果方面获得专业经验。

This project will collect baseline ecological data to record the response of a degraded tropical forest in the Bornean highlands to the introduction of an agroforestry system. The highlands were returned to indigenous (Kadazan) persons in Malaysian Borneo following two clear-cuttings over the last century; and the agroforestry system is designed to restore the forest canopy. 11 undergraduate and 2 MS students from underrepresented groups in STEM disciplines will collect data in paid 8-week summer ecological field research experiences. Data include soil properties (organic matter, chemical content, pH, water holding capacity, fungi to bacteria ratio), arthropod diversity (beetles, ants and butterflies) and fructivorous and insectivorous bat communities. The data record ecological changes at producer sites and will be compared to sites at the same elevation in an adjacent and protected national forest range for ecological benchmarking. Benchmarking serves to help qualify agroforestry practices for international green product labelling, which would substantially elevate producer incomes. Results will improve scientific understanding of the linkages among ecological communities in tropical forests from soil to canopy; and, finally, students will gain professional experience in designing ecological field experiments, collecting and analyzing data, and communicating results to stakeholders from different cultures and academics at professional conferences.