IRES Track I: Comparing the influence of economic incentives and land use patterns on the conservation of tropical forests and primates in Panama, Costa Rica, and Uganda

生物多样性丧失、气候变化和污染是生态系统功能和人类生活质量的主要威胁。解决这些人与环境的相互作用对热带森林生态系统尤其重要，因为热带森林生态系统包含大约一半的生物物种，在气候调节中发挥重要作用，并过滤水和空气中的污染物。尽管这些政策很重要，但从过去几十年来热带森林的持续大量损失可以看出，目前的政策在很大程度上仍然无效。这项NSF国际学生研究经验奖将支持美国学生在巴拿马、哥斯达黎加和乌干达的森林项目，分析环境政策的国际变化如何影响土地利用实践，以及这些实践如何影响与森林条件和灵长类生物学相关的保护结果。通过研究采用不同环境政策的类似森林和采用类似环境政策的不同森林，我们将能够评估保护激励措施（如生态系统服务付费和生态旅游）的大规模有效性，以及与毁林、空气和水污染以及生物多样性丧失相关的农业实践的影响。通过这一研究项目，人类学、人类生物学和环境科学领域代表性不足的学生将与热带研究组织和马凯雷雷大学生物野外研究站合作，获得国际实地研究经验。学生将在研究期间与当地的实地助理和社区密切合作，从而提供多种文化交流机会。在为期10周的项目结束时，学生们将在一个公共论坛上向当地社区和东道国学者展示他们的初步成果，并鼓励他们通过同行评审的出版物和在专业会议上的演讲来交流他们的最终成果。与该项目相关并由IRES学生使用的另一个最终产品将是一个功能齐全的实验室，能够在实地进行免疫分析以定量灵长类激素水平，从而转移科学知识和基础设施。该研究项目的结果将为维持生物多样性和人类生计的政策设计提供有用的重要见解。热带森林是世界上最重要的生态系统之一，包含了至少一半的物种，调节气候，净化空气和水，并为当地社区提供资源。然而，在过去几十年里，广泛的森林砍伐大大减少了热带森林的面积，导致依赖热带森林的野生动物数量减少，原因是栖息地丧失和破碎化。灵长类动物种群受到的影响尤其严重，超过60%的物种被国际自然保护联盟认为是脆弱或濒危的。保护剩下的森林和依赖于它们的濒危物种的努力主要集中在建立保护区，比如国家公园。然而，公民往往严重依赖自然资源维持生计，环境法经常被违反，从而削弱了保护区的有效性。因此，保护政策已经从排他性的保护区演变为通过提供经济和其他激励措施来关注当地社区的战略。尽管学者和实践者越来越多地推广以社区为基础的替代方案，但几乎没有证据表明它们在维持森林质量或维持灵长类动物种群方面比保护区更有效。因此，该研究项目有两个主要目标：1)利用生态系统服务支付（PES）和生态旅游等保护与发展目标相结合的环境政策的国际差异，分析保护热带森林及其灵长类动物和维持人类生计的保护策略的有效性；2)为人类学、人类生物学和环境科学等学科中代表性不足的学生提供国际实地研究经验。为了实现这些目标，15个高年级本科生和早期职业研究生项目将研究不同的经济和参与激励措施和农业实践对保护结果的影响程度，这些影响是通过收集的关于巴拿马、哥斯达黎加和乌干达森林的森林状况（例如，碎片大小、树冠覆盖率百分比、生物量）和灵长类生物学（即生理、行为和种群规模）的实地数据来衡量的。在这些地点，学生们将使用样线调查灵长类动物种群，量化灵长类动物行为的差异，用免疫分析法测量灵长类动物的粪便激素水平，对当地土地所有者、政府官员和其他利益相关者进行访谈和调查，并使用GIS和实地方法量化森林特征。学生还将研究这些策略对当地社区生计的影响，以及这些影响如何影响当地对环境政策的看法。该项目的结果将大大增加对经济和参与性激励如何影响保护决策和结果的认识。由于社会环境系统的崩溃将对人类和生物多样性产生负面影响，因此有必要量化各种环境管理战略的有效性，以维持生物多样性和当地社区生计，以确保这些政策实际实现其可持续性和保护目标。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Biodiversity loss, climate variability, and pollution are major threats to ecosystem functioning and quality of human life. Addressing these human-environment interactions is particularly important for tropical forest ecosystems as they contain approximately half of all living species, play an important role in climate regulation, and filter pollutants from water and air. Despite their importance, current policies are still largely ineffective as indicated by continued significant tropical forest loss over the past several decades. This NSF International Research Experience for Students award will support U.S. student projects across forests in Panama, Costa Rica, and Uganda to analyze how international variation in environmental policies influences land use practices and how these practices affect conservation outcomes related to forest condition and primate biology. By examining similar forests with different environmental policies and different forests with similar environmental policies, we will be able to evaluate the largescale effectiveness of conservation incentives, such as payments for ecosystem services (PES) and ecotourism, alongside the effects of agricultural practices linked to deforestation, air and water pollution, and biodiversity loss. Through this research program, underrepresented students in anthropology, human biology, and the environmental sciences will gain international field research experience in collaboration with the Organization for Tropical Studies and Makerere University Biological Field Station. Students will work closely with local field assistants and communities during their research, thus providing multiple opportunities for cultural exchange. At the end of the 10-week program, students will present their initial results to local communities and host country scholars at a public forum and will be encouraged to communicate their final results through peer-reviewed publication and presentations at professional conferences. An additional end product associated with this program and utilized by the IRES students will be a fully functioning laboratory capable of running immunoassays for quantifying primate hormone levels in the field, thus transferring scientific knowledge and infrastructure. Results from this research program will provide important insight useful to the design of policies for sustaining both biodiversity and human livelihoods. Tropical forests are one of the world's most important ecosystems, containing at least half of all species, regulating climate, purifying air and water, and providing resources for local communities. Nonetheless, over the past few decades widespread deforestation has significantly reduced the extent of tropical forests, leading to declines in wildlife populations that depend on them through habitat loss and fragmentation. Primate populations have been especially affected with more than 60% of all species considered vulnerable or endangered by the IUCN. Efforts to preserve the remaining forests and threatened species dependent on them have largely focused on creating protected areas, such as national parks. However, citizens often rely heavily on natural resources for subsistence and environmental laws are regularly breached, thus weakening the effectiveness of protected areas. As a result, conservation policies have evolved from exclusionary protected areas to strategies that focus on local communities by providing economic and other incentives. Despite the increasing promotion of community-based alternatives by both scholars and practitioners, little evidence exists that they are any more effective than protected areas at maintaining forest quality or sustaining primate populations. Therefore, this NSF IRES research program has two main objectives: 1) To utilize international variation in environmental policies that integrate conservation and development objectives, such as payments for ecosystem services (PES) and ecotourism, for an analysis of the effectiveness of conservation strategies for both protecting tropical forests and their primates and maintaining human livelihoods; and 2) To provide international field research experience to underrepresented students in anthropology, human biology, and the environmental sciences. To meet these objectives, 15 upper level undergraduate and early career graduate student projects will examine the extent to which differing economic and participatory incentives and agricultural practices influence conservation outcomes as measured by on the ground data collected on forest condition (e.g., fragment size, % canopy cover, biomass) and primate biology (i.e., physiology, behavior, and population size) across forests in Panama, Costa Rica, and Uganda. At these sites, students will survey primate populations using line transects, quantify differences in primate behavior, measure primate fecal hormone levels with immunoassays, conduct interviews and surveys of local landowners, government officials and other stakeholders, and quantify forest characteristics using GIS and field methods. Students will also examine the effects of these strategies on local community livelihoods and how these effects influence local perception of environmental policy. Results from this project will add significantly to the knowledge of how economic and participatory incentives can affect conservation decisions and outcomes. As a breakdown in socio-environmental systems will negatively affect both humans and biodiversity, quantifying the effectiveness of various environmental management strategies to maintain biodiversity and local community livelihoods is necessary to ensure that these policies are actually meeting their sustainability and conservation goals.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.