Catalyst Project: Diversity of ecosystem services provisioning in coastal socio-ecological systems

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Catalyst Projects provide support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities to work towards establishing research capacity of faculty to strengthen science, technology, engineering and mathematics undergraduate education and research. It is expected that the award will further the faculty member's research capability, and improve research and teaching at the institution. This project at Delaware State University will study ecosystem services for coastal ecosystems. Undergraduate students participate in this project as researchers. Ecosystem services, or the benefits that humans receive from ecosystems, are an important justification for conservation and restoration investments. However, past studies are conflicted regarding how to assess and when to expect synergies and tradeoffs among services. Further, few studies have examined these relationships in coastal socioecological systems. This project aims to quantitatively map a broad suite of services provided by Delaware's coastal ecosystems, including cultural services such as birding use, beach use, park use, boating; provisioning services, such as fisheries; and regulating and supporting services such as flood mitigation and biodiversity preservation. Spatial models for the total service delivery and diversity of service delivery will be developed based on biodiversity indices and compared at multiple spatial scales. In addition, service bundles or distinct groups of co-occurring services will be identified and examined across spatial scales and with different land uses using multivariate statistics. The project will contribute a general framework to evaluate the co-delivery of ecosystem services, and the project will provide an assessment of the delivery of services in highly valued coastal ecosystems.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.