Belmont Forum Collaborative Research: Managing Ocean Front Ecosystems for Climate Change

该奖项为参与由55个国家通过贝尔蒙特论坛发起的全球变化研究项目的美国研究人员提供支持。贝尔蒙特论坛是一个研究资助组织的联盟，致力于支持跨学科方法来应对全球环境变化的挑战和机遇。它的目的是通过协调和调动国际资源，加速提供最迫切需要的国际研究，以消除可持续发展的关键障碍。每个伙伴国在一个联盟中为它们的研究人员提供资金，以减轻对跨越国际边界的资金的需求。这种方法有助于有效利用国家资源，支持对全球相关主题的优秀研究，最好通过多国方法解决，同时认识到全球挑战需要全球解决方案。该项目旨在建立鱼类资源与海洋锋面（两种不同水团在海洋中交汇的区域）之间的关系，并利用这一知识来了解锋面和与之相关的渔业在气候变化的不同情况下将如何变化。该项目将把重点放在莫桑比克海峡，那里的海滨生态系统正在不断形成和改革。该区域对该地区依赖这些渔业和海洋生态系统的许多人的福祉和生计起着重要作用。对这些锋面渔业的开发对渔业资源构成威胁，这些资源往往集中在锋面区缓慢下沉的水域，从而使它们容易受到过度开发。为了维持可持续的社会和自然生态系统，了解这些前沿生态系统及其海洋动植物将如何受到气候变化的影响至关重要。该项目将利用来自莫桑比克海峡的现有卫星数据开发模型，促进对海洋前沿的了解，并利用前沿生态系统阐明海洋生物的时空动态，包括对商业渔业和保护具有重要意义的物种。研究结果将改善对热带渔业的管理，并改善对海豚、鲸鱼、蝠鲼、鲨鱼和鲸鲨等大型海洋动物的保护。这些结果将直接有利于莫桑比克海峡的保护和渔业，并将为改善整个热带地区类似系统的管理提供信息。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。

This award provides support to U.S. researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a 55-country initiative on global change research through the Belmont Forum. The Belmont Forum is a consortium of research funding organizations focused on support for transdisciplinary approaches to global environmental change challenges and opportunities. It aims to accelerate delivery of the international research most urgently needed to remove critical barriers to sustainability by aligning and mobilizing international resources. Each partner country provides funding for their researchers within a consortium to alleviate the need for funds to cross international borders. This approach facilitates effective leveraging of national resources to support excellent research on topics of global relevance best tackled through a multinational approach, recognizing that global challenges need global solutions.The project seeks to establish the relation between the fish resources and ocean fronts – areas where two distinct water masses meet in the oceans - and utilize that knowledge to understand how the fronts and the fishery related to them will change under different scenarios of changing climate. The project will focus on the Mozambique Channel where ocean front ecosystems are continually being formed and reformed. This area plays an important role in the well-being and livelihoods of many people in the area who depend on these fisheries and ocean ecosystem. Exploitation of the fisheries at these fronts poses a threat to the fisheries resources which tend to concentrate in slowly sinking waters of the frontal zone thus making them vulnerable to over-exploitation. To maintain sustainable social and natural ecosystems, it is critical to understand how these frontal ecosystems and their marine fauna and flora will be affected by changing climate. This project will utilize existing satellite data from the Mozambique Channel to develop models that advance understanding of ocean fronts, and illuminate temporal and spatial dynamics of marine life using front ecosystems, including species important to commercial fisheries and to conservation. The results will improve management of tropical fisheries and improve conservation of large marine animals including dolphin, whales, manta rays, sharks and whale sharks. These results will directly benefit conservation and fisheries in the Mozambique channel and will inform improved management in similar systems throughout the tropics.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.