REU Site: Tracking Land Change (TLC)

REU 网站：跟踪土地变化 (TLC)

• 批准号: 2050518
• 负责人: Paul Laris
• 金额: $ 34.39万
• 依托单位: California State University-Long Beach Foundation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-06-01 至 2024-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2050518&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: REU; Site; Tracking; Land; Change

This project is funded from the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Sites program in the SBE Directorate. It has both scientific and societal benefits, and integrates research and education. This project brings together eight undergraduate students with faculty for an eight-week intensive research and learning experience to study the science and technology of environmental conservation. America’s biodiversity hotspots exist within a matrix of urban sprawl, reserves, and working lands. In populated areas, such as California, biodiversity cannot be supported solely through the designation of wildland and conservation areas. There is a need for a broader approach that incorporates humans, their activities, and working lands. This understanding has given rise to reconciliation ecology movements and new science that seek to integrate humanized spaces—working lands such as ranches and farms—with existing systems of wildlands and conservation areas. These approaches expand the habitat for rare plant and animal species as well as sustainably manage and provide ecosystem services to society. The objective of this REU is to train the next generation of land managers and restoration scientists in conservation science and technology to facilitate the transition of working lands to de facto working reserves. We will train a highly diverse group of students in the field on River Ridge Ranch (RRR), a working ranchland near Sequoia National Park, and in the laboratory, in the use of innovative geospatial technologies and systems and the application of the associated STEM biogeographic concepts that inform them. Students will develop their own research questions and carry out original research in teams. They will also receive training in career skills, including professional report writing and oral communication for in-person and virtual visual presentations. The current intersection of population growth, climate change, and resource demand have created a pressing need for re-evaluating land use, especially working landscapes that have high ecological service value. This project will develop a framework for tracking metrics for a triple bottom line of ecosystem services—agricultural production, biodiversity and habitat conservation, and soil health. We will introduce and train students in the conceptual questions framed by this intersection, the choices faced by society and land managers, and the analytical and technological approaches needed to evaluate alternative solutions. We will train teams of students to track changes over time in carbon sequestration, vegetation cover, animal diversity, and other factors. We will use this team-based approach to study how plant communities respond to different disturbance regimes, such as the release of lands from intensive cattle grazing, reimplementation of fire regimes once used by Native Americans, and other forces that cause transitions between different vegetation states (e.g., grasslands to savannas to woodlands) with subsequent changes in ecosystem services. We will introduce a diverse group of students to the use of conservation drones (UAVs) to gather high species specificity data on vegetation. Data will be analyzed using state-of-the-art software systems to provide research teams and land managers with accurate data to inform management decisions that support economic and environmental sustainability.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.

该项目由SBE理事会的本科生研究经验（REU）站点计划资助。它具有科学和社会效益，并将研究和教育相结合。该项目汇集了八名本科生和教师，进行为期八周的密集研究和学习，研究环境保护的科学和技术。美国的生物多样性热点存在于城市扩张、保护区和工作土地的矩阵中。在人口稠密的地区，如加利福尼亚，生物多样性不能仅仅通过指定荒地和保护区来维持。有必要采取一种更广泛的方法，将人类、人类的活动和工作土地结合起来。这种理解已经引起了和解生态学运动和新科学的兴起，这些运动和新科学寻求将人性化空间（如牧场和农场等工作用地）与现有的荒地和保护区系统相结合。这些方法扩大了珍稀动植物物种的栖息地，并可持续地管理和为社会提供生态系统服务。该资源利用小组的目标是训练下一代土地管理人员和恢复科学家掌握养护科学和技术，以促进将工作用地转变为事实上的工作保护区。我们将在红杉国家公园附近的河岭牧场（RRR）和实验室培训高度多样化的学生群体，使用创新的地理空间技术和系统，并应用相关的STEM生物地理概念，为他们提供信息。学生将发展自己的研究问题，并在团队中进行原创性研究。他们还将接受职业技能培训，包括专业报告写作和面对面和虚拟视觉演示的口头交流。在当前人口增长、气候变化和资源需求的交叉作用下，迫切需要重新评估土地利用，特别是具有高生态服务价值的工作景观。该项目将制定一个框架，用于跟踪生态系统服务三重底线的指标——农业生产、生物多样性和栖息地保护以及土壤健康。我们将介绍和训练学生在这个交叉点框架的概念问题，社会和土地管理者面临的选择，以及评估替代解决方案所需的分析和技术方法。我们将培训学生团队跟踪碳封存、植被覆盖、动物多样性和其他因素随时间的变化。我们将使用这种基于团队的方法来研究植物群落如何应对不同的干扰制度，例如从密集放牧中释放土地，重新实施曾经被印第安人使用的火灾制度，以及导致不同植被状态之间转换的其他力量（例如，草原到稀树草原到林地）以及随后的生态系统服务变化。我们将介绍一组不同的学生使用保护无人机（无人机）收集高物种特异性数据的植被。数据将使用最先进的软件系统进行分析，为研究团队和土地管理者提供准确的数据，为支持经济和环境可持续性的管理决策提供信息。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。