Land Use Legacies in Agroecosystems

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。该奖项是美国国家科学基金会社会、行为和经济科学博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）计划的一部分。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行为期两年的培训，并鼓励博士后进行独立研究。美国国家科学基金会寻求促进科学界各阶层的科学家，包括那些未被充分代表的群体的科学家，参与其研究项目和活动；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的一个重要的专业发展阶段。每个博士后必须解决各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在罗格斯大学（Rutgers University）的Dan Cabanes博士的赞助下，该博士后奖学金奖支持一位研究农业生态系统中土地利用遗产的早期职业科学家。农业用地是影响地球系统的最强大的人为力量之一。尽管大多数历史学家都认为农业已经塑造了数千年的景观，但量化过去土地利用的时间和强度以及其长期（遗留）影响仍然很困难。对过去土地利用的不明确不仅模糊了我们对过去人类与环境关系的理解，也削弱了我们理解重要生态系统功能的长期恢复能力的集体能力，这些功能对现代人口的现实影响。本研究通过考察已知的历史农业用地（遗产）对现代土壤微植物（植物岩）的影响，并建立它们之间的定量关系，推进了人与环境相互作用的研究。该项目将地理空间、地球化学、古环境和人种学方法作为综合方法的一部分。这项研究发生在有农业连续记录的地方，是检查半干旱农业生态系统长期动态的理想选择。这项研究的总体目标不仅是确定植物岩可以用来调查古代土地利用的精度，而且还通过解锁人类与环境相互作用的潜在有价值的信息来源来增强未来的研究。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 is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Dan Cabanes at Rutgers University, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating land use legacies in agroecosystems. Agricultural land use is one of the most powerful anthropogenic forces influencing Earth’s systems. Although most historical scientists agree that agriculture has been shaping landscapes for millennia, it remains difficult to quantify the timing and intensity of past land use as well as its long term (legacy) effects. The lack of clarity concerning past land use not only obscures our understanding of past human-environment relationships, it also impairs our collective ability to understand the long-term resilience capacities of vital ecosystem functions with real-world consequences for modern populations. This research advances human-environmental interaction research by examining the effects of known historical agricultural land use (legacies) on modern soil microbotanicals (phytoliths) and establishing the quantitative relationships between them. The project combines geospatial, geochemical, paleoenvironmental, and ethnographic methods as part of an integrated approach. The research take place where this is continuous records of agriculture and is ideal for examining the long-term dynamics of semi-arid agroecosystems. The overall goal of this research is not only to define the precision with which phytoliths can be used to investigate ancient land use, but also to empower future research by unlocking a potentially valuable source of information on human-environmental interactions.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.