Doctoral Dissertation Research: Human-Environmental Interactions in Deglaciating Landscapes

博士论文项目研究冰川消融后的高山景观中植物的生长和土壤的形成。大多数山地冰川预计将在21世纪末消失，留下大片无冰土地。人类和生态系统依赖于这些冰川，但随着冰川融化，自然资源（如水和牧场）、生态系统服务（如碳储存）、文化特征和旅游业都在减少。然而，这些新的土地为研究社会和生态适应提供了机会。这项研究将展示社区如何适应冰川的消失。其中一个实验将是研究放牧动物在促进前冰期景观形成中的作用。该项目加强了当地社区、政府实体、非政府组织和各大洲研究人员之间的伙伴关系，以促进前冰期景观中社会和生态适应的科学进步。融化的高山冰川正在暴露出大片新的陆地区域，该项目调查了冰川后生态系统如何为未来无冰川山谷的当地和下游人口提供不可或缺的服务。这个博士论文项目使用了对植物物种、土壤肥力和地形表面的研究，这些研究跨越了冰川在过去的一百年里融化的高山景观。通过研究高寒植物群落向高海拔地区的迁移和生态系统的形成，研究了这些无冰景观发生的主要过程。这项研究还结合了密集的采样、无人机（UAV）调查、卫星图像和一项实验，以测试引入放牧动物是否能加速生态系统的形成。通过在多个地点应用相同的研究设计，该项目提供了关于冰川消融景观中社会和生态适应的可重复数据和可推广的知识。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。

The doctoral dissertation project investigates plant establishment and soil formation in recently deglaciated alpine landscapes. Most mountain glaciers are predicted to disappear by the end of the 21st century, leaving significant ice-free land. People and ecosystems depend on these glaciers, but as the glaciers melt, natural resources (e.g., water and pastures, ecosystems services (e.g., carbon storage), cultural identities, and tourism decline. These new lands, however, offer opportunities to study social and ecological adaptations. This study will show how communities adapt to the loss of glaciers. One experiment will be to study the role of grazing animals in enhancing proglacial landscape formation. The project reinforces partnerships between local communities, governmental entities, NGOs, and researchers working across continents to promote scientific advancements of social and ecological adaptations in proglacial landscapes. Melting mountain glaciers are exposing large new land areas and this project investigates how postglacial ecosystems could contribute to indispensable services for local and downstream populations in future glacier-free valleys. This doctoral dissertation project uses plot studies of plant species, soil fertility, and geomorphic surfaces across a range of alpine landscapes where glaciers have melted over the last hundred years. By studying the migration of alpine plant communities to higher elevations and ecosystem formation, the research characterizes the main processes occurring in these ice-free landscapes. The study also combines intensive sampling, UAV (drone) surveys, satellite imagery, and an experiment to test if introducing grazing animals can accelerate ecosystem formation. By applying the same research design in multiple locations, this project provides reproducible data and generalizable knowledge regarding social and ecological adaptations in deglaciating landscapes.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.