IRES: Human-Wildlife Feedbacks in the Mountains of Southwest China

IRES：中国西南山区人类与野生动物的反馈

• 批准号: 2106605
• 负责人: Vanessa Hull
• 金额: $ 29.97万
• 依托单位: University of Florida
• 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: 2021-11-01 至 2025-10-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2106605&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: IRES; Human; Wildlife; Feedbacks; Mountains

The earth’s ecosystems are increasingly threatened by the growth and industrialization of human societies, which places increasing pressure on global wildlife populations. Interdisciplinary approaches are needed to untangle the complex reciprocal interactions (feedbacks) between human activities and wildlife. Knowledge about feedbacks can help predict the unintended, and potentially adverse, consequences that arise in the aftermath of the implementation of conservation policies designed to protect wildlife and their habitats. This IRES program will give 15 U.S. undergraduate students a rare opportunity to conduct interdisciplinary research on human-wildlife feedbacks in flagship protected areas in a biodiversity hotspot in the mountains of southwestern China. Three cohorts of 5 students each will spend 8 weeks in the summers of 2022-2024 in China working with experts at the Key Laboratory of Southwest China Wildlife Resources Conservation in Sichuan, China. The Key Laboratory is a globally renowned institute with a long history of conducting pioneering research on biodiversity, wildlife ecology, and conservation in the region, including on the giant panda, an international icon for conservation. Students will also attend intensive training sessions at the University of Florida that will focus on learning scientific methods and honing professional development skills. Student recruitment will explicitly preference underrepresented groups in the sciences to enhance their future career opportunities. While abroad, students will also have a rare opportunity to be immersed in Chinese culture and expand their worldviews, in turn better preparing them to join the global internationalized workforce.Research on human-wildlife feedbacks is scarce, which contributes to high levels of uncertainty and failure in the wildlife conservation realm. This work seeks to uncover previously hidden social and ecological mechanisms shaping human-wildlife feedbacks to allow for better predictions of adverse conservation policy outcomes in the future. The 15 U.S. undergraduate students who are recruited to participate in this IRES program will join long-term research projects being conducted collaboratively between the US PIs and Chinese host researchers that address three main types of human-wildlife feedbacks. Feedbacks include complex interactions between (1) forest recovery and wildlife crop raiding, (2) antibiotic use in livestock rearing and the microbiome of giant pandas, and (3) interaction between non-timber forest product (NTFP) collection and wildlife occurrence. The diverse collection of interrelated projects will give students the opportunity to gain experience implementing a variety of field and lab techniques (e.g., infrared camera trapping, vegetation surveys, specimen collecting, molecular analyses, and semi-structured interviews) as they tackle key questions that shape cutting-edge development of interdisciplinary and systems-level research on wildlife conservation. The project will thus uniquely prepare students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue competitive careers in science in a globalized world.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.

地球的生态系统日益受到人类社会增长和工业化的威胁，这给全球野生动物种群带来了越来越大的压力。需要采取跨学科的方法来解决人类活动与野生动物之间复杂的相互作用（反馈）。关于反馈的知识可以帮助预测在实施旨在保护野生动物及其栖息地的保护政策后出现的意外和潜在的不利后果。该IRES项目将为15名美国本科生提供一个难得的机会，在中国西南部山区生物多样性热点的旗舰保护区进行人类-野生动物反馈的跨学科研究。2022年至2024年的夏天，三组5名学生将在中国四川省西南野生动物资源保护重点实验室与专家一起工作8周。该重点实验室是一个全球知名的研究所，在该地区的生物多样性，野生动物生态学和保护方面进行了长期的开创性研究，包括对大熊猫的研究，这是一个国际保护标志。学生们还将参加佛罗里达大学的强化培训课程，重点是学习科学方法和磨练专业发展技能。学生招聘将明确优先考虑科学领域代表性不足的群体，以提高他们未来的职业机会。在国外，学生也将有一个难得的机会沉浸在中国文化中，扩大他们的世界观，从而为他们加入全球国际化的劳动力队伍做好准备。人类与野生动物反馈的研究很少，这导致了野生动物保护领域的高度不确定性和失败。这项工作旨在揭示以前隐藏的社会和生态机制，塑造人类-野生动物反馈，以便更好地预测未来不利的保护政策结果。被招募参加IRES项目的15名美国本科生将参加美国PI与中国研究人员合作开展的长期研究项目，这些项目涉及三种主要类型的人类-野生动物反馈。反馈包括（1）森林恢复和野生动物作物袭击之间的复杂相互作用，（2）牲畜饲养中的抗生素使用和大熊猫的微生物组，以及（3）非木材森林产品（NTFP）收集和野生动物发生之间的相互作用。相互关联的项目的多样化集合将使学生有机会获得实施各种现场和实验室技术的经验（例如，红外相机捕捉，植被调查，标本采集，分子分析和半结构化访谈），因为他们解决了关键问题，塑造了跨学科和系统级研究野生动物保护的前沿发展。因此，该项目将为来自代表性不足背景的学生在全球化的世界中追求有竞争力的科学事业做好独特的准备。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。