IRES Track I Investigating the demographic consequences of species interactions

IRES Track I 调查物种相互作用的人口统计后果

• 批准号: 2107127
• 负责人: Orou Gaoue
• 金额: $ 30万
• 依托单位: University of Tennessee Knoxville
• 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: 2021-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2107127&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: IRES; Track; Investigating; demographic; consequences

This award is funded in whole under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Plants and insects develop mutually beneficial relationships. These mutualistic relationships are important for the maintenance of biological diversity. However, mutualistic relationships are increasingly threatened by expanding human activities including farming, species invasion and forest overharvest. This International Research Experience for Students (IRES) grant will support 3 cohorts of 5 US students over a 3 years period to spend 6 weeks/year in Benin conducting collaborative research with mentors and students from three Benin universities. This project will broaden participation in STEM by recruiting from a strong pool of underrepresented minority students via an integrated recruitment strategy. These US students will gain research skills investigating the causes and consequences of the disruption of mutualistic relationships between African mahogany and weaver ants with a focus on statistical analysis of real data they collect by themselves. By studying the mechanistic influence of human activities on mutualism disruption, this project will advance our knowledge of how ecological interactions can persist in human-modified landscapes. From an educational perspective, this IRES project will advance our understanding of the role that learning from peers in multicultural environment plays in alleviating students’ fear of statistics, one of the major issues limiting the recruitment of minorities in ecology programs. This IRES project will facilitate international research collaboration and provide evidence for the importance of field research experience in training a diverse globally engaged workforce. A foundational outcome of this IRES project is the training of 3 cohorts of 5 US students, while sequentially building on each cohort’s work, advancing global collaboration through global science, training the next generation of scientists, and support workforce development in ecology, statistical methods, field research and scientific communication. This proposal will investigate the causes and consequences of mutualism disruption by chronic anthropogenic disturbance via an international field research experience designed to address statistics anxiety among college students. Ecological interactions are important for the conservation of biodiversity. However, the role of mutualism, the beneficial interaction between species, has long been ignored as compared to negative interactions such as competition and predation. Mutualistic relationships are increasingly threatened by chronic anthropogenic disturbance and this poses a global threat to biodiversity. To uncover the causes and understand the ecological consequences of mutualism disruption requires not just observational or experimental studies but also statistical and mathematical modeling. However, the development of these skills in life science students is challenged by statistics and mathematics anxiety, the discomfort or apprehension students experience when taking statistics tests or doing statistical analysis. Research show statistics anxiety can be alleviated via teamwork where students take ownership of their data analysis. This project will provide opportunity to 3 cohorts of 5 US students over a 3 years period to spend 6 weeks/year in Benin conducting collaborative research with mentors and students from three Benin universities. To broaden participation, we will recruit a diverse pool of underrepresented minorities students, particularly Black and women students. Prior to departure to Benin, students will receive instructional scaffolding on how to analyze biological data, how to develop peer-teaching plan, individual professional development plan, how to do research and in scientific communication. Students will then design their own lesson plan and teach the statistical data analysis techniques they previously learned to peer Benin students. In-country research will be based on multicultural teams of paired Benin and US students who, for six weeks, will pursue field demographic studies, manipulative experiments and mathematical modeling to investigate how traditional tree branch harvesting by local people disrupts facultative plant-ant mutualism and measure its ecological consequences. This research, which is an integral part of the PI research program, will culminate in a final research symposium. Students will continue their post-travel engagements by preparing manuscripts for publication. These IRES research sites in Benin represent one of the longest running and detailed plant demographic studies in Africa established by the PI over two decades. Conducting this research while training students not only leverages a global team approach, but it will also provide scaffolding that can limit student’s statistics anxiety by building confidence and reducing cognitive avoidance.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.

该奖项完全根据2021年美国救援计划法案（公法117-2）资助。植物和昆虫发展互利关系。这些互惠关系对维持生物多样性很重要。然而，互惠互利的关系日益受到人类活动的威胁，包括农业，物种入侵和森林过度采伐。这个国际研究经验的学生（IRES）补助金将支持3个队列的5名美国学生在3年内花费6周/年在贝宁进行合作研究与导师和学生从三个贝宁大学。该项目将通过综合招聘战略，从代表性不足的少数民族学生中招募学生，从而扩大对STEM的参与。这些美国学生将获得研究技能，调查非洲桃花心木和织蚁之间互利关系中断的原因和后果，重点是对他们自己收集的真实的数据进行统计分析。通过研究人类活动对互惠破坏的机械影响，该项目将推进我们对生态相互作用如何在人类改造的景观中持续存在的认识。从教育的角度来看，这个IRES项目将促进我们对在多元文化环境中向同龄人学习在减轻学生对统计数据的恐惧方面所起作用的理解，这是限制少数民族在生态方案中招聘的主要问题之一。这个IRES项目将促进国际研究合作，并为实地研究经验在培训多样化的全球参与的劳动力的重要性提供证据。这个IRES项目的一个基本成果是培训3个队列的5名美国学生，同时按顺序建立每个队列的工作，通过全球科学推进全球合作，培训下一代科学家，并支持生态学，统计方法，实地研究和科学交流方面的劳动力发展。本提案将通过旨在解决大学生统计焦虑问题的国际实地研究经验，调查慢性人为干扰导致互利共生中断的原因和后果。生态相互作用对保护生物多样性很重要。然而，与竞争和捕食等负面相互作用相比，物种之间的互利互惠作用长期以来一直被忽视。互惠关系日益受到长期人为干扰的威胁，这对生物多样性构成了全球性威胁。为了揭示原因并理解互利破坏的生态后果，不仅需要观察或实验研究，还需要统计和数学建模。然而，这些技能在生命科学专业的学生的发展受到挑战的统计和数学焦虑，不适或忧虑的学生经历时，采取统计测试或做统计分析。研究表明，统计焦虑可以通过团队合作来缓解，在团队合作中，学生可以自主进行数据分析。该项目将在3年内为3批5名美国学生提供机会，每年在贝宁与来自贝宁三所大学的导师和学生进行合作研究。为了扩大参与，我们将招募代表性不足的少数民族学生，特别是黑人和女性学生的多元化人才库。在出发前往贝宁之前，学生将获得关于如何分析生物数据，如何制定同伴教学计划，个人专业发展计划，如何进行研究和科学交流的教学支架。然后，学生将设计自己的课程计划，并教授他们以前学到的统计数据分析技术，以同行贝宁学生。国内研究将以贝宁和美国学生组成的多元文化团队为基础，他们将进行为期六周的实地人口统计学研究，操纵实验和数学建模，以调查当地人传统的树木分支收获如何破坏兼性植物-蚂蚁共生关系，并衡量其生态后果。这项研究，这是PI研究计划的一个组成部分，将在最后的研究研讨会达到高潮。学生们将通过准备手稿以供出版来继续他们的旅行后活动。贝宁的这些IRES研究点代表了PI在二十多年来建立的非洲最长和详细的植物人口研究之一。在培训学生的同时进行这项研究，不仅利用了全球团队的方法，而且还将提供脚手架，可以通过建立信心和减少认知回避来限制学生的统计焦虑。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。