IRES Track I Investigating the demographic consequences of species interactions

该奖项是根据《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)整体资助的。植物和昆虫发展互惠关系。这些互惠互利的关系对维持生物多样性很重要。然而，不断扩大的人类活动，包括农业、物种入侵和森林过度采伐，日益威胁着互利关系。这项国际学生研究经验(IRES)赠款将在3年内支持3组5名美国学生，每年在贝宁与来自贝宁三所大学的导师和学生进行6周/年的合作研究。该项目将通过综合招聘战略，从人数较少的少数族裔学生中招募学生，从而扩大对STEM的参与。这些美国学生将获得研究技能，调查非洲红木和编织蚂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数据进行统计分析。通过研究人类活动对互惠共生破坏的机械影响，这个项目将促进我们对生态相互作用如何在人类修改的景观中持续存在的了解。从教育的角度来看，IRES项目将增进我们对在多元文化环境中向同龄人学习在缓解学生对统计的恐惧方面所起的作用的理解，这是限制生态项目招收少数族裔的主要问题之一。IRES项目将促进国际研究合作，并提供证据证明实地研究经验在培训一支多元化的全球参与的劳动力队伍方面的重要性。该IRES项目的一个基本成果是培训了3组5名美国学生，同时顺序地在每个组的工作基础上再接再厉，通过全球科学促进全球合作，培训下一代科学家，并支持在生态学、统计方法、实地研究和科学交流方面的劳动力发展。这项提案将通过一项旨在解决大学生统计焦虑问题的国际实地研究经验，调查慢性人为干扰破坏互惠关系的原因和后果。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互动相比，互惠互利的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威胁。要揭示互惠互利破坏的原因并理解其生态后果，不仅需要观察或实验研究，还需要统计和数学建模。然而，生命科学专业学生的这些技能的发展受到了统计学和数学焦虑的挑战，即学生在参加统计测试或进行统计分析时所经历的不适或恐惧。研究表明，通过团队合作，学生可以掌握自己的数据分析，从而缓解统计焦虑。该项目将在3年内为3组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6周/年的合作研究。为了扩大参与，我们将招收人数不多的少数族裔学生，特别是黑人和女性学生。在出发前往贝宁之前，学生们将接受关于如何分析生物数据、如何制定同行教学计划、个人专业发展计划、如何进行研究和科学交流的指导。然后，学生们将设计自己的教案，并将他们之前学到的统计数据分析技术传授给贝宁的同龄人。国内研究将基于贝宁和美国学生配对的多元文化团队，他们将在为期六周的时间里进行实地人口统计研究、操纵实验和数学建模，以调查当地人传统的树枝采摘如何扰乱兼性植物-蚂蚁互惠关系，并衡量其生态后果。这项研究是PI研究计划不可分割的一部分，将在最后的研究研讨会上达到高潮。学生们将通过准备出版手稿来继续他们旅行后的活动。贝宁的这些IRES研究站点是国际植物研究所20多年来在非洲建立的运行时间最长和详细的植物种群研究之一。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，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优势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 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.