DISES: Cumulative effects of ecological and social stressors on the dynamics of integrated ranching-wildlife systems: drought, wolves, and human decision-makers

疾病：生态和社会压力源对综合牧场-野生动物系统动态的累积影响：干旱、狼和人类决策者

• 批准号: 2109005
• 负责人: Chloe Wardropper
• 金额: $ 159.78万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Idaho
• 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 2023-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2109005&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DISES; Cumulative; effects; ecological; social

As environmental changes intensify around the world, both humans and wildlife face greater uncertainty and risk, threatening both human livelihoods and wildlife biodiversity. This research seeks to understand how multiple sources of stress impact humans, free-ranging livestock, and wildlife in shared rangelands in the western US. Increasingly frequent and more severe droughts make plant forage for wild herbivores and cattle less predictable and abundant, even as the return of gray wolves to parts of the landscape increases predation risk. As a result, wildlife such as deer and elk, as well as free-ranging livestock, may be forced to trade off food and security, and ranchers grazing their cattle on public land may face more uncertainty. This research will assess (1) how drought and wolves interact to affect wild herbivores and free-ranging cattle distributions across the landscape, (2) how decision-makers respond to these two sources of stress, and (3) how information, provided via a new wildlife and plant forecasting application, is received and used by both ranchers and wildlife managers. The project will also increase public awareness of human and wildlife connections and interactions in rangeland ecosystems via a documentary film, as well as by training citizen scientists to classify camera-trapped images of rangeland wildlife. A diverse group of undergraduate and graduate students as well as a post-doctoral researcher will be trained over the course of this project. Outcomes of this project include a better understanding of how climate and carnivore risks affect human decision-making, as well as how humans impact rangeland food webs via cattle stocking and wildlife removal, potentially leading to increased opportunities for coexistence between humans and wildlife in changing environments.Ecological shifts brought about by climatic change can strongly interact with other sources of change, such as recolonizing large carnivores, to alter food web dynamics and potentially reduce ecosystem provisioning for humans. The uncertainty created by such interactions also challenges human decision-making. A critical gap exists in our knowledge of how climate change affects human-wildlife systems via wild food webs, and how natural resource decision-makers respond to such stress. We hypothesize that multiple environmental stressors (e.g., climate change and novel predators) will have complex and interactive effects on human-wildlife systems. Effects will likely occur via trophic interactions among predators, prey, domestic animals, and plants within shared food webs, potentially reducing the provisioning of humans from the shared ecosystem and human tolerance for predatory and competitive wildlife, and increasing uncertainty for natural resource decision-makers. There is a pressing need to advance models, tools and theory to (A) understand how multiple stressors interactively affect food webs in which humans and domestic animals are embedded, and (B) identify and quantify feedbacks among natural resource decision-makers and human-wildlife systems in response to multiple environmental stressors. Such information would assist in identifying potential “tipping points” in system resiliency and allow for better management of interacting wildland and agricultural systems. Using a factorial design of study sites across combinations of wolf presence and drought in Oregon and Idaho, we will study rancher-wildlife-plant dynamics. Data will stem from rancher surveys, wildlife camera grids, and ground-surveyed and remotely-sensed plant data. We will integrate social and ecological data into a structural equation modeling framework, which will drive ecological forecasts of predation and competition risk to livestock for ranchers and managers to use in future decision making. To understand natural resource manager decisions, which occur at larger spatial scales than rancher decisions, we will conduct a broad-scale analysis of the rangeland SES across the Western US using publicly-available wildlife and social data and remotely-sensed environmental characteristics. By analyzing decision-making across these spatial scales, we anticipate being able to identify key feedbacks, emergent phenomena, and potential tipping points in resilience for the human and wildlife components of the rangeland SES.This project is jointly funded by the Dynamics of Integrated Socio-Environmental Systems (DISES) and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.

随着世界各地环境变化加剧，人类和野生动物都面临更大的不确定性和风险，威胁着人类生计和野生动物生物多样性。这项研究旨在了解多种压力来源如何影响美国西部共享牧场的人类，自由放养的牲畜和野生动物。日益频繁和严重的干旱使野生食草动物和牛的植物饲料变得不可预测和丰富，即使灰狼返回部分景观增加捕食风险。因此，鹿和麋鹿等野生动物以及自由放养的牲畜可能被迫在食物和安全之间进行交易，在公共土地上放牧的牧场主可能面临更多的不确定性。这项研究将评估（1）干旱和狼如何相互作用，影响野生食草动物和自由放养的牛在整个景观中的分布，（2）决策者如何应对这两个压力来源，以及（3）通过新的野生动物和植物预测应用程序提供的信息如何被牧场主和野生动物管理者接收和使用。该项目还将通过一部纪录片，以及通过培训公民科学家对相机捕捉的牧场野生动物图像进行分类，提高公众对牧场生态系统中人类与野生动物之间的联系和相互作用的认识。一个多样化的本科生和研究生群体以及博士后研究人员将在本项目的过程中接受培训。该项目的成果包括更好地了解气候和食肉动物风险如何影响人类决策，以及人类如何通过放养牲畜和野生动物的迁移影响牧场食物网，从而可能增加人类与野生动物在不断变化的环境中共存的机会。气候变化带来的生态变化可以与其他变化来源强烈相互作用，例如大型食肉动物的同化，改变食物网动态，并可能减少生态系统对人类的供应。这种相互作用造成的不确定性也对人类决策提出了挑战。我们对气候变化如何通过野生食物网影响人类-野生动物系统以及自然资源决策者如何应对这种压力的认识存在重大差距。我们假设多种环境压力源（例如，气候变化和新的捕食者）将对人类-野生动物系统产生复杂的互动影响。这些影响可能会通过共享食物网中捕食者、猎物、家畜和植物之间的营养相互作用发生，可能会减少共享生态系统中人类的供给，减少人类对掠夺性和竞争性野生动物的容忍度，增加自然资源决策者的不确定性。有一个迫切需要先进的模型，工具和理论，（A）了解多种压力如何交互影响食物网，人类和家畜嵌入，（B）确定和量化的反馈之间的自然资源决策者和人类野生动物系统，以应对多种环境压力。这些信息将有助于确定系统复原力的潜在“临界点”，并有助于更好地管理相互作用的荒地和农业系统。在俄勒冈州和爱达荷州，我们将使用狼的存在和干旱的组合研究地点的析因设计，研究牧场野生动物植物动态。数据将来源于牧场主调查、野生动物照相机网格以及地面调查和遥感植物数据。我们将把社会和生态数据整合到一个结构方程模型框架中，这将推动对牲畜捕食和竞争风险的生态预测，供牧场主和管理者在未来的决策中使用。为了了解自然资源管理者的决策，这发生在更大的空间尺度比牧场主的决定，我们将进行大规模的分析牧场SES在美国西部使用公开的野生动物和社会数据和遥感环境特征。通过分析这些空间尺度上的决策，我们预计能够识别关键的反馈，紧急现象，该项目由综合社会环境系统动力学（DISES）和刺激竞争研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）联合资助。该奖项反映了NSF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。

项目成果

How does co-produced research influence adaptive capacity? Lessons from a cross-case comparison

共同开展的研究如何影响适应能力？

• DOI: 10.1007/s42532-022-00121-x
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Socio-Ecological Practice Research
• 作者: Church, Sarah P.;Wardropper, Chloe B.;Usher, Emily;Bean, Liam F.;Gilbert, Ashlie;Eanes, Francis R.;Ulrich-Schad, Jessica D.;Babin, Nicholas;Ranjan, Pranay;Getson, Jackie M.
• 通讯作者: Getson, Jackie M.

Use of water decision-support tools for drought management

使用水决策支持工具进行干旱管理

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2022.127531
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Journal of Hydrology
• 影响因子: 6.4
• 作者: Fanok, Lily;Beltrán, Bray J.;Burnham, Morey;Wardropper, Chloe B.
• 通讯作者: Wardropper, Chloe B.