Doctoral Dissertation Research: The effects of forest habitat modification on hunting and prey abundance

该奖项的全部或部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。世界热带雨林生态系统是全球生物多样性的热点，有着被土著人民占领的广泛历史，作为习惯性农业和自给自足的觅食和狩猎的地点。随着这些生物多样性储藏库现在显示出下降的迹象，我们需要更好地了解人类影响的森林如何既能支持土著生计，又能维持不同的动植物群落。虽然人类对热带雨林的利用和改造历来被认为是物种丧失的潜在驱动因素，但最近的研究表明，人类活动创造的森林马赛克蕴藏着相当程度的栖息地多样性和新颖的觅食机会，可能会使动植物群落受益。这一博士论文项目的目的是研究传统农业做法和自给性狩猎之间的关系，以了解这些做法如何影响新热带雨林中的当地动植物多样性。除了培训人类学博士生外，这项研究还帮助当地利益相关者管理自然资源并推广这些见解，以便将这些见解用于制定管理设计，纳入当地做法，以防止野生动物损失。本论文项目的中心研究问题是，传统农业营造的人为影响的森林是否能够支持野生动物的种群，并使自给自足的猎人能够持续地收获野生动物。研究人员测试了人类干扰是否以及如何阻止或促进资源节约。结合人类行为生态学、野生动物管理学和群落生态学的理论和方法，本研究记录了猎人的活动和收获回报，并将它们与野生动物丰度的格局联系起来，沿着习惯的农业实践造成的干扰梯度。研究人员使用半结构化访谈和参与者观察，从人种学的角度分析习惯性农业和自给性狩猎的社会和生态层面。通过研究人类和野生动物如何选择和利用马赛克人工林、次生林和顶极林中的栖息地，本研究为野生动物物种的可持续收获机制以及生态群落与人类群落的共存提供了理论见解。这项研究没有将狩猎和农业作为人与环境关系的不同形式进行研究，而是将这些做法概念化为一个综合的社会生态系统的关键部分。这一奖项反映了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 or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).The world’s rainforest ecosystems are hotspots of global biodiversity and have extensive histories of occupation by Indigenous peoples as locations for customary agriculture and subsistence foraging and hunting. With these reservoirs of biodiversity now showing signs of decline, we require a better understanding of how human-influenced forests can both support Indigenous livelihoods and sustain diverse floral and faunal communities. While human use and modification of rainforests has historically been thought of as a potential driver of species loss, recent research suggests that forest mosaics created by human activities harbor a substantial degree of habitat diversity and novel foraging opportunities that may benefit animal and plant communities. The purpose of this doctoral dissertation project is to study the relationship between customary agricultural practices and subsistence hunting to understand how these practices impact local faunal and floral diversity in a neotropical rainforest. In addition to training a doctoral student in anthropological science, the research helps local stakeholders manage natural resources and generalize these insights so they can be used to develop management designs that incorporate local practices to prevent wildlife loss. The central research question of this dissertation project is whether the human-influenced forests that are created by customary agriculture can support populations of wild game and enable sustainable harvests of wild game by subsistence hunters. The researchers test whether and how human disturbance precludes or facilitates resource conservation. Integrating theory and methods from human behavioral ecology, wildlife management, and community ecology, this research documents hunter movements and harvest returns and links them to patterns of wildlife abundance along a disturbance gradient created by customary agricultural practices. The researchers use semi-structured interviews and participant observation to ethnographically contextualize the social and ecological dimensions of customary agriculture and subsistence hunting. By studying how humans and wildlife select and use habitat in a mosaic of cultivated, secondary, and climax forest, this study contributes theoretical insights about the mechanisms for sustainable harvest of wild game species and the coexistence of ecological communities with human communities. Rather than study hunting and farming as distinct forms of human-environment relations, this study conceptualizes these practices as key parts of an integrated socioecological system.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.