BoCP-Design: US-China: Interactions between land-use change and island biogeography as drivers of animal community assembly in the Zhoushan and Caribbean Archipelagos

人类改变自然栖息地，如森林和草原，创造农田和发达地区供人们居住。这个项目旨在了解为什么这种人为的栖息地改变会导致一些地方的生物多样性极度丧失，而另一些地方则更有弹性。有一种观点认为，小岛面临的风险尤其大，因为它们只能进化出一小部分物种，这些物种只能使用几种类型的资源或栖息地。相比之下，非常大的岛屿会进化出许多物种，其中至少有一些物种没有那么特殊的需求，可能能够在人类改造的环境中繁荣发展。科学家们将测试这样一个假设，即生物多样性在更大的岛屿上经过人类改造的地区会更好地维持下去，正如对人类土地利用容忍度的“彩票模型”所预测的那样。与此相关，他们将研究物种的进化史是否会影响人类改造地区的生物多样性。具体来说，他们将研究从其他地方到达一个岛屿的物种，与在岛上进化的物种相比，是否更有可能忍受人类改造的环境。了解为什么一些地区更容易失去生物多样性将有助于优先考虑保护的地方。与此相关，了解生物多样性最容易丧失的地方将有助于最大限度地利用有益于人类的生态系统服务。该研究将支持本科生和研究生的培养，并促进中美生物多样性研究人员之间的科学合作。为了了解栖息地改变后生物多样性下降最严重的时间和地点，研究人员将研究自然栖息地和人类开发地区的鸟类、爬行动物和两栖动物群落。他们将跨越加勒比海和舟山群岛（中国）不同大小和隔离程度的岛屿。这种物种群和地点的结合使得研究人员能够区分岛屿系统中分散良好的物种（鸟类）和分散不良的物种（爬行动物和两栖动物），这些岛屿系统中分散容易（在舟山，因为岛屿之间的距离很短）和分散困难（在加勒比海，距离很长）。研究人员将使用样带和长期录音来评估这两个地区56个岛屿上数百个地点的物种发生情况。他们将通过研究所遇到的生物的饮食和栖息地利用来量化物种的特化程度。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

Humans modify natural habitats, such as forest and grasslands, to create agricultural fields and developed areas for people to live. This project aims to understand why such human-caused habitat modification causes extreme biodiversity loss in some places, while other places are more resilient. One idea suggests that small islands are especially at risk, because they can only evolve a small set of species that can only use a few types of resources or habitats. In contrast very large islands evolve many species, at least some of which will have less specialized requirements and may be able to prosper in human-modified environments. The researchers will test the hypothesis that biodiversity persists better in human-modified areas on bigger islands, as predicted by a "lottery model" of tolerance to human land-use. Relatedly, they will study if species' evolutionary history affects how much biodiversity remains in human-modified areas. Specifically, they will examine whether species that arrived on an island from elsewhere are more likely to tolerate human-modified environments, in comparison to species that evolved on the island in question. Understanding why some areas are more vulnerable to losing biodiversity will help prioritize places to conserve. Relatedly, knowledge of where biodiversity will be most robust to loss will help maximize use of ecosystem services that benefit people. The research will support undergraduate and graduate student training and promote scientific collaboration between US and Chinese biodiversity researchers.To understand when and where biodiversity declines will be most severe after habitat modification, the researchers will examine communities of birds, reptiles, and amphibians in both natural habitats and human-developed areas. They will do so across islands of different sizes and isolations in both the Caribbean and Zhoushan Archipelagos (China). Together this combination of species groups and locations allows the researchers to distinguish good dispersing species (birds) from poor dispersing ones (reptiles and amphibians) in island systems where dispersal is easy (in Zhoushan, because between-island distances are small) versus hard (in the Caribbean, where distances are long). The researchers will use transects and long-term audio recordings to assess species occurrence over hundreds of locations across 56 islands in the two regions. They will quantify how specialized species are by studying diet and habitat use of the organisms encountered.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.