Issues and Concepts in Pastoral Ecology and Dry Tropical Ecosystems

南图尔卡纳生态系统项目(STEP)是一项以生态系统为导向的长期跨学科研究，研究对象是Ngisonioka图尔卡纳游牧民族及其与肯尼亚北部干旱稀树草原/林地生态系统的互动。20世纪80年代初，STEP的最初目标是确定Ngisonioka牧民如何在猖獗的土匪活动和部落间战争中，凭借他们的传统技术，在干旱和干旱压力下的生态系统中生存和生存。在过去的十年里，该项目进行了许多关于景观、植被、牲畜和人的研究。项目组现在将进行为期两年的研究-综合阶段，目的是围绕生态系统层面的概念或工作过程中出现的特殊问题，汇集和综合不同学科研究的结果。通过整合围绕重要问题和概念的实地和建模工作的结果，预计该小组将(1)证明人类生态、生物和社会研究可纳入生态系统科学；(2)表明将气候研究、生态系统分析和社会科学纳入单一的调查和建模框架是可行的；(3)对干燥热带生态系统的结构和动态提供若干新的见解，最重要的是；(4)全面描述牧民的生态、他们的生物、社会和资源开发战略，以及他们与其生态系统的相互作用。

The South Turkana Ecosystem Project (STEP) is a long-term, interdisciplinary ecosystem-oriented study of Ngisonyoka Turkana pastoral nomads and their interactions with a dry savanna/woodland ecosystem in Northern Kenya. The initial objective of STEP in the early 1980s was to determine how Ngisonyoka pastoralists, with only their traditional technology, managed to survive and persist in a dry and drought-stressed ecosystem, in the midst of rampant banditry and inter-tribal warfare. Over the last ten years the project has conducted a number of studies on landscapes, vegetation, livestock, and people. The project team will now perform research-synthesis phase of two years duration for the purpose of pulling together and synthesizing the results of the diverse disciplinary studies around ecosystem level concepts or particular issues that have arisen during the course of the work. By integrating the results of field and modeling work around important issues and concepts it is expected that the group will (1) demonstrate that studies of human ecology, biology and society can be integrated into ecosystem science; (2) show that it is feasible to incorporate climate studies, ecosystem analyses, and social science within a single investigatory and modeling framework; (3) provide several new insights into the structure and dynamics of dry tropical ecosystems and, most importantly; (4) present a holistic portrait of the ecology of pastoral nomads, their biological, social, and resource exploitation strategies, and their interactions with their ecosystem.