Biocomplexity Incubation Activity: Integrating Social Science Into Long-Term Ecological Research

人们对人类和自然系统在各种环境中相互作用的复杂方式的了解迅速增长，这使得社会和自然科学家在研究长期环境变化方面加强合作的呼声日益高涨。理论视角、词汇、组织结构和科学文化的重大差异阻碍了这些合作，但越来越多的人文科学和自然科学研究人员现在正在寻求弥合以前将他们分开的差距。该生物复杂性孵化活动奖将提供支持，使中亚利桑那州-凤凰城长期生态研究(CAP LTER)项目与巴尔的摩生态系统研究(BES LTER)合作举办一系列研讨会，以促进社会科学与长期生态研究的整合。该项目的主要目标将是激发科学上令人兴奋的跨学科研究，将社会、生物和物理学科学家聚集在一起，更好地了解人类生态系统。该项目基于之前的一次研讨会，在研讨会上，社会和生物物理学家就调查人类生态系统的广泛概念框架达成了共识，并提出了一套对他们的研究至关重要的社会模式和程序。由于对人类生态系统的统一理解需要循序渐进，因此将确定四个研究项目，在这些项目中，研究人员一致认为，将社会、生物和物理科学家聚集在一起将导致更好地理解支配生态系统动态的机制。以实际问题为重点的初步讲习班将帮助四个研究项目实施综合研究。第二期讲习班将深入讨论拟议的社会模式和进程，并就如何在试点项目中落实这些核心议题提出建议。最后的研讨会将制定拟议的项目如何适应人类生态系统的多个空间和时间尺度的具体方法。该项目将促进制订和传播一体化战略。对四个试点项目的关注将使务实的解决方案得以出现，这些解决方案提供的见解将有助于规划通过更多的LTER地点加强社会科学家的参与。这一持续的努力将促进将社会科学融入对人类生态系统的统一理解的长期生态研究和开发方面的进步步骤，这是理解生物复杂性和环境最紧迫的挑战之一。

The rapid growth in understandings of the complex ways that human and natural systems interact in a broad range of environments have led to intensified calls for greater collaboration among social and natural scientists in the study of long-term environmental change. Major differences in theoretical perspectives, vocabulary, organizational structure, and scientific culture have inhibited these collaborations, but increasing numbers of researchers in both the human and natural sciences now are looking to bridge the gaps that previously separated them. This Biocomplexity Incubation Activity award will provide support to enable the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) project in collaboration with the Baltimore Ecosystems Study (BES LTER) to hold a series of workshops to promote the integration of social sciences into long-term ecological research. The project's primary objective will be to spark scientifically exciting interdisciplinary research that brings together social, biological, and physical scientists to better understand human ecosystems. The project is based on a previous workshop where social and biophysical scientists reached a consensus on a broad conceptual framework for investigating human ecosystems and proposed a set of social patterns and processes key to their study. Because a unified understanding of human ecosystems needs to be taken in incremental steps, four research projects will be identified where investigators agree that bringing together social, biological, and physical scientists would lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms that govern ecosystem dynamics. An initial workshop focusing on the practical issues will help the four research projects implement integrated research. A second workshop will focus in depth on the proposed social patterns and processes and suggest ways these core topics can be implemented in the pilot projects. A final workshop will develop specific ways the proposed projects can accommodate the multiple spatial and temporal scales of the human ecosystem. This project will facilitate the development and dissemination of strategies for integration. The focus on four pilot projects will enable pragmatic solutions to emerge, with these solutions providing insights that will facilitate planning for enhanced involvement of social scientists by additional LTER sites. This sustained effort will foster progressive steps toward the integration of the social sciences into long-term ecological research and development of a unified understanding of human ecosystems, one of the most urgent challenges to understanding biocomplexity and the environment.