PIRE Collaborative Research and Training in Social Context, Population Processes, and Environmental Change

0729709AxinnPIRE：在社会背景下，人口过程和环境变化的合作研究和培训这个国际研究和教育伙伴关系（PIRE）汇集了来自五所美国大学和尼泊尔和中国的四个机构的研究人员和学生，对人口与环境相互作用的动态进行比较研究。 首席研究员，密歇根大学的William Axinn和来自密歇根州立大学，圣地亚哥州立大学，北卡罗来纳州大学和亚利桑那州州立大学的同事将与来自社会和环境研究所和特里布万大学农业和动物科学研究所的尼泊尔合作伙伴合作，以及来自中国科学院生态环境科学研究中心和卧龙自然保护区的中方合作伙伴。 尼泊尔和中国的实地考察点是两个备受瞩目的环境，在这两个环境中，不断增长的人口、迅速变化的经济、独特的生物多样性和复杂的体制结构为研究和教育提供了绝佳的机会。五年合作研究计划的重点是提高对影响三种濒危物种植被和栖息地的模式和过程的认识（熊猫、犀牛和老虎），实现尼泊尔和中国人口-环境相互作用动态的跨案例比较，并建立在其他环境中进行此类比较所需的广泛适用的工具。 合作的教育目标将利用每个合作伙伴的智力和物质资源，培养下一代科学家，他们能够对人类与环境的相互作用进行新的国际跨案例比较。 这项活动为40名美国研究生和12名本科生提供了独特的国际研究和培训经验。 教育和研究活动紧密结合，重点是学习和实践连接关键学科和促进国际合作所需的概念和方法，同时追求引人注目的研究问题。 提供微观信息的详细的单一地点案例研究极大地增进了关于人与环境相互作用的知识，但跨案例比较现在是更好地了解全球环境变化所需的一个极高的科学优先事项。 具体而言，尼泊尔案例研究的优势，这是丰富的社区背景的动态测量将适用于中国的案例研究。 同样，中国案例研究的长处，即遥感数据分析和基于主体的建模以研究森林和生境动态，将应用于尼泊尔的研究。 这种整合将提高这些重要案例的数据和方法的可比性，不同案例研究之间的研究相互促进将提高每个案例研究的价值。 更重要的是，这项工作将使人与环境相互作用的比较研究，推动该领域过去的单一案例研究走向多边研究设计。 该项目有可能大大加快对重要环境变化的调查，最终帮助确定保护生物多样性的有效战略。 研究结果预计将确定研究人与环境相互作用的模型，这些模型可以跨环境转移，以互利的方式将各种研究联系起来。此外，该项目将培养新一代科学家，开创人口-环境相互作用的国际跨案例比较。这些科学家将在未来几十年中发挥关键作用，将对具体案例的详细理解纳入全球环境变化的研究，该奖项由国际科学和工程办公室与社会、行为经济科学理事会共同资助。

0729709AxinnPIRE: Collaborative Research and Training in Social Context, Population Processes, and Environmental ChangeThis Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE) brings together researchers and students from five U.S. universities and four institutions in Nepal and China to undertake comparative studies on the dynamics of population-environment interaction. Principal investigator, William Axinn of the University of Michigan and colleagues from Michigan State University, San Diego State University, the University of North Carolina, and Arizona State University will collaborate with Nepalese partners from the Institute for Social and Environmental Research and Tribhuvan University's Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, and with Chinese partners from the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Wolong Nature Reserve. The field sites in Nepal and China are two high-profile settings where large, growing populations, rapidly changing economies, unique biodiversity and complex institutional structures offer exceptional research and educational opportunities.The five-year plan for collaborative research focuses on improving understanding of patterns and processes affecting vegetation and habitats for three endangered species (pandas, rhinos, and tigers), achieving cross-case comparisons of the dynamics of population-environment interaction for Nepal and China, and establishing widely applicable tools needed to make such comparisons in other settings. The educational objectives of the collaboration will draw upon the intellectual and physical resources of each partner to train a next generation of scientists skilled in conducting new international cross-case comparisons of the human-environment interaction. This activity provides a unique international research and training experience for forty U.S. graduate and twelve undergraduate students. Educational and research activities are closely integrated with a focus on learning and practicing concepts and methods needed to bridge key disciplines and foster international collaboration while pursuing compelling research questions. Detailed single site case studies that provide micro-level information have greatly advanced knowledge about human-environment interaction, but cross-case comparison is now an extremely high scientific priority needed for better understanding of global environmental change. Specifically, the strengths of the Nepal case study, which is rich in dynamic measurements of community context will be applied to the China case study. Likewise, the strengths of the China case study, the analysis of remote sensing data and agent-based modeling to study forest and habitat dynamics, will be applied to the Nepal study. The integration will increase the comparability of data and methods across these important cases and the cross-fertilization of research among different case studies will enhance the value of each case study. More importantly, this work will enable the comparative study of human-environment interaction that pushes the field past singular case studies toward multilateral research designs. This project has the potential to greatly accelerate investigation of important environmental change, ultimately helping to identify effective strategies for preserving biodiversity. The findings are expected to identify models of studying human-environment interaction that transfer across settings to link various studies in a mutually beneficial manner. Further, this project will train a new generation of scientists pioneering international cross-case comparisons of population-environment interactions. Such scientists will be crucial in the coming decades to integrate detailed understandings of specific cases into studies of global environmental change.This award is funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering together with the Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences.