Doctoral Dissertation Research: Historical Ecology of Coral Reef Ecosystems in the Hawaiian Archipelago

对珊瑚礁生态系统的现有研究将珊瑚礁的历史衰退归因于少数直接人类活动或近因影响，包括过度开发海洋物种的主要威胁。全球尺度的研究揭示了珊瑚礁生态系统衰退的轨迹、时间和程度的区域差异，突出了历史生态学深入区域案例研究的必要性。在历史和区域背景下，大部分尚未探索的是潜在的社会因素，这些因素对珊瑚礁生态系统衰退的近似驱动因素至关重要。博士生John Kittinger在博士生导师Hong Jiang博士的指导下，将研究间接导致珊瑚礁衰退的社会因素，包括人口、技术、经济和社会文化制度的变化，这些变化构成了珊瑚礁的人与环境相互作用。他们的研究目的是通过对夏威夷群岛的区域案例研究，研究过去1000年来社会变化与珊瑚礁生态系统状况之间的历史关系。本研究将包括两个阶段：1)在长时间尺度上重建珊瑚礁生态系统状况；2)在两个空间尺度（岛屿水平和群岛水平）上分析关键社会因素与生态系统状况的时间关系。这种定量方法将阐明珊瑚礁生态系统中的社会生态联系，并将有助于确定对生态系统恢复力至关重要的社会因素。这项研究将调查在陆地和农业系统背景下制定的人类-环境相互作用理论（例如土地利用/覆盖变化理论）对海洋环境的适用性，并将推进综合社会-生态系统分析的定量方法。这项研究在规模和方法上是新颖的，因为它将充分表征与珊瑚礁相关的长期（数十年至数百年）社会系统，以前被认为是了解珊瑚礁生态系统状况长期趋势的关键。从保护的角度来看，了解历史趋势对于确定珊瑚礁生态系统的当前状态和长期轨迹以及实现预期未来生态系统状态的威胁至关重要。该研究最重要的贡献是确定了构成社会生态恢复力的要素和过程，这对于理解如何实现海洋资源的长期可持续性和防止崩溃至关重要。这将通过对历史社会生态系统分析的综合跨学科方法来实现。人们还期望这项研究将有助于了解全球环境变化对珊瑚礁生态系统的影响，从而能够在太平洋岛屿和其他地区制订适当的养护战略。

Existing research on coral reef ecosystems has attributed historical declines of coral reefs to a small set of direct human activities, or proximate impacts, including the primary threat of overexploitation of marine species. Global-scale studies have revealed regional differences in the trajectories, timing and extent of coral reef ecosystem decline, highlighting the need for in-depth regional case studies in historical ecology. What remains largely unexplored in a historical and regional context are the underlying social factors that are fundamental to proximate drivers of coral reef ecosystem decline. Ph.D. student John Kittinger under the supervision of doctoral advisor Dr. Hong Jiang, will study the social factors that contribute indirectly to coral reef decline, including shifts in demography, technology, economy and the socio-cultural institutions that structure human-environment interactions for coral reefs. The objective of their research is to examine the historical relationship between social change and coral reef ecosystem condition over the past 1000 years in a regional case study on the Hawaiian Archipelago. This research will involve two phases, including: 1) reconstruction of coral reef ecosystem condition over long time scales, and 2) analysis of the relationship between key social factors and ecosystem condition through time at two spatial scales (island level and archipelagic level). This quantitative approach will elucidate social-ecological linkages in coral reef ecosystems and will help identify the social factors critical to ecosystem resilience. This research will investigate the applicability of theory on human-environment interactions formulated in the context of terrestrial and agrarian systems (e.g. theory on land use/cover change) to marine environments and will also advance quantitative approaches to integrated social-ecological systems analysis.The research is novel in scale and approach in that it will adequately characterize social systems associated with coral reefs for long time periods (decades-centuries), previously identified as critical for understanding of long-term trends in coral reef ecosystem condition. From a conservation perspective, understanding historical trends is critically important in determining the current state and long-term trajectory of coral reef ecosystems and the threats to achieving desired future ecosystem states. The over-arching contribution of the research is the identification of the elements and processes that comprise social-ecological resilience, which is critical in understanding how to achieve long-term sustainability of marine resources and prevent collapse. This will be achieved through an integrated, transdisciplinary approach to historical social-ecological systems analysis. It is also expected that the research will help understand the human dimensions of global environmental change for coral reef ecosystems, which will enable the formulation of appropriate conservation strategies in the Pacific islands and beyond.