Planning Visit to China and Workshop Involving Two Marine LTER Sites and Two Chinese CERN Sites Concerned with Coral Reefs

​相关访问将包括在北京的中国科学院，青岛的胶州湾国家海洋生态系统研究站，广州的南海研究所，以及三亚的海南热带海洋生物学研究站。这次旅行的参与者将是来自美国国家科学基金会LTER（长期生态研究）网络两个海洋研究站点的六名高级研究人员。中国的两个研究站、中国生态研究网络（CERN）的成员，以及美国圣巴巴拉海岸LTER和莫雷亚湾珊瑚礁LTER的参与者都是国际LTER网络的成员。此行的目的是计划在三亚建立一个东亚珊瑚卷轴联盟，在台湾、澳大利亚和毛里求斯建立类似的站点，并促进中美对温带珊瑚礁的合作研究。研讨会的目的是集中进行珊瑚礁复原力的联合地理研究。访问和研讨会将促进有价值的合作，并为不同生态系统之间的比较研究提供机会。由此产生的工作将有助于检验关于地方和区域多样性模式对生态过程和对气候变化等环境驱动因素的反应的影响的假设。一种形式的广泛影响将来自两国学生和年轻研究人员参与计划合作的机会。他们之间以及与更资深的研究人员之间的相互作用有望建立长期的关系，从而鼓励富有成效的研究合作。从更广泛的意义上说，更好地了解珊瑚礁的恢复能力和当地的生态现象，应该有助于找到修复和控制珊瑚礁破坏的方法，这是一个严重的环境问题。

Planning Visit to China and Workshop Involving Two Marine LTER Sites and Two Chinese CERN Sites Concerned with Coral ReefsThis award supports a two-week planning visit and joint research workshop to be held in Sanya, Hainan Island, China, in August 2010. The related visits will include stops at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, the Jiaozhou Bay National Marine Ecosystem Research Station in Qingdao, and the South China Sea Institute in Guangzhou, as well as the Hainan Tropical Marine Biology Research Station in Sanya. Participants in the trip will be six senior researchers from two marine-research sites in the NSF LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) network. Both Chinese research stations, members of the Chinese Ecological Research Network (CERN), as well as the US participants from the Santa Barbara Coastal LTER and the Moorea Bay Coral Reef LTER are members of the International LTER network. The purposes of the trip are to plan for the formation of an East Asia Coral Reel Alliance involving Sanya with similar stations in Taiwan, Australia, and Moorea and to promote collaborative US-China research on temperate reefs. The objective of the workshop is to focus on a joint geographic study on reef resilience. The visits and workshop will promote valuable collaboration and provide opportunities for comparative studies among various ecosystems. The resulting work will facilitate testing of hypotheses regarding the effects of local and regional diversity patterns on ecological processes and responses to environmental drivers such as climate change. One form of broad impact will derive from opportunities for participation of students and young researchers from both countries in the planned collaborations. Their interactions, among themselves and with the more senior researchers, are expected to establish long-term relationships that should encourage productive research collaborations. In a broader sense, better understanding of reef resilience and local ecological phenomena should lead to methods for remediation and control of reef destruction, a serious environmental problem.