CNH: Wetlands in a Working Landscape: Links Among Landowner Decisions, Climate, Disease Ecology, and Metapopulation Dynamics

该项目将研究控制加州塞拉山麓农业和牧场湿地生态系统结构和功能的生态和社会过程，这些生态系统通常是偶然或有意创造的。这些湿地是一种濒危鸟类黑铁的重要栖息地，也是携带最近到来的西尼罗河病毒的蚊子的来源，这种病毒会影响人类和野生动物。本研究的目标是解决土地所有者的做法、态度和对维护湿地的成本、风险和收益的看法如何影响湿地的数量、大小和分布，进而影响蚊子种群、西尼罗河病毒流行和黑铁路的种群动态。该计划将根据航拍照片追踪过去50年湿地的出现和消失，以制定湿地变化的措施；调查湿地土地所有人，以确定他们如何评估其湿地的成本和效益；开发区域气候模型，预测未来40年随着气候和灌溉方式的变化湿地面积的变化；开发包含湿地特征变化的铁路人口模型；量化暴露于西尼罗病毒的风险与气候、土地利用和湿地特征之间的关系；并开发综合这些因素的模型来预测未来湿地的变化。加州超过90%的湿地已被转为其他土地用途。该项目将通过揭示湿地、土地所有者决策和气候变化之间的相互作用，量化维持农业景观中剩余内陆湿地的过程。教育方面的好处包括培养博士后研究人员、研究生和本科生的研究方法，包括少数民族学生参与的机会，以及为本科生和研究生开发课程材料。这项研究的结果将通过与管理工作景观中的湿地的土地所有者、机构和利益相关者的联系，传播给更广泛的社区。这项工作还将通过确定疾病的影响，并通过提供模型来评估加利福尼亚快速增长地区的区域发展和景观规划，为濒危物种黑铁路的保护工作提供信息。

This project will study ecological and social processes governing the structure and function of wetland ecosystems found in agricultural and rangelands in the Sierra Foothills of California where they have often been accidentally or purposefully created. These wetlands are important habitat for a threatened bird species, Black Rail, and can be a source of mosquitoes that carry the recently-arrived West Nile Virus, which affects both humans and wildlife. The goal of this research is to address the question of how landowner practices, attitudes, and perceptions of the costs, risks and benefits of maintaining wetlands have affected their number, size, and distribution, and in turn influenced mosquito populations, West Nile Virus prevalence, and the population dynamics of the Black Rail. The project will trace the appearance and disappearance of wetlands over the last 50 years from aerial photographs to develop measures of wetland change; survey wetland landowners to determine how they assess the costs and benefits of their wetlands; develop regional climate models that project the change in wetland size over the next 40 years with changing climate and irrigation practices; develop population models for rails that incorporate changes in wetland characteristics; quantify the relationships between the risk of being exposed to West Nile Virus and climate, land use, and wetland characteristics; and develop models that integrate these factors to forecast future changes in wetlands.Over 90% of California's wetlands have been converted to other land uses. This project will quantify the processes that sustain the remaining inland wetlands on agricultural landscapes by uncovering interactions between wetlands, landowner decisions, and climate variation. Educational benefits include training of postdoctoral researchers, and graduate and undergraduate students in research methods including opportunities for minority student participation, and developing course material for undergraduate and graduate students. Results from this research will be disseminated to a broader community through outreach to landowners, agencies, and stakeholders that manage wetlands in working landscapes. This work will also inform conservation efforts for a threatened species, the Black Rail, by determining impacts of disease and by providing models to evaluate regional development and landscape planning in a rapidly growing region of California.