RIG Transboundary ecosystem services of migratory bats: modeling spatial mismatches and subsidies

人类从许多物种的活动中受益。这些效益或生态系统服务的例子包括控制作物害虫、为粮食作物授粉以及从水和土壤中去除污染物。如果一个物种生活在它提供生态系统服务的地方，那么将保护该物种的努力与它提供的利益联系起来可能相对简单。这种联系对迁徙物种来说可能比较困难，因为迁徙物种可能在其地理范围的一部分提供更多的利益。例如，一些迁徙的蝙蝠在墨西哥中部过冬，在美墨边境度过夏天，在那里它们以困扰棉花作物的害虫为食。美国的棉花收入高于墨西哥，因此食虫蝙蝠提供的生态系统服务价值在美国可能高于墨西哥。不同地点提供的生态系统服务价值的差异可能并不反映不同生境对提供这些服务的物种的重要性。如果一个对物种至关重要的地区的人们没有得到直接的好处，他们可能就没有什么动力去保护关键的栖息地。此外，在该地区的人，收获最大的利益可能会得到补贴的人在第一个位置。该项目将量化这些对迁徙无尾蝙蝠的补贴，并建立一个实施支付系统的框架，该系统可以激励该物种为人类提供较少直接利益的地区的栖息地保护。该项目的更广泛的影响将包括支持一名西班牙裔初级女教师，培训一名少数民族博士后研究人员，指导一名本科生研究人员，开发用于生态系统服务本科生课程的教育工具，以及开发一个对资源管理人员有用的框架。

People benefit from the activities of many species. Examples of these benefits, or ecosystem services, include controlling crop pests, pollinating food plants, and removing contaminants from water and soils. If a species lives where it provides an ecosystem service it may be relatively straightforward to link efforts to protect that species to the benefits that it provides. This linkage may be more difficult for migratory species, which may provide more benefits in one part of their geographic range. For example, some migratory bats overwinter in central Mexico and spend summers in US-Mexico borderlands where they consume pests that plague cotton crops. Cotton revenues are greater in the United States than in Mexico, so the value of ecosystem services provided by insect-eating bats may be greater in the US than in Mexico. Disparities in the value of ecosystem services provided in different locations may not reflect the importance of different habitats to the species providing those services. If people in an area that is critical to the species get no direct benefits, they may have few incentives to conserve critical habitat. Further, people in the area that reaps the most benefit may be getting a subsidy from people in the first location. This project will quantify these subsidies for migratory free-tailed bats and establish a framework for implementing a payment system that can incentivize habitat conservation in areas where the species provide less direct benefit to humans. Broader impacts of this project will include support for a junior female Hispanic faculty member, training of a minority postdoctoral researcher, mentoring of an undergraduate researcher, development of educational tools for use in an undergraduate class on ecosystem services, and development of a framework that should be useful to resource managers.