Coastal SEES (Track 1), Collaborative: Adaptive Capacity, Resilience, and Coral Reef State Shifts in Social-ecological Systems

该项目将评估珊瑚礁社会生态系统的复原力。在过去的几十年里，法属波利尼西亚的太平洋莫雷亚岛周围的珊瑚礁在受到重大扰动的影响后，不断地重新聚集成珊瑚礁。对干扰的复原力是沿海可持续性的一个关键组成部分，因为它使珊瑚礁保持在能够提供关键生态系统服务的状态。考虑到许多地区的珊瑚礁经历了突然的、可能不可逆转的转变，从结构复杂、鱼类丰富的珊瑚为主状态转变为以大型藻类为主、鱼类较少的状态，莫雷亚岛的珊瑚礁的弹性尤其惊人。该项目将通过确定增强复原力的途径，突出新出现的脆弱性，并在沿海地区综合管理和可持续发展规划等领域提出政策倡议，为珊瑚礁更可持续的管理作出贡献。将采用社会科学和自然科学相结合的方法，解决有关沿海系统的复原力、可持续性和适应能力的地方性问题。将制定一个框架，以解决关于莫雷亚社会生态系统的更复杂的问题，这将为其他沿海系统的生态学和社会科学的整合提供一个模式。研究成果将通过利益相关者研讨会广泛传播，研究生将参与工作的各个方面。虽然状态变化的动态对于理解珊瑚礁社会生态系统的弹性和长期可持续性是基本的，但在这些系统中，人为反馈和生态反馈之间的相互作用知之甚少。人口密度高、沿海开发广泛和资源开采密集的系统通常表现出对当地环境变化的重要适应能力的下降。然而，尽管发展迅速，Moorea仍保持着韧性。该项目将探索莫雷拉珊瑚礁社会生态系统中的复杂反馈如何保持其抵御大规模生态扰动的能力。这项研究将涉及社会科学家和自然科学家之间的跨学科合作。人类学田野调查的重点是珊瑚礁利用、传统治理和土著生态知识的人文层面，将记录当地社区如何感知、响应和管理生态系统状态的变化。生态模型将描述珊瑚、藻类和鱼类群落的动态，包括使这些群落容易受到生态系统状态突变影响的反馈。这些组件将被集成到一个系统建模框架中，该框架包括人类和自然社区内部和之间的反馈，定量模拟人类如何根据生态系统状态改变其行为，以及生态系统又如何受到人类活动的影响。一个关键的目标是弥合社会科学家收集的数据和生态学家开发的动态生态系统模型之间的差距，因为这对于理解全球沿海社会生态系统的弹性和长期可持续性至关重要。该项目得到了NSF的海岸SEES(科学、工程和教育促进可持续发展)计划的支持。

This project will assess resilience in a coral reef social-ecological system. Over the last several decades, reefs around the Pacific island of Mo'orea, French Polynesia, have consistently reassembled to coral dominance after being impacted by major perturbations. Resilience to disturbance is a key component of coastal sustainability, as it maintains the reefs in a state capable of providing critical ecosystem services. The resilience of reefs in Mo'orea is particularly striking, given that coral reefs in many regions have experienced abrupt and potentially irreversible shifts from a coral dominated state, with complex structure and a rich fish community, to a macroalgae dominated state with fewer fish. This project will contribute to more sustainable management of coral reefs by identifying pathways that confer resilience, highlighting emerging vulnerabilities, and suggesting policy initiatives in areas such as integrated coastal zone management and sustainable development planning. An integrative social and natural science approach will be employed that addresses place-based questions about resilience, sustainability and adaptive capacity of coastal systems. A framework will be developed for addressing more complex questions about the Mo'orea social-ecological system, and this will provide a model for the integration of ecology and social science in other coastal systems. Research results will be disseminated broadly through stakeholder workshops, and graduate students will be engaged in all aspects of the work.While the dynamics of state shifts are fundamental to understanding the resilience and long-term sustainability of coral reef social-ecological systems, the interplay between anthropogenic and ecological feedbacks is poorly understood in these systems. Systems with high population densities, widespread coastal development and intense resource exploitation typically show declines in the critical adaptive capacities that underpin resilience to local environmental variability. However, Mo'orea has maintained its resilience despite rapid development. This project will explore how the complex feedbacks in the Mo'orea coral reef social-ecological system maintain its capacity to withstand large-scale ecological disturbances. The study will involve interdisciplinary collaboration between social and natural scientists. Anthropological fieldwork focusing on the human dimensions of coral reef use, traditional governance, and indigenous ecological knowledge, will document how local communities perceive, respond to, and manage changes in ecosystem state. Ecological models will describe the dynamics of coral, algal and fish communities, including the feedbacks that make these communities susceptible to abrupt shifts in ecosystem state. These components will be integrated in a systems modeling framework that includes feedbacks both within and between the human and natural communities, quantitatively modeling how humans change their behavior as a function of ecosystem state and how the ecosystem is affected in turn by human activities. A key objective is to bridge the gap between data collected by social scientists and the dynamic ecosystem models developed by ecologists, as this is crucial to understanding the resilience and long-term sustainability of coastal social-ecological systems worldwide.This project is supported under NSF's Coastal SEES (Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability) program.