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岛屿莫雷阿周围的珊瑚礁在受到重大扰动的影响后，一直在重新聚集，以珊瑚为主。 抗干扰能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。莫雷阿岛珊瑚礁的复原力特别惊人，因为许多地区的珊瑚礁经历了突然和可能不可逆转的转变，从结构复杂、鱼类群落丰富的珊瑚主导状态，转变为鱼类较少的大型藻类主导状态。 该项目将通过确定赋予复原力的途径，突出新出现的脆弱性，并在沿海区综合管理和可持续发展规划等领域提出政策倡议，促进对珊瑚礁进行更可持续的管理。 将采用社会科学和自然科学综合方法，解决基于地点的沿海系统复原力、可持续性和适应能力问题。 一个框架将开发解决更复杂的问题，莫？这将为在其他沿海系统中整合生态学和社会科学提供一个模式。 研究结果将通过利益相关者讲习班广泛传播，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复原力和长期可持续性至关重要，但这些系统中人类和生态反馈之间的相互作用知之甚少。 人口密度高、沿海地区广泛开发和资源开采密集的系统通常会出现关键的适应能力下降，而这种能力是抵御当地环境变化的基础。 不过，三哥？尽管发展迅速，但厄立特里亚仍保持了复原力。 该项目将探讨莫雷阿岛珊瑚礁社会生态系统的复杂反馈如何维持其承受大规模生态干扰的能力。 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。 人类学实地考察侧重于珊瑚礁使用，传统治理和土著生态知识的人类层面，将记录当地社区如何感知，应对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，包括使这些群落易受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，定量建模人类如何改变其行为作为生态系统状态的函数，以及生态系统如何反过来受到人类活动的影响。 一个关键目标是弥合社会科学家收集的数据与生态学家开发的动态生态系统模型之间的差距，因为这对于了解全球沿海社会生态系统的恢复力和长期可持续性至关重要。该项目由NSF的沿海SEES（可持续发展科学、工程和教育）计划支持。

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.