US-Swaziland Planning Visit: Social and Ecological Drivers Impacting Biodiversity in Southern Africa

该CNIC项目支持规划访问，该访问将允许PI，Samantha Wisely，联合PI，John Stepp和其他来自佛罗里达大学的同事与来自斯威士兰大学和南非克鲁格国家公园的新同事会面，以开发一个多学科研究项目，评估生物多样性，生态系统功能和人类福祉之间的相互关系。随着地球仪生态系统的变化，特别是随着农业用地的扩大，必须了解土地利用的迅速变化如何改变生物多样性和生态系统功能，以及改变的生态系统功能如何反过来影响人们的健康和生计。这次规划访问将准备测试一个概念模型，将生态系统中生态和社会相互关系的原因和后果联系起来。该团队计划研究系统不同组成部分之间的联系，反馈的动态以及组成部分相互作用的尺度，以测试高生物多样性改善人类福祉的一般假设。他们将进行研究规划，以评估三个三元组之间的相互关系：a）植物多样性，药用资源，人类健康和营养，B）哺乳动物多样性，疾病流行率和人类健康，c）授粉者多样性，农业生产力，人类营养和财富。该团队计划在三个不同的国家开展工作，在那里他们将调查农业生态梯度的生物多样性，重点关注三个组成部分：啮齿动物，传粉者和维管植物。该项目将汇集来自非洲和美国的社会学家和生态学家，包括两名美国研究生和几名非洲学生，在生物多样性热点-南部非洲的马普塔兰-庞多兰-奥尔巴尼生物多样性热点-合作研究一个引人注目的社会生态系统，该热点目前由于土地迅速转变为工业化农业而面临失去其高度物种多样性和地方性生物群的危险。更好地理解生物多样性、生态系统功能和人类福祉之间的关系将影响土地使用治理以及个人和文化对生态资源的评价，有助于促进环境可持续性，同时地球准备到2050年养活预计90亿人。

This CNIC project supports a planning visit that will allow the PI, Samantha Wisely, co-PI, John Stepp, and other colleagues from the University of Florida, to meet with new colleagues from the University of Swaziland and Kruger National Park in South Africa to develop a multidisciplinary research project that evaluates the interrelationships between biodiversity, ecosystem functions and human wellbeing. As ecosystems are changing around the globe, especially with expanding land use for agriculture, it is important to understand how rapid changes in land use alter biodiversity and ecosystem functions, and how in turn altered ecosystem functions impact the health and livelihoods of people. This planning visit will prepare to test a conceptual model linking the causes and consequences of ecological and sociological interrelationships in ecosystems. The team plans to study links among different components of the system, the dynamics of the feedbacks, and the scales at which the components interact to test a general hypothesis that high biodiversity improves the wellbeing of people. They will perform the planning for research to evaluate the interrelationship of three triads: a) plant diversity, medicinal resources, and human health and nutrition, b) mammal diversity, disease prevalence, and human health, c) pollinator diversity, agricultural productivity, and human nutrition and wealth. The team plans to conduct work across three different countries where they will survey for biodiversity across agro-ecological gradients looking focusing on three components: rodents, pollinators, and vascular plants. This project will bring together sociologists and ecologists from Africa and the US, including two US graduate students and several African students, to collaborate on a compelling socio-ecological system in a biodiversity hotspot, the Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Biodiversity Hotspot in southern Africa, which is currently in danger of losing its high species diversity and endemic biota due to rapid land conversion to industrialized agriculture. An improved understanding of the relationships among biodiversity, ecosystem function and human wellbeing will impact land use governance and personal and cultural valuations of ecological resources, helping to promote environmental sustainability while the planet prepares to feed a projected 9 billion people by 2050.