CNH-Ex: Synergies and Feedbacks Between Local Direct Democracy and Large-Scale Biodiversity Conservation Efforts

在美国的大部分地区，本地物种的自然群落大部分仍在保护区内。因此，生物多样性的维持取决于本地野生动物群落对保护的积极性有多大，以及保护对野生动物群落的保护效果有多大。该项目探讨了自然与社会耦合的两种主要替代机制，即由保护组织购买土地或权利，以及通过投票倡议立法。研究人员将比较通过这些不同机制保护的地区的稀有或受威胁的本地植物物种的丰度和倾向于排除本地物种的引进植物的丰度。这项研究还将调查决定是否采取不同类型保护行动的因素。该项目将使用加利福尼亚州作为研究系统，因为这两种机制在该州已被广泛采用，并且可以获得丰富的数据。研究结果将为保护政策提供信息，并有助于指导未来对加州内外本地物种的保护。通过将这项研究与一项让自然保护工作者进入教室和公共论坛的计划结合起来，将加强研究结果的传播。该项目还将培养本科生、博士生和博士后研究员。该项目将研究当地景观、社区和投票特征如何影响保护措施通过的可能性。研究人员还将评估公共倡议在帮助保护生物多样性方面的潜在辅助效益，方法是通过GIS分析和生态实地调查相结合来保护对优先物种重要的生境和保护优先生态系统。该项目将比较通过投票措施保护的地块与通过更传统的保护区获取战略保护的地块对保护生物多样性的贡献。最后，研究人员将应用空间优化方法来评估大规模行为体的土地保护工作如何在未来更有效地补充地方行为体的土地保护工作。

In much of the U.S., natural communities of native species remain largely within protected areas. The maintenance of biodiversity thus relies on how strongly native wildlife communities motivate conservation and on how effectively conservation protects wild communities. This project explores two major alternative mechanisms for this coupling between nature and society, the purchase of lands or rights by conservation organizations and legislation through ballot initiatives. Researchers will compare abundances of rare or threatened native plant species and abundances of introduced plants that tend to exclude native species in areas conserved through these different mechanisms. The study will also investigate the factors that determine whether different types of conservation actions are undertaken. The project will use California as the study system, since both mechanisms have been widely employed in the state, and a rich body of data is available. Results will inform conservation policy and help guide future protection of native species in and beyond California. Dissemination of findings will be enhanced by integration of the study with a program to bring conservation practitioners into classrooms and public forums. The project will also train undergraduate students, a Ph.D. student, and a postdoctoral researcher. This project will examine how local landscape, community and ballot characteristics influence the probability of passage of conservation measures. Researchers will also evaluate the potential ancillary benefits of public initiatives in helping to safeguard biodiversity by protecting habitats that are important for priority species and by protecting priority ecosystems through a combination of GIS analyses and ecological field surveys. The project will contrast the contribution to conserving biodiversity of parcels protected through ballot measures with those protected through a more conventional protected area acquisition strategy. Finally, researchers will apply spatial optimization methods to evaluate how land conservation efforts undertaken by large-scale actors can complement those of local-scale actors more effectively in the future.