Planning Grant:: Developing a strategic plan and infrastructure needs for the Laguna Bacalar Field Station, Bacalar Mexico

该项目将制定计划，在墨西哥巴卡拉尔建立一个国际、教育和研究实地站和海洋实验室，该实验室位于伯利兹以北30公里处的尤卡坦半岛南部，巴卡拉拉湖岸边。巴卡拉尔湖位于一条全球独一无二的生态考古综合体和环境敏感走廊内，连接着陆地、淡水、河口和海洋系统，人类广泛居住在这条走廊上，可以追溯到3000多年前的玛雅人。作为墨西哥第二大天然湖泊，这个原始的系统也位于主要由席卷尤卡坦半岛的旅游业推动的重大生态变化和社会经济力量的家门口。巴卡拉走廊包含高度动态和多样化的区域地下水流动状况，高生长和低生长的热带森林，茂密的淡水和海洋红树林，活跃的湖下泉水和深水坑，河口，以及1000公里长的中美洲屏障珊瑚礁独特的边缘珊瑚礁区域。科学界几乎不知道，拉古纳还拥有世界上最大、最广泛的活体叠层石复合体，许多人认为它是地球上最早的生命形式之一的活生生的例子。这一生态系统还集中体现了我们这个时代的巨大挑战之一--理解和管理人类活动与脆弱的环境系统之间的相互作用。建立一个国际公认的外勤站不仅将为科学界服务，而且还将为可持续发展提供数据、信息和了解，并为接待来自世界各地的研究人员和研究人员带来经济利益。在技术、研究和教育领域加强当地经济的机会一直很少，但在更广泛的背景下，这些机会是影响墨西哥和美国的持续就业力量的核心。该项目将启动并促进在墨西哥昆塔纳罗奥拉古纳·巴卡拉尔建立一个国际教育和研究实地站的规划。这项规划将由威斯康星大学密尔沃基分校淡水科学学院(SFS)、密歇根州切图马尔南区高等专科学校(ECOSUR)、UNAM生态研究所和密歇根州Municipio Bacalar共同努力。其目标是征求各种科学家、实地考察站管理人员、教育工作者和墨西哥政府团体(市、州、联邦领导人，如全国阿瓜瓜州委员会(科纳瓜))的意见，以确定科学需求和机会，勾勒出强有力的研究议程，确保实施实地考察站发展的最佳规划做法，并确定为具有不同背景的专业人员广泛提供设施的基本要求。该站将为来自一系列机构的科学界提供服务，这些机构的共同兴趣是研究水资源和自然资源领域的地方和国际挑战，包括科学与政策、经济和社会结构的接口研究，具有很强的教育成分，例如STEM计划、墨西哥COBACH高中计划。将通过让工作组参与具有目标产出的工作来实现外地站点规划目标：召开一次国际专题讨论会，总结以前完成的研究，确定新的研究前沿，并进行便利的规划会议，以制定外地站点的未来方向；为区域非专业人员和土著玛雅人举办互动式研讨会；征求成功的野外生物站点和海洋实验室主任和管理人员关于站点管理、预算编制和使用政策的意见和反馈。

This project will lay plans for development of an international, educational and research field station and marine laboratory in Bacalar, Mexico, located in the southern Yucatan Peninsula 30 km north of Belize on the shores of Laguna Bacalar. Laguna Bacalar lies within a globally unique ecological and archeological complex and environmentally sensitive corridor that connects terrestrial, freshwater, estuarine, and marine systems, and that has been extensively inhabited by humans, dating back to the Mayans, for well over 3000 years. As Mexico's second largest natural lake, this pristine system also lies at the doorstep of major ecological changes and socio-economic forces driven largely by tourism that are sweeping the Yucatan Peninsula. The Bacalar corridor contains highly dynamic and diverse regional groundwater flow regimes, high and low growth tropical forests, dense freshwater and marine mangrove forests, active sublacustrine springs and deep cenote sinkholes, estuaries, and unique fringing reef areas of the 1000 km long Mesoamerican barrier coral reef. Virtually unknown to the scientific community, the Laguna also contains the world's largest and most extensive living stromatolite complex, considered by many as living examples of one of the earliest life forms on earth. This ecosystem also epitomizes one of the great challenges of our time - understanding and managing the interactions between human activity and vulnerable environmental systems. Establishment of an internationally recognized field station will not only serve the scientific community, but will also provide the data, information and understanding for sustainable development as well as the economic benefit of hosting research and researchers from around the world. Opportunities to enhance the local economy in the areas of technology, research and education have been rare, but in a broader context such opportunities are at the heart of the ongoing employment forces affecting Mexico and the U.S.This project will initiate and facilitate planning the establishment of an international education and research field station located on Laguna Bacalar, Quintana Roo, Mexico. This planning will be a collaborative effort by the School of Freshwater Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (SFS); El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) at Chetumal, MX; the Institute of Ecology, UNAM; and the Municipio Bacalar, MX. The goal is to solicit input from a variety of scientists, field station managers, educators, and Mexican governmental groups (municipal, state, federal leaders e.g., Comisión Nacional del Agua (CONAGUA)) to delineate scientific needs and opportunities, to outline a robust research agenda, to assure the implementation of the best planning practices for field station development, and to identify the basic requirements for a broadly available facility for professionals with diverse backgrounds. The station will serve the scientific communities from an array of institutions with the common interest of studying local to international challenges in the field of water and natural resources, including interface studies of science with policy, economics, and social structure with a strong educational component e.g., STEM programs, Mexican COBACH high school programs. The field station planning goals will be achieved by engaging working groups with targeted outputs: by convening an international symposium to summarize research previously accomplished, to identify new research frontiers, and to conduct facilitated planning sessions to develop field station future directions; by conducting interactive seminars for regional lay persons and the indigenous Maya; and by soliciting advice and feedback from successful Biological Field Stations and Marine Laboratories (FSML) directors and managers on station management, budgeting, and use policies.