CNH-L: Interactive Dynamics of Reef Fisheries and Human Health

珊瑚礁是最具生物多样性的海洋生态系统，为沿海社区提供食物、就业机会和抵御风暴的保护。在许多国家，来自珊瑚礁的食物在支持营养健康方面发挥着关键作用。在最佳条件下，完整的珊瑚礁可以为沿海社区提供充足的食物资源。然而，过度捕捞、污染、环境变化和经济全球化目前正在改变珊瑚礁和周围社区，将珊瑚礁的健康和人们的健康置于危险之中。这项研究试图了解珊瑚礁与人类群落之间的相互作用。该项目寻求确定有效的珊瑚礁管理做法，以促进促进人类营养的海产品消费水平和类型。本科生和研究生、博士后研究人员和当地居民将接受调查珊瑚礁健康、人类健康和渔业管理实践方法的培训。通过这项趋同的研究，研究人员将制定可概括的原则，从而能够和谐地管理渔业和依赖海鲜的人的健康。该奖项将确定导致珊瑚礁食物系统衰落的环境和经济因素。除了填补我们在理解人类健康影响方面的关键空白之外，该项目还将通过经验性地测试某些反馈产生陷阱动态的程度并估计转变的关键驱动因素，来推进社会生态陷阱理论。为了实现这一目标，调查人员将把他们的研究努力与预定的社会经济调查相吻合。该项目提供了一种独特的准实验设计，沿着珊瑚礁健康、市场准入和渔业管理战略的梯度，研究大致独立和孤立但文化相似的地点。研究人员将收集有关渔业管理方法和珊瑚鱼现状的数据，并进行临床健康调查，以确定一个人的饮食中缺乏海鲜可能导致的贫血、肥胖症、糖尿病和其他营养失调的水平。该奖项将解决以下紧迫问题：珊瑚礁过渡的门槛；珊瑚礁渔业的多样性和丰度之间的反馈；以及渔业活动、管理和消费。总而言之，该项目将阐明健康的珊瑚礁转化为健康的人的途径，以及维持健康和可持续的基于珊瑚礁的食物系统的机会。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Coral reefs are the most biologically diverse marine ecosystems and provide food, jobs, and protection from storms for coastal communities. The foods derived from coral reefs play a critical role in supporting nutritional health in many countries. Under optimal conditions, an intact coral reef can provide an abundant supply of food resources to coastal communities. However, overfishing, pollution, environmental change, and economic globalization are currently transforming reefs and the surrounding communities, placing both the health of the reef and the health of people at risk. This research seeks to understand the interactions between coral reefs and human communities. The project seeks to identify effective reef management practices that lead to levels and types of seafood consumption that promote human nutrition. Undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and local inhabitants will be trained in methods of surveying reef health, human health, and fisheries management practices. Through this convergent research, the investigators will develop generalizable principles that can lead to harmonious management of the health of fisheries and seafood-dependent people. This award will identify the environmental and economic factors that lead to the decline in reef-based food systems. In addition to filling key gaps in our understanding of the human health impacts, this project will advance social-ecological trap theory by empirically testing the extent to which certain feedbacks produce trap dynamics and estimating critical drivers of transitions. To accomplish this, the investigators will dovetail their research efforts with a scheduled socio-economic survey. This project offers a unique quasi-experimental design to study roughly independent and isolated yet culturally similar sites, along a gradient of reef health, market access, and fisheries management strategies. Researchers will collect data on fisheries management approaches and the current status of reef fish and conduct clinical health surveys to determine levels of anemia, obesity, diabetes, and other nutritional disorders that can arise from lacking seafood in one's diet. This award will address pressing questions about the thresholds for reef transitions; the feedbacks between the diversity and abundance of reef-based fisheries; and fisheries activities, management, and consumption. Collectively, this project will illuminate the pathways by which healthy reefs translate into healthy people and the opportunities to maintain healthy and sustainable reef-based food systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.