Belmont Forum Collaborative Research: Understanding and managing the Impacts of Invasive alien species on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

需要对社会经济和全球环境趋势对生物多样性和生态系统服务的复杂相互作用进行创新研究，以帮助开发更多信息丰富的情景，以应对环境和人类发展挑战。为了克服这些挑战，需要结合自然-人类系统的方法和分析。这些方案提供了生物多样性和生态系统服务的改进情景，将土地利用、入侵物种、过度开发、生物多样性、环境变化和污染等直接和间接驱动因素的产出结合起来。由此产生的模型提供了一种最先进的方法，可以实现更准确的定量评估、更好的土地利用和更有效的生态系统服务。采用这种方法，这项由美国科学家和来自四个欧洲国家的科学家组成的国际联盟的研究，试图预测与北美和欧洲生态系统的气候变化有关的陆地植物和海洋生物的新入侵。这一点很重要，因为外来入侵物种是物种灭绝和生态系统退化的重要驱动因素。因此，将它们引入新环境几乎总是对生态系统服务和人类福祉产生负面影响。这项研究将气候变化作为一个驱动因素，因为现在有重要的文献表明，大量物种的活动范围正在随着气温的升高而变化。这创造了一种入侵，不同于通过人类学或其他手段造成的物质运输。预防和/或遏制新物种入侵是入侵物种管理的第一个也是最有效的阶段。然而，只有在潜在的入侵者到来之前能够识别并优先进行管理，它才有效。本研究的目标是确定可能的陆地计划和海洋生物物种入侵，并通过将科学家和利益相关者聚集在一起的参与性过程制定预防方案。这项工作的结果将包括一个可搜索的潜在入侵者及其可能的生态和社会经济影响数据库，以帮助管理者和决策者优先考虑干预的高风险物种。这项工作的更广泛影响包括研究支持对有问题的外来入侵物种的主动监管和管理，特别是那些随着气候变化预计将入侵并蔓延到美国和欧洲的物种。这项工作的更广泛影响包括美国与法国、德国、西班牙和瑞士之间的国际合作。每个国家都将资助本国科学家开展的部分工作。该项目具有很强的社会效益，因为入侵物种对经济和环境以及生态系统和不同地区维持有益的生物多样性都有严重的影响。该项目的结果将有助于决策者、工业界和其他有关各方更好地了解这种入侵的可能影响，并更有效和高效地探索可能的缓解做法和政策。方案指出，该项目注意到性别问题及其对扩大参与的影响，因为它有一个性别平衡的小组（4名女性和4名男性pi）。它还具有强大的跨学科学生培训组成部分。该奖项支持参与由来自23个国家的26个资助机构组成的联盟通过贝尔蒙特论坛征集“生物多样性和生态系统服务情景”提案竞争性选择的项目的美国研究人员。该呼吁是一项多边倡议，旨在支持有助于开发情景、模型和决策支持工具的研究项目，以了解和解决我们星球面临的关键问题。竞赛的目标是改进和应用参与式情景方法，以提高研究的相关性和接受度，并解决影响驱动因素和政策干预建模方法方面的差距。它还开发和交流与模型相关的不确定性水平，以改善数据可访问性并填补知识空白。利用这一方法，本研究旨在了解和预测外来入侵物种对生物多样性和生态系统服务的多方面影响，并为其管理提供工具。这项国际合作的美国部分侧重于预测外来入侵和本地范围转移物种的影响。任务包括建立一个关于100种陆地植物和250种海洋植物的生态和社会经济影响的数据库。数据将补充来自高度优先但目前尚未充分研究的入侵水生物种的实地实验的额外经验数据。所得数据将与现有的一项国际议定书（外来分类群环境影响分类；EICAT）一起使用，以审查入侵的陆地植物和海洋生物对当地社区、农业系统和人类健康的潜在影响。将对评估方案进行调整，以考虑有害和有益的影响。空间规划工具将用于评估预防和减轻入侵的不同管理和政策方案的成本和收益。分析结果将用于开发生物多样性和生态系统服务的情景和模型，为资源管理者和决策者提供关于跨多个生态系统和地理尺度入侵物种可能管理的信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Innovative research on the complex interaction of socio-economic and global environmental trends on biodiversity and ecosystem services is needed to help develop more informative scenarios for addressing environmental and human development challenges. To overcome these challenges coupled natural-human systems approaches and analyses are needed. These provide improved scenarios of biodiversity and ecosystem services that couple the outputs of direct and indirect drivers such as land use, invasive species, overexploitation, biodiversity, environmental change, and pollution. The resulting models provide a methodological state-of-the art that results in more accurate quantitative assessments, better land use, and more effective ecosystem services. Employing this methodology, this research, which is an international coalition between US scientists and those from four European nations, seeks to predict new invasions of terrestrial plants and marine organisms that are linked to climate change in North America and Europe ecosystems. This is important because invasive alien species are significant drivers of species extinction and ecosystem degradation. Thus, their introduction into a new environment, almost always, negatively impacts ecosystem services and human well-being. This research targets climate change as a driver because there is now significant documentation that a large number of species' ranges are shifting in response to warming temperatures. This creates a type of invasion that is different from that caused by physical transportation via anthropological or other means. Prevention and/or containment of new species invasions is the first and most effective stage of invasive species management. However, it is only effective if potential invaders can be identified and prioritized for management before they arrive. Goals of this research are to identify likely terrestrial plan and marine organism species invasions and develop scenarios to prevent them via a participatory process that brings together scientists and stakeholders. Results of the work will include a searchable database of potential invaders and their probable ecological and socio-economic impacts to help managers and policymakers to prioritize high-risk species for intervention. Broader impacts of the work include research that supports proactive regulation and management of problematic alien invasive species, particularly those expected to invade and spread across the United States and Europe, as the climate changes. Broader impacts of the work include international collaboration between the US and France, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland. Each country will fund the component of the work carried out by its scientists. The project has strong societal benefits because invasive species have serious impacts economically and environmentally, as well as in terms of ecosystems and different regions maintaining beneficial biodiversity. Results of the project will help policy makers, industry, and other interested parties better understand possible implications of such invasions and more effectively and efficiently explore possible mitigation practices and policies. The Program notes the project is attentive to gender issues and the impact it has on broadening participation by having a gender-balanced team (4 female and 4 male PIs). It also has a strong transdisciplinary student training component.This award supports US researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a coalition of 26 funding agencies from 23 countries through the Belmont Forum call for proposals on "Scenarios of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services". The call was a multilateral initiative designed to support research projects that contribute to the development of scenarios, models, and decision-support tools for understanding and solving critical issues facing our planet. The goal of the competition was to improve and apply participatory scenario methods to enhance research relevance and its acceptance and to address gaps in methods for modelling impact drivers and policy interventions. It was also to develop and communicate levels of uncertainty associated with the models, to improve data accessibility and fill gaps in knowledge. Using this methodology, this research seeks to understand and anticipate the multi-faceted impacts of invasive alien species on biodiversity and ecosystem services and to provide tools for their management. The US component of this international collaboration focuses on predicting impacts of alien invasive and native range-shifting species. Tasks include the creation of a database of the ecological and socio-economic impacts of 100 terrestrial plants and 250 marine species. Data will be supplemented with additional empirical data from field experiments of high priority, yet presently understudied, invasive aquatic species. The resulting data will be used, in conjunction with an existing international protocol (the Environmental Impact Classification of Alien Taxa; EICAT), to examine the potential impacts of invasive terrestrial plants and marine organisms on native communities, agricultural systems, and human health. The assessment protocol will be adapted to consider both detrimental and beneficial impacts. Spatial planning tools will be used to evaluate the costs and benefits of different management and policy scenarios for preventing and mitigating invasions. Results of the analysis will be used to develop scenarios and models of biodiversity and ecosystem services to inform resource managers and policy makers about possible management of invasive species across multiple ecosystems and geographic scales.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.