Doctoral Dissertation Research: Human-Environmental Interactions in Deglaciating Landscapes

博士论文项目研究植物建立和土壤形成在最近冰川消退的高山景观。预计到21世纪末，大多数山地冰川将消失，留下大量无冰土地。人类和生态系统依赖于这些冰川，但随着冰川融化，自然资源（例如，水和牧场、生态系统服务（例如，碳储存），文化身份和旅游业的衰退。然而，这些新的土地提供了研究社会和生态适应的机会。这项研究将展示社区如何适应冰川的消失。其中一项实验将是研究放牧动物在促进冰前地貌形成方面的作用。该项目加强了当地社区、政府实体、非政府组织和跨大陆工作的研究人员之间的伙伴关系，以促进冰前景观社会和生态适应的科学进步。融化的高山冰川暴露出大片新的陆地，本项目调查冰后期生态系统如何为未来无冰川山谷中的当地和下游人口提供不可或缺的服务。这个博士论文项目使用植物物种，土壤肥力和地貌表面的一系列高山景观，冰川融化在过去的一百年的情节研究。通过研究高山植物群落向更高海拔的迁移和生态系统的形成，该研究描述了这些无冰景观中发生的主要过程。该研究还结合了密集采样，无人机（无人机）调查，卫星图像和实验，以测试引入放牧动物是否可以加速生态系统的形成。通过在多个地点应用相同的研究设计，该项目提供了可重复的数据和有关冰川消退景观的社会和生态适应的可推广知识。该奖项反映了NSF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。

The doctoral dissertation project investigates plant establishment and soil formation in recently deglaciated alpine landscapes. Most mountain glaciers are predicted to disappear by the end of the 21st century, leaving significant ice-free land. People and ecosystems depend on these glaciers, but as the glaciers melt, natural resources (e.g., water and pastures, ecosystems services (e.g., carbon storage), cultural identities, and tourism decline. These new lands, however, offer opportunities to study social and ecological adaptations. This study will show how communities adapt to the loss of glaciers. One experiment will be to study the role of grazing animals in enhancing proglacial landscape formation. The project reinforces partnerships between local communities, governmental entities, NGOs, and researchers working across continents to promote scientific advancements of social and ecological adaptations in proglacial landscapes. Melting mountain glaciers are exposing large new land areas and this project investigates how postglacial ecosystems could contribute to indispensable services for local and downstream populations in future glacier-free valleys. This doctoral dissertation project uses plot studies of plant species, soil fertility, and geomorphic surfaces across a range of alpine landscapes where glaciers have melted over the last hundred years. By studying the migration of alpine plant communities to higher elevations and ecosystem formation, the research characterizes the main processes occurring in these ice-free landscapes. The study also combines intensive sampling, UAV (drone) surveys, satellite imagery, and an experiment to test if introducing grazing animals can accelerate ecosystem formation. By applying the same research design in multiple locations, this project provides reproducible data and generalizable knowledge regarding social and ecological adaptations in deglaciating landscapes.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.