IRES: Human-Wildlife Feedbacks in the Mountains of Southwest China

人类社会的发展和工业化对地球生态系统的威胁越来越大，这给全球野生动物种群带来了越来越大的压力。需要跨学科的方法来理清人类活动和野生动物之间复杂的相互作用(反馈)。对反馈的了解可以帮助预测在实施旨在保护野生动物及其栖息地的保护政策后出现的意想不到的、潜在的不利后果。该项目将为15名美国本科生提供难得的机会，在中国西南部山区生物多样性热点的旗舰保护区开展人与野生动物反馈的跨学科研究。2022年至2024年的暑假，三组每组5名学生将在中国度过8周的时间，与四川中国野生动物资源保护重点实验室的专家中国合作。重点实验室是一家全球知名的研究所，在该地区的生物多样性、野生动物生态和保护方面开展开创性研究的历史悠久，包括大熊猫，这是国际保护的标志。学生们还将参加佛罗里达大学的强化培训课程，重点是学习科学方法和磨练职业发展技能。招生将明确倾向于科学领域中代表性不足的群体，以增加他们未来的职业机会。在国外，学生们也将有一个难得的机会沉浸在中国文化中，扩大他们的世界观，从而为他们加入全球国际化的劳动力大军做好更好的准备。关于人类-野生动物反馈的研究很少，这导致了野生动物保护领域的高度不确定性和失败。这项工作试图揭示以前隐藏的影响人类-野生动物反馈的社会和生态机制，以便更好地预测未来不利的保护政策结果。被招募参加IRES项目的15名美国本科生将加入美国PI和中国东道主研究人员合作开展的长期研究项目，这些项目涉及三种主要类型的人类-野生动物反馈。反馈包括(1)森林恢复和野生动植物掠夺之间的复杂相互作用，(2)在家畜饲养中使用抗生素和大熊猫微生物群之间的相互作用，以及(3)非木材林产品(NTFP)收集和野生动物发生之间的相互作用。多样化的相关项目集合将使学生有机会获得实施各种实地和实验室技术(例如，红外相机捕捉、植被调查、标本采集、分子分析和半结构化访谈)的经验，因为他们解决了形成野生动物保护跨学科和系统水平研究的前沿发展的关键问题。因此，该项目将为来自代表性不足背景的学生在全球化世界中追求竞争激烈的科学职业生涯做好独特的准备。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。

The earth’s ecosystems are increasingly threatened by the growth and industrialization of human societies, which places increasing pressure on global wildlife populations. Interdisciplinary approaches are needed to untangle the complex reciprocal interactions (feedbacks) between human activities and wildlife. Knowledge about feedbacks can help predict the unintended, and potentially adverse, consequences that arise in the aftermath of the implementation of conservation policies designed to protect wildlife and their habitats. This IRES program will give 15 U.S. undergraduate students a rare opportunity to conduct interdisciplinary research on human-wildlife feedbacks in flagship protected areas in a biodiversity hotspot in the mountains of southwestern China. Three cohorts of 5 students each will spend 8 weeks in the summers of 2022-2024 in China working with experts at the Key Laboratory of Southwest China Wildlife Resources Conservation in Sichuan, China. The Key Laboratory is a globally renowned institute with a long history of conducting pioneering research on biodiversity, wildlife ecology, and conservation in the region, including on the giant panda, an international icon for conservation. Students will also attend intensive training sessions at the University of Florida that will focus on learning scientific methods and honing professional development skills. Student recruitment will explicitly preference underrepresented groups in the sciences to enhance their future career opportunities. While abroad, students will also have a rare opportunity to be immersed in Chinese culture and expand their worldviews, in turn better preparing them to join the global internationalized workforce.Research on human-wildlife feedbacks is scarce, which contributes to high levels of uncertainty and failure in the wildlife conservation realm. This work seeks to uncover previously hidden social and ecological mechanisms shaping human-wildlife feedbacks to allow for better predictions of adverse conservation policy outcomes in the future. The 15 U.S. undergraduate students who are recruited to participate in this IRES program will join long-term research projects being conducted collaboratively between the US PIs and Chinese host researchers that address three main types of human-wildlife feedbacks. Feedbacks include complex interactions between (1) forest recovery and wildlife crop raiding, (2) antibiotic use in livestock rearing and the microbiome of giant pandas, and (3) interaction between non-timber forest product (NTFP) collection and wildlife occurrence. The diverse collection of interrelated projects will give students the opportunity to gain experience implementing a variety of field and lab techniques (e.g., infrared camera trapping, vegetation surveys, specimen collecting, molecular analyses, and semi-structured interviews) as they tackle key questions that shape cutting-edge development of interdisciplinary and systems-level research on wildlife conservation. The project will thus uniquely prepare students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue competitive careers in science in a globalized world.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.