BoCP-Design: US-China: Interactions between land-use change and island biogeography as drivers of animal community assembly in the Zhoushan and Caribbean Archipelagos

人类改造自然栖息地，如森林和草原，以创造农田和发达地区供人们生活。该项目旨在了解为什么这种人为的栖息地改变会在一些地方造成生物多样性的极端丧失，而另一些地方则更具弹性。一种观点认为，小岛面临的风险尤其大，因为它们只能进化出一小部分物种，这些物种只能利用少数类型的资源或栖息地。相比之下，非常大的岛屿进化出许多物种，至少其中一些物种的专门化要求较低，或许能够在人类改良的环境中繁衍生息。研究人员将验证这样一种假设，即生物多样性在较大岛屿上的人类改造地区保持得更好，正如人类对土地使用的容忍程度的“彩票模型”所预测的那样。与之相关的是，他们将研究物种的进化史是否会影响人类改良地区的生物多样性。具体地说，他们将研究从其他地方来到岛上的物种是否比在相关岛屿上进化的物种更有可能容忍人类改变的环境。了解为什么一些地区更容易失去生物多样性，这将有助于确定保护的优先事项。与之相关的是，了解哪里的生物多样性最容易丧失，将有助于最大限度地利用造福人类的生态系统服务。这项研究将支持本科生和研究生的培训，并促进美国和中国生物多样性研究人员之间的科学合作。为了了解栖息地改变后生物多样性下降最严重的时间和地点，研究人员将研究自然栖息地和人类发达地区的鸟类、爬行动物和两栖动物群落。他们将在加勒比海和舟山群岛的不同大小和孤立的岛屿上这样做(中国)。这一物种群和地理位置的组合使研究人员能够在海岛系统中区分散布良好的物种(鸟类)和散布较差的物种(爬行动物和两栖动物)，在海岛系统中，扩散容易(在舟山，因为岛间距离很小)和困难(在加勒比海，距离很长)。研究人员将使用横断面和长期录音来评估这两个地区56个岛屿上数百个地点的物种发生情况。他们将通过研究遇到的生物的食物和栖息地用途来量化物种的专门化程度。这一奖项反映了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。

Humans modify natural habitats, such as forest and grasslands, to create agricultural fields and developed areas for people to live. This project aims to understand why such human-caused habitat modification causes extreme biodiversity loss in some places, while other places are more resilient. One idea suggests that small islands are especially at risk, because they can only evolve a small set of species that can only use a few types of resources or habitats. In contrast very large islands evolve many species, at least some of which will have less specialized requirements and may be able to prosper in human-modified environments. The researchers will test the hypothesis that biodiversity persists better in human-modified areas on bigger islands, as predicted by a "lottery model" of tolerance to human land-use. Relatedly, they will study if species' evolutionary history affects how much biodiversity remains in human-modified areas. Specifically, they will examine whether species that arrived on an island from elsewhere are more likely to tolerate human-modified environments, in comparison to species that evolved on the island in question. Understanding why some areas are more vulnerable to losing biodiversity will help prioritize places to conserve. Relatedly, knowledge of where biodiversity will be most robust to loss will help maximize use of ecosystem services that benefit people. The research will support undergraduate and graduate student training and promote scientific collaboration between US and Chinese biodiversity researchers.To understand when and where biodiversity declines will be most severe after habitat modification, the researchers will examine communities of birds, reptiles, and amphibians in both natural habitats and human-developed areas. They will do so across islands of different sizes and isolations in both the Caribbean and Zhoushan Archipelagos (China). Together this combination of species groups and locations allows the researchers to distinguish good dispersing species (birds) from poor dispersing ones (reptiles and amphibians) in island systems where dispersal is easy (in Zhoushan, because between-island distances are small) versus hard (in the Caribbean, where distances are long). The researchers will use transects and long-term audio recordings to assess species occurrence over hundreds of locations across 56 islands in the two regions. They will quantify how specialized species are by studying diet and habitat use of the organisms encountered.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.