BLADEN: Biodiversity and the Legacy of Anthropogenic Disturbance on Ecosystems in the Neotropics

人类如何塑造了热带森林的组成和结构，以及生物多样性如何在人类干扰后恢复，这些都缺乏长期的观察。BLADEN将通过确定13000年来中美洲热带森林对生物多样性的人为影响来解决这一关键的知识缺口。热带森林的破坏和生物多样性的丧失是人类面临的最大挑战之一，威胁到基本的生态系统服务，包括粮食安全、药品供应和地球气候调节。开发数据集来了解人类如何塑造生态系统以及生物多样性如何在干扰后恢复，对于明智的保护策略和确保全球未来至关重要。尽管有大量证据表明过去的景观影响，但自然再生过程对干扰的类型、强度和持续时间的响应缺乏数据。BLADEN将填补这一知识空白。这个为期5年的多学科项目以高空间和时间分辨率结合了伯利兹南部Bladen自然保护区过去和现代的生物多样性指标。该研究将评估与古玛雅及其祖先有关的过去干扰范围的影响，以确定过去植被管理与现代森林组成和关键树种基因组变异的关系。我的丰富经验和成功利用了热带地区人为干扰的新代理，使我处于领导这项跨学科研究的优越地位。该项目的结果将揭示人类是如何塑造热带森林的，并为自然再生的有效性提供关键的基线数据，以恢复生物多样性，以应对一系列人类干扰。

How humans have shaped tropical forest composition and structure, and how biodiversity recovers followinghuman disturbance lacks long-term observations. BLADEN will address this critical knowledge gap bydetermining anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity in a Mesoamerican tropical forest over 13,000 years. Thedestruction of tropical forests and loss of biodiversity is one of the greatest challenges humanity faces,threatening essential ecosystem services, including food security, the provisioning of medicines and theregulation of Earth's climate. Developing datasets to understand how humans shaped ecosystems and howbiodiversity recovers following disturbance is critical for informed conservation strategies and securingglobal futures. Despite extensive evidence of past landscape impacts, processes of natural regeneration inresponse to the type, intensity, and duration of disturbance lack data. BLADEN will fill this knowledge gap.The multidisciplinary 5-year project couples past and modern biodiversity indicators at high spatial andchronological resolution in the Bladen Nature Reserve, southern Belize. The study will assess the influenceof the range of past disturbances associated with the ancient Maya and their forebears to determinecorrelations of past vegetation management with modern forest composition and genomic variation in keytree species. My broad experience and successes leveraging novel proxies of human disturbance in theNeotropics place me in a privileged position to lead this interdisciplinary study. The results of the projectwill reveal insight into how humans have shaped tropical forests and provide critical baseline data on theeffectiveness of natural regeneration to restore biodiversity in response to the range of human disturbances.