Long-term human environmental impacts in a cross-scale context across the Pacific Coast of North America

了解当前和未来的森林生态系统需要详细了解人类对环境的长期影响。在评估看似荒野或原始的景观时，很少考虑这些对人类长期环境的影响。然而，不考虑人的影响可能会大大低估或高估这些系统的弹性。我的研究计划的总体目标是量化和挑战人类与退化景观相关的已有范式。更具体地说，在今后五年中，我将：(A)生成关于人类影响从居住地(人们居住的地方，从而积累了物理-物质记录)消除的时间序列；(B)量化人类长期环境影响的空间范围和持久性及其对森林构成和生产力的影响；(C)预测未来森林构成和居住地生产力的增长；(D)通过确定转移到陆地环境的营养补贴量、人为火灾历史以及森林生产力的相关变化，量化整个北美西北海岸的碳动态。这项研究将继续与对这项工作的成功至关重要的海尔特苏克和乌伊基努克夫第一民族传统领地的土著和非土著社区发展强有力的伙伴关系。这项工作对进化和生态学领域具有重要意义，因为它正在挑战现有的群落生态学范式，即人类通过将海洋营养补贴中介到陆地环境中，在推动森林生产力模式方面所起的作用。在我们对可持续性和环境问题的思考中，这种长期人类住区对景观有害的观念根深蒂固。这项工作挑战了这一观念。这些结果将为沿海原住民提供关于何时放弃居住地的详细时间序列的重要信息，并提供关于这些森林未来生产力构成的数据。在整个数据收集和外联阶段，通过增加土著参与，特别是与青年的参与，我的团队的研究的影响将得到加强。

Understanding current and future forest ecosystems requires detailed knowledge of long-term human environmental impacts. These long-term human environmental impacts are rarely considered when evaluating seemingly wild' or pristine' landscapes. However, failing to consider the influence of people may greatly under or over-estimate the resilience of these systems. The overall objective of my research program is to quantify and challenge held paradigms of humans being associated with degraded landscapes. More specifically, in the next five years I will: a) generate a time series of when human influence was removed from habitation sites (places where people lived resulting in the accumulation of a physical-material record); b) quantify the spatial extent and persistence of long-term human environmental impacts and their effect on forest composition and productivity; c) predict the future forest composition and productivity growing on habitation sites; and d) quantify carbon dynamics across the Northwestern coast of North America by determining the amount of nutrient subsidies moved into the terrestrial environment, the anthropogenic fire history, and the associated changes in forest productivity. This research will continue developing strong partnerships with Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in the traditional territories of the Heiltsuk and Wuikinuxv First Nations that are critical to the success of this work. This work is of great significance to the field of evolution and ecology, as it is challenging existing community ecology paradigms about the role that humans play in driving patterns of forest productivity by mediating marine nutrient subsidies into terrestrial environments. This notion of long-term human settlement being detrimental to the landscape is entrenched in our thinking about issues of sustainability and environmental issues. This works challenges that notion. These results will contribute important information for the Coastal First Nations with a detailed time series of when habitation sites were abandoned and provide data on the future composition of productivity of these forests. The impact of my team's research will be enhanced by increasing Indigenous engagement, especially with youth, throughout the data collection and outreach stages.