Belmont Forum Collaborative Research: Scenarios of freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem services in a changing Arctic

GSTDTAP

项目编号	1853805
	Belmont Forum Collaborative Research: Scenarios of freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem services in a changing Arctic
	Leslie Jones (Principal Investigator)
主持机构	University of Alaska Anchorage Campus
项目开始年	2019
	2019-04-15
项目结束日期	2022-03-31
资助机构	US-NSF
项目类别	Continuing grant
项目经费	41269(USD)
国家	美国
语种	英语
英文摘要	Innovative research on the complex interaction of socio-economic and global environmental trends on biodiversity and ecosystem services is needed to help develop more informative scenarios for addressing environmental and human development challenges. To overcome these challenges coupled natural-human systems approaches and analyses are needed. These provide improved scenarios of biodiversity and ecosystem services that couple the outputs of direct and indirect drivers such as land use, invasive species, overexploitation, biodiversity, environmental change, and pollution. The resulting models provide a methodological state-of-the art that results in more accurate quantitative assessments, better land use, and more effective ecosystem services. Employing this methodology, this research project, which is an international coalition between US scientists and those from four other nations with Arctic territories, seeks to evaluate freshwater biodiversity and food web dynamics in the circumpolar Arctic region and their value for people, communities, and the region. For this project, each country provides funds to support their own investigators and their part of the research. This project characterizes the current state of biodiversity along latitudinal gradients (north to south) in the Arctic and uses experiments and computer models to develop change scenarios in response to climate warming because Arctic warming can cause various physical environmental changes, such as permafrost thaw, which can result in changes in water quality, water temperature, food webs, and fish distributions. Shifts in food resources that might result could have large impacts on far north human populations (e.g., subsistence activities, commercial and recreational fisheries, etc.). Through field studies, experiments, modeling, and forecasting, this project develops linkages between climate change, freshwater biodiversity, and consequences for ecosystem services in Arctic freshwaters, all of which have potential socio-economic impacts. Although a large body of literature exists on Arctic freshwater fishery economics, interactions between habitat conditions and the socio-economic consequences of human- and climate-induced changes in the productivity of Arctic lakes and rivers are poorly known. This study fills that gap. Broader impacts of the research include international collaboration between scientists in the US and Denmark/Greenland, Norway, Sweden, and Canada. They also include identifying shifts in biodiversity to assist countries in recognizing early warning signs of climate change-related ecological impacts in the Arctic; assessing economic implications for changes in Arctic biodiversity, something critical to managing regional resources and/or developing science-based policies and regulations; enabling circumpolar harmonization of sampling methods, data storage, and large-scale analysis to promote future circumpolar assessments of biodiversity change; and improving our knowledge and understanding of Arctic food security for native peoples and others in the region who depend on freshwater fisheries. The project also supports a PI from a gender underrepresented in the sciences at an institution in an EPSCoR state (i.e., Alaska), thereby broadening participation of underrepresented groups. This award supports US researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a coalition of 26 funding agencies from 23 countries through the Belmont Forum call for proposals on "Scenarios of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services". The call was a multilateral initiative designed to support research projects that contribute to the development of scenarios, models, and decision-support tools for understanding and solving critical issues facing our planet. The goal of the competition was to improve and apply participatory scenario methods to enhance research relevance and its acceptance and to address gaps in methods for modelling impact drivers and policy interventions. It was also to develop and communicate levels of uncertainty associated with the models, to improve data accessibility and fill gaps in knowledge. Using this methodology, the funded project will address knowledge gaps on the links between biodiversity and ecosystem services in Arctic lakes and rivers. The approach undertaken includes using physical/chemical climate change models to develop biodiversity change scenarios which incorporate multiple trophic levels and predict consequences of biodiversity scenarios to ecosystem services. Specific research objectives include: (1) evaluation of biodiversity and functional trait patterns in relation to environmental drivers and identify biodiversity hotspots in freshwater ecosystems (lakes and rivers) across latitudinal gradients in the Arctic; (2) insight into how direct and indirect drivers related to climate change impact the biodiversity and trait composition of Arctic aquatic food webs, and ultimately fish production; (3) quantifying uncertainty in biodiversity scenarios for Arctic freshwaters through empirical observations and experimental simulations; and (4) assessing the effects of nutrient enrichment and terrestrial land change on community structural and functional measures across latitudinal gradients in North America and Europe. Other approaches include use of bio-economic models to evaluate socio-economic trade-offs and potential shifts in ecosystem services in Arctic lakes and rivers associated with climate change, nutrient enrichment, and resource exploitation; developing assessment criteria that better quantify the ecological change in Arctic lakes and streams and provide strategies for the early detection of new and/or invasive species and that can feed into the development of biodiversity scenarios; and providing information and research results that better inform resource managers, regulators, and policy makers, as well as people who live in the Arctic and the global community concerned about the ongoing change in Arctic freshwater ecosystems. 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.
文献类型	项目
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.173/C666/handle/2XK7JSWQ/213342
专题	环境与发展全球科技态势
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Leslie Jones .Belmont Forum Collaborative Research: Scenarios of freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem services in a changing Arctic.2019.