NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2021: Habitat suitability: ecocultural restoration in the Klamath Basin

Yazzie, Kimberly, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2021, Broadening Participation of Groups Underrepresented in Biology. The Fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow that will increase the participation of groups underrepresented in biology, particularly Karuk youth and Indigenous students at the University of Washington. The Fellow will utilize habitat suitability models to characterize the abundance and distribution of cultural keystone species, willow and salmon, in response to ecocultural restoration and ecological disturbance. The project will assess the effects of Indigenous fire stewardship on climate adaptation to understand how fire promotes diverse landscape values (e.g., cultural foods and basketry) and restores ecological function (e.g., stream temperature). This research will provide insight to ecological resilience and ascertain the effects of disturbance on the landscape, including floods and fire. With the largest dam removal project in U.S. history slated to begin on the Klamath River in 2023, this research is timely. The Fellow will survey pre-dam removal conditions that Tribes can use to prioritize and identify optimal pathways for ecocultural restoration across co-managed landscapes. The Fellow will assess a habitat suitability model framework coupled with place-based science to characterize habitat loss and species diversity of cultural keystone species, plants and salmon, within selected habitat zones identified by the Karuk Tribe in the mid-Klamath basin, California. Spatially explicit data and known occurrences of focal species will be used in the model, including a combination of fine-scale and broad-scale ecologically relevant variables (e.g., topography, soils, geology, climate). The Fellow will use geospatial methods, aerial imagery and drone footage to quantify standing forest composition. Species occurrences will be confirmed with field surveys and independent test locations at different resolutions will determine local-scale model accuracy. The Fellow will assess a) the utility of habitat suitability models to determine that ecocultural restoration activities, cultural burns, increase habitat diversity of focal species, and b) explore the influence of grain and extent in local to broad-scale model predictions of environmental suitability at different site locations. An intergenerational knowledge exchange, co-mentorship and community participation will enhance research interpretation and outcomes. The Fellow will serve as a mentor to tribal youth through a summer internship program and co-develop research materials and publications from this research with the Karuk tribe. 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.