IRES: Human-Wildlife Feedbacks in the Mountains of Southwest China

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

The earth’s ecosystems are increasingly threatened by the growth and industrialization of human societies, which places increasing pressure on global wildlife populations. Interdisciplinary approaches are needed to untangle the complex reciprocal interactions (feedbacks) between human activities and wildlife. Knowledge about feedbacks can help predict the unintended, and potentially adverse, consequences that arise in the aftermath of the implementation of conservation policies designed to protect wildlife and their habitats. This IRES program will give 15 U.S. undergraduate students a rare opportunity to conduct interdisciplinary research on human-wildlife feedbacks in flagship protected areas in a biodiversity hotspot in the mountains of southwestern China. Three cohorts of 5 students each will spend 8 weeks in the summers of 2022-2024 in China working with experts at the Key Laboratory of Southwest China Wildlife Resources Conservation in Sichuan, China. The Key Laboratory is a globally renowned institute with a long history of conducting pioneering research on biodiversity, wildlife ecology, and conservation in the region, including on the giant panda, an international icon for conservation. Students will also attend intensive training sessions at the University of Florida that will focus on learning scientific methods and honing professional development skills. Student recruitment will explicitly preference underrepresented groups in the sciences to enhance their future career opportunities. While abroad, students will also have a rare opportunity to be immersed in Chinese culture and expand their worldviews, in turn better preparing them to join the global internationalized workforce. Research on human-wildlife feedbacks is scarce, which contributes to high levels of uncertainty and failure in the wildlife conservation realm. This work seeks to uncover previously hidden social and ecological mechanisms shaping human-wildlife feedbacks to allow for better predictions of adverse conservation policy outcomes in the future. The 15 U.S. undergraduate students who are recruited to participate in this IRES program will join long-term research projects being conducted collaboratively between the US PIs and Chinese host researchers that address three main types of human-wildlife feedbacks. Feedbacks include complex interactions between (1) forest recovery and wildlife crop raiding, (2) antibiotic use in livestock rearing and the microbiome of giant pandas, and (3) interaction between non-timber forest product (NTFP) collection and wildlife occurrence. The diverse collection of interrelated projects will give students the opportunity to gain experience implementing a variety of field and lab techniques (e.g., infrared camera trapping, vegetation surveys, specimen collecting, molecular analyses, and semi-structured interviews) as they tackle key questions that shape cutting-edge development of interdisciplinary and systems-level research on wildlife conservation. The project will thus uniquely prepare students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue competitive careers in science in a globalized world. 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.