The CIRES Innovative Research Program will begin accepting applications February 11; all materials are due March 25 through this InsideCIRES link.
The IRP is designed to stimulate a creative research environment within CIRES and to encourage synergy between disciplines and research colleagues. The intent is to support small research efforts that can quickly provide concept viability or rule out further consideration. The program encourages novel, unconventional or fundamental research that might otherwise be difficult to fund. Funded projects are inventive, sometimes opportunistic, and do not necessarily have an immediate practical application or guarantee of success. This program supports pilot or exploratory studies, which may provide rapid results. Activities are not tightly restricted and can range from instrument development, lab testing, and field observations to model development, evaluation, and application.
Date
Monday, February 11, 2019 to Monday, March 25, 2019
Solutions for nature and people: bridging the ecological and social dimensions of conservation
by Charlotte Chang, National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, University of Tennessee
Abstract: Achieving conservation success requires a detailed understanding of the dynamics of species and ecosystems. It also requires integrating people and the social motivations that determine how individuals, communities, and institutions interact with ecological systems when seeking to develop conservation solutions. I will show how this integration can be achieved by focusing on the tropical bushmeat crisis as an example. I will illustrate the ubiquity of terrestrial harvesting threats to species, show how models of decision-making behavior link human agents with ecological outcomes, and provide tools and recommendations to improve conservation practice. Measuring compliance with conservation regulations is critical for evaluating conservation success, but it has been challenging to assess in many regions at the forefront of environmental issues. I will show how to quantify non-compliance and I will describe how incorporating human decision-making behavior can lead to more effective conservation management strategies.
Charlotte Chang (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Princeton Univ.) is a Postdoctoral Fellow at NIMBioS. She is exploring the impact of diverse socio-cultural hunting practices as well as the response of hunting pressure to the spatial and temporal distribution of different harvested goods.
Are you a scientist grappling with the question of how to make your research more usable? Join Lisa Dilling, Director of Western Water Assessment, for a public talk on usable science, followed by a panel discussion featuring CU Boulder researchers (CIRES' Jeff Deems, Arnaud Chulliat, and Lise St. Denis) whose science has been used beyond the university. Through the talk and panel discussion, we will explore different pathways to usable science, look at practical considerations and pitfalls, and learn from some of the researchers who have made usable science a major part of their careers.