Jianguo Liu - US grants

LIU 9702684 In this CAREER award, the investigator will use a systems approach to determine the effect of four major human activities - timber harvesting, fuelwood collection, house building, and construction of hydroelectric stations - on panda habitat in the Wolong Nature Reserve, China. The PI will 1) assess the spatio-temporal interrelationships of multiple human activities; 2) evaluate land cover change and survey vegetation and panda habitat conditions along gradients of human activities; and 3) develop a spatially explicit landscape simulation model that predicts multi-scale interactions and ecological consequences of human activities. The research will provide important insights into understanding the relationship between multiple human activities and wildlife habitat dynamics. The proposed research will be tightly integrated with educating future leaders in landscape ecology. The trainees will gain international research experience and will learn leadership skills by being key members of the organizing committee for the 1998 US-IALE Landscape Ecology Conference. The PI will also incorporate the research methods and results into three courses so that many students can benefit from the research activity. The interrelated research and educational activities will help students fully prepare for their professional careers and add a significant dimension to their understanding and solution of complex global ecological problems.

This project proposes to examine spatial and temporal linkages between human population and the environment in the Wolong Nature Reserve in China. Wolong is the largest reserve for conserving the world-famous endangered giant pandas. It also has more than 4000 local residents. The human population is organized around households (942 in 1998), which traditionally included several generations living together, but this tradition is being broken up. Since 1975, Wolong's human population has grown 66 percent, but the number of households has increased 115 percent. Each household garners resources needed to live, particularly fuelwood for cooking and heating, from the surrounding landscape. In this study, we view population-environment interactions as the interrelationships among five major components: human population, forests, giant panda habitats, socioeconomic and institutional factors, and government policies. Forests and giant panda habitats represent the environment, whereas socioeconomic and institutional contextual factors and government policies influence how human population and the environment interact with each other. Fuelwood consumption by local residents is now the single most important human factor affecting forests and subsequently giant panda habitats (forests are an important component of the panda habitats with trees as covers and bamboo as staple food). Thus, we treat fuelwood consumption as the main linkage between human population and the environment. We will take a systems approach to address five interrelated specific aims: (1) to understand human population processes and dynamics, (2) to examine the relationships between fuelwood consumption and household demography, (3) to identify spatial interactions between population and the environment, (4) to analyze reciprocal effects of population and the environment, and (5) to predict long-term spatial dynamics of population-environment interactions under different policy scenarios. To achieve these aims, we will use and integrate extensive household and socioeconomic surveys, interviews with local officials and residents, collection of historical data, field observations and measurements, data from previous and ongoing studies, statistical tools (e.g., event history analysis, multilevel modeling, logistic regression), graph theory and network analysis, spatial technologies (geographic information systems, remote sensing, and global positioning systems), and systems modeling and simulation. The completion of our proposed project will have significant implications for population- environment interaction theories, methods, and applications.

Human activities are widely recognized as a major force behind rapid landscape changes and loss of biodiversity around the world, including those in numerous nature reserves. Many studies have found that government policies can significantly shape human activities, but most of those studies have focused on a single policy at a time and ignored the interactive effects among various policies. Little is known about the complex interactions among the effects of multiple policies on the spatial-temporal dynamics of biodiversity such as wildlife habitat. Studying the interrelationships of various policies for biodiversity conservation is critical and urgent because multiple policies often are implemented simultaneously. These policies may be nonlinearly complementary or counterproductive. An excellent site for studying such interactions is Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province in southwestern China. The reserve, which is 200,000 hectares in size, is one of the largest homes to world-famous endangered giant pandas and several thousand other animal and plant species. There are also more than 4,000 local residents and a variety of human activities in the reserve, such as farming and fuelwood collection. Since the establishment of the reserve in 1975, human population size has increased by more than 70 percent. This rapidly increasing human population plays a novel and unique role in degrading the pandas' habitat. To prevent further degradation of panda habitat and promote habitat restoration, the Chinese government is implementing three conservation policies in the reserve: an eco-hydropower plant program (to eliminate fuelwood consumption), a natural forest conservation program (to prevent illegal forest harvesting), and a grain-to-green program (to return cropland to forest). The interactive effects of these policies on local people and panda habitat are uncertain, however. The objectives of this research project are (1) to assess the interactions among the three policies and local residents; (2) to evaluate the interrelationships between local residents and panda habitat; (3) to examine the need for and feasibility of policy modification and improvement; and (4) to model and simulate multi-scale interactions among policies, people, and panda habitat across space and time. The methods to be used in this study include field observations, face-to-face interviews with stakeholders, geographical information systems, remote sensing, global positioning systems, statistical tools, systems modeling and simulation, and advanced computer visualization techniques. In addition to addressing many fundamental ecological and socioeconomic questions, the research will be tightly integrated with the education of students from elementary school to graduate school as well as outreach to various stakeholders from local to international levels.

The project will have significant implications for biocomplexity theory, methodology, and application. In terms of theory, this project will shed light on complex patterns and interrelated processes (e.g., nonlinearity, thresholds, feedback, uncertainty) among multiple policies, humans, and wildlife habitat at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Regarding methodology, the research will take a systems approach by integrating multidisciplinary methods and advanced technologies to investigate the complexity of the study system. With respect to application, the project will provide practical information for conserving panda habitat in Wolong, and it will provide useful insights for designing and improving policies that attempt to balance the needs of biodiversity conservation and economic development in the world's most populous nation. The findings also will be of general interest to many other parts of the world because of escalating human pressures and increasingly complicated human-nature interactions. This project is supported by an award resulting from the FY 2002 special competition in Biocomplexity in the Environment focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.

0729709
Axinn
PIRE: Collaborative Research and Training in Social Context, Population Processes, and Environmental Change

This Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE) brings together researchers and students from five U.S. universities and four institutions in Nepal and China to undertake comparative studies on the dynamics of population-environment interaction. Principal investigator, William Axinn of the University of Michigan and colleagues from Michigan State University, San Diego State University, the University of North Carolina, and Arizona State University will collaborate with Nepalese partners from the Institute for Social and Environmental Research and Tribhuvan University's Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, and with Chinese partners from the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Wolong Nature Reserve. The field sites in Nepal and China are two high-profile settings where large, growing populations, rapidly changing economies, unique biodiversity and complex institutional structures offer exceptional research and educational opportunities.

The five-year plan for collaborative research focuses on improving understanding of patterns and processes affecting vegetation and habitats for three endangered species (pandas, rhinos, and tigers), achieving cross-case comparisons of the dynamics of population-environment interaction for Nepal and China, and establishing widely applicable tools needed to make such comparisons in other settings. The educational objectives of the collaboration will draw upon the intellectual and physical resources of each partner to train a next generation of scientists skilled in conducting new international cross-case comparisons of the human-environment interaction. This activity provides a unique international research and training experience for forty U.S. graduate and twelve undergraduate students. Educational and research activities are closely integrated with a focus on learning and practicing concepts and methods needed to bridge key disciplines and foster international collaboration while pursuing compelling research questions.

Detailed single site case studies that provide micro-level information have greatly advanced knowledge about human-environment interaction, but cross-case comparison is now an extremely high scientific priority needed for better understanding of global environmental change. Specifically, the strengths of the Nepal case study, which is rich in dynamic measurements of community context will be applied to the China case study. Likewise, the strengths of the China case study, the analysis of remote sensing data and agent-based modeling to study forest and habitat dynamics, will be applied to the Nepal study. The integration will increase the comparability of data and methods across these important cases and the cross-fertilization of research among different case studies will enhance the value of each case study. More importantly, this work will enable the comparative study of human-environment interaction that pushes the field past singular case studies toward multilateral research designs.

This project has the potential to greatly accelerate investigation of important environmental change, ultimately helping to identify effective strategies for preserving biodiversity. The findings are expected to identify models of studying human-environment interaction that transfer across settings to link various studies in a mutually beneficial manner. Further, this project will train a new generation of scientists pioneering international cross-case comparisons of population-environment interactions. Such scientists will be crucial in the coming decades to integrate detailed understandings of specific cases into studies of global environmental change.

This award is funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering together with the
Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences.

Successfully balancing wildlife conservation and human well-being requires sound knowledge of processes operating not only within a particular coupled human-natural system, such as a nature reserve, but also of processes operating across system boundaries. While our understanding of biophysical cross-boundary processes, such as nutrient flows and invasions of exotic species, has improved markedly over the past decade, work on social processes is urgently needed. Two increasingly important cross-boundary social processes impacting nature reserves around the world are rural-urban labor migration (migration of residents from rural areas for urban employment opportunities) and ecotourism (nature-based tourism in rural areas often by city dwellers). These phenomena are especially critical and rapidly evolving in developing countries such as China, which are experiencing unprecedented increases in human mobility due to economic development over the past three decades. However, little is known about the interactive effects of migration and ecotourism on human-nature dynamics. This project will contribute to a better understanding of the effects of these interacting processes on the coupled human-natural system (forests/panda habitat and local residents) in the Wolong Nature Reserve, the flagship reserve for conservation of the world-famous endangered Giant Pandas of China. The project will take a systems approach to address four interrelated objectives: (1) evaluate the effects of ecotourism on the coupled human-natural system; (2) assess the effects of labor migration on the coupled human-natural system; (3) understand the interactive effects of labor migration and ecotourism on the coupled human-natural system, and (4) model and simulate the long-term effects of migration and ecotourism on the coupled human-natural system. The methods to be used in this study include field observations, face-to-face interviews with stakeholders, geographic information systems, remote sensing, global positioning systems, statistical tools, and systems modeling and simulation. The project will tightly integrate research with both formal education from K-12 to graduate school, and with engagement of stakeholders and the general public from local to international levels.

This project will contribute to the theoretical understanding of complex human-natural system dynamics, concentrating on crucial characteristics such as nonlinearity, thresholds, feedbacks, and uncertainty that are shaped by cross-boundary processes. The project will also make methodological contributions by advancing the state-of-the-art in agent-based modeling in producing a web-accessible model exploring the complexity of cross-boundary processes. With respect to the application of research results, the project will contribute to improved policy for the conservation of panda habitat in Wolong, providing insight for designing policies that balance the needs of panda conservation and economic development in the world''s most populous nation. The findings will also be of general interest to many other systems due to escalating cross-boundary processes around the world and the urgent need to develop effective policies for addressing increasingly complex human-nature dynamics.

Coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) are integrated systems in which humans and natural components interact. CHANS research recently has emerged as an exciting and integrative field of cross-disciplinary scientific inquiry, with research projects covering a variety of coupled systems in locations spanning the globe. Until now, however, this type of research has largely been undertaken in the traditional mode of individual projects, each focused on one or a small number of sites. Although these individual projects have generated many important insights, it is essential to systematically transform the field to be more than the sum of its parts and to provide broader insights of greater scientific and societal significance than those resulting from individual projects alone. This project aims to foster that transformation by developing an international network of research on CHANS (CHANS-Net) to facilitate communication and collaboration among members of the CHANS research community (e.g., ecologists, social scientists, geoscientists, and engineers). CHANS-Net has four interrelated objectives: (1) To promote communication and collaboration across the CHANS community through virtual interaction; (2) To facilitate communication and collaboration through face-to-face interaction; (3) To generate and disseminate comparative and synthesis scholarship on CHANS complexity; and (4) To strengthen, broaden and diversify the CHANS community. These objectives will be achieved through a series of activities, including the creation of a state-of-the-art web-based Virtual Resource Center to offer timely exchange and dissemination of important information, the organization of symposia and workshops to compare and synthesize the latest research findings and methods on CHANS complexity across various research sites, the publication of first-rate comparative and synthesis results on CHANS complexity, and the establishment of a CHANS Fellows program to enable the participation of students and junior researchers in CHANS-Net activities, with particular efforts to encourage the participation from underrepresented groups.

The project will advance discovery and understanding of CHANS complexity by enhancing communication and collaboration across the CHANS community. It will elevate CHANS science to a higher level of synthesis by taking advantage of the knowledge and strengths of the site-based CHANS research. It will offer useful information for researchers in various fields and other people from around the world who are interested in CHANS. It will further stimulate interest in CHANS research and increase the number and the effectiveness of scholars pursuing CHANS research. In addition to the production of scholarly synthesis, this project will yield many other very important products, such as the identification of research gaps and priorities, improvement in methods for rigorous comparative analyses across site-based CHANS studies, training of a new generation of leaders in CHANS research, and building of professional relationships that will lead to longer, deeper, and broader collaboration in the future. This project is supported by the NSF Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) Program.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): ABSTRACT: Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is the most common chronic autoimmune inflammatory disease in childhood. Lower IL-10 production in patients with the -1082A/-819T/-592A (ATA) IL-10 promoter genotype can lead to excessive inflammatory responses with more severe arthritis, suggesting a direct association of IL-10 gene variants with JIA. Recently, we identified poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP-1) as a novel transcriptional repressor of IL-10 gene expression with enhanced binding affinity for the ATA IL-10 promoter genotype. Therefore, we hypothesize that PARP-1-mediated suppression of IL-10 production is important for the pathogenesis of JIA, and that removing this suppression could result in effective therapies for treating patients with JIA. IL-10 is a pleiotropic cytokine produced by a variety of immune cells including T cells, B cells, macrophages and dendritic cells. It inhibits the production of proinflammatory cytokines and suppresses the effects of proinflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-a (TNF-a). PARP-1 is a highly conserved nuclear zinc- finger protein involved in DNA repair, chromatin decondensation and gene expression. Our recent work has demonstrated that PARP-1 binding to the IL-10 promoter is enhanced by the -592A sequence polymorphism, and that over-expression of PARP-1 results in lower IL-10 production in human macrophages. However, the mechanistic details of how IL-10 is regulated by PARP-1 are unknown, and must be elucidated in order to develop new therapies based on targeting PARP-1. Therefore, in this project, we will: (1) elucidate the mechanistic detail of how PARP-1 regulates IL-10 gene expression at the molecular level. (2) develop methods capable of reversing PARP-1-mediated suppression of IL-10 production in JIA patients expressing the ATA IL-10 promoter genotype. This study will enable us to identify key steps in the regulatory pathway that may be explored as potential targets of therapeutic intervention in JIA. Moreover, the proposed investigation into ways to inhibit PARP-1 activity in JIA patients'blood cells of the susceptible type may eventually help correct their IL-10 production deficit, thus restoring the patients'own immune capacity to control arthritic inflammation. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: RELEVANCE Elucidation of the molecular mechanisms whereby PARP-1 regulates IL-10 gene expression will enable us identify key steps in the regulatory pathway that may be explored as potential targets of therapeutic intervention in juvenile arthritis. Moreover, the proposed investigation into ways to inhibit PARP-1 activity in arthritis patients'blood cells may eventually help correct their IL-10 production deficit, thus restoring the patients'own immune capacity to control arthritic inflammation.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Breast cancer is the most common type of malignant tumor among women in North America. Higher CCL5 production in breast cancer patients is associated with more progressive disease, indicating an important role of CCL5 in breast cancer progression. Recently, we have found that CCL5 deficient mice are highly resistant to mammary tumor growth and metastasis, with decreased numbers of macrophages infiltrated in the tumor. Therefore, we hypothesize that host CCL5 promotes mammary gland tumor progression by attracting macrophages migrated into the tumor. Blocking CCL5 signaling in a tumor-bearing host may serve as a new therapeutic target for breast cancer treatments. CCL5 is a chemokine produced by a variety of cells, including T cells, macrophages, fibroblasts and tumor cells. It plays an important role in inflammation by recruiting T cells, macrophages and eosinophils to inflammatory sites. CCL5 has been shown to be able to help in tumor angiogenesis, inhibit T cell responses and enhance growth of breast cancers. Using a syngeneic mammary tumor model, a recent study demonstrates that tumor-derived CCL5 is dispensable for tumor progression, suggesting it is the host-derived CCL5 which is important for breast cancer growth and metastasis. Our preliminary data demonstrates that mice genetically deficient in CCL5 (CCL5-KO) are resistant to tumor-induced death and develop few lung metastases. Consistent with these findings, neutralization of CCL5 in wild-type mice suppresses tumor growth and lung metastases. Further analyses of tumors by flow cytometry and immunofluorescence staining reveal a significant decrease of macrophages in the tumors of CCL5-KO mice. Our data provides direct evidence for the first time that host-derived CCL5 is essential for mammary tumor growth and metastasis. Since the mechanisms of host-derived CCL5 in promoting mammary tumor progression are largely unknown, we propose to investigate the mechanisms whereby host-derived CCL5 mediates macrophage infiltration into the tumors and the molecular mechanisms by which tumor cells induce CCL5 expression in host macrophages. Our long-term goal is to elucidate the cellular, molecular and immunologic mechanisms by which host CCL5 promotes breast cancer growth and metastasis, and to ultimately develop therapeutic agents that target CCL5 in a tumor-specific manner. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Breast cancer is the most common type of malignant tumor among women in North America. Higher CCL5 production in breast cancer patients is associated with more progressive disease, indicating an important role of CCL5 in breast cancer progression. Our goal is to elucidate the cellular, molecular and immunologic mechanisms by which host CCL5 promotes breast cancer growth and metastasis, and to ultimately develop therapeutic agents that target CCL5 in a tumor-specific manner.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Expression of tumor-promoting factors such as cytokines and lipid molecules from tumor cells play critical roles in tumor growth and metastasis. However, the mechanisms by which tumor cells produce these factors are still largely unknown. Recently, we have found that the expression of tristetraprolin (TTP), a zinc finger protein promoting mRNA decay of many target genes, is markedly reduced in breast tumors and tumor cells. More importantly, TTP deficient mice show increased metastases and reduced survival in a mouse mammary gland tumor model. Therefore, we hypothesize that the impaired TTP expression in breast tumor cells promotes tumor metastases via enhancing expression of tumor-promoting factors. TTP may serve as a novel therapeutic target for breast cancer treatment. TTP is a member of CCCH tandem zinc finger proteins and involved in the regulation of inflammatory responses at the post-transcriptional level. TTP binds to adenine-uridine-rich elements (AREs) within the 3' untranslated region (3'UTR) causing destabilization of mRNAs encoding TNF-1, GM-CSF, et al. Overproduction of the proinflammatory cytokines in TTP knockout mice results in a severe systemic inflammatory response including arthritis, autoimmunity and myeloid hyperplasia. Collectively, all evidence indicates that TTP is a critical protein involved in the control of inflammation and maintenance of homeostasis. We recently found that the reduced TTP expression in breast tumors was correlated with increased Th17 cells and enhanced IL-23 expression in the tumor microenvironment. IL-23 has been shown to play an important role in tumor progression by promoting tumor growth and metastasis. Our data indicate for the first time that breast tumor cells could behave like macrophage and DCs to secrete IL-23. In addition, over- expression of TTP in breast tumor cells suppressed IL-23 expression. Since the molecular mechanisms of the enhanced IL-23 and reduced TTP expression in breast tumor cells are largely unknown, in this study, we propose to: (1) Investigate the molecular mechanisms and signaling pathways by which TTP inhibits IL-23 expression in breast tumor cells; (2) Identify the molecular mechanisms that regulate TTP expression in breast tumor cells; (3) Evaluate the therapeutic effects of targeting IL-23 and TTP expression in tumor cells on breast tumor growth and metastasis. Our long-term goal is to elucidate the cellular, molecular and immunologic mechanisms by which TTP suppresses breast tumor progression, and ultimately to develop therapeutic approaches that could reconstitute TTP expression in breast tumors in a tumor-specific manner as a novel breast cancer treatment.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a global health problem with 130-170 million individuals infected worldwide and 3.2 million people infected in the USA. The majority of those infected develop chronic HCV infections, which are a leading cause of liver failure and hepatocellular carcinoma in the US. IFN-¿-based treatment is currently the most effective therapy for HCV infection. Unfortunally, ~50% of HCV patients do not achieve sustained virological response (SVR; ie., viral clearance) during treatment. So, understanding the mechanisms by which IL28B genetic variation modulates clearance of HCV will help us better understand how the IFN lambda system controls viral infection. IL28B (IFN-lambda3) is a member of the recently discovered type III interferon (IFN) family and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the IL28B promoter have been recently shown to strongly associate with spontaneous and treatment-induced clearance of HCV. Among those SNPs, polymorphism rs12979860 C/T is the strongest predictor of SVR to IFN-¿-based treatment in patients with HCV infection. During HCV infection, patients with SNP-C produce more IL28B and have much higher rates of viral clearance compared with patients harboring SNP-T. However, how genetic variations in IL28B gene contribute to different expression of IL28B and HCV clearance is unknown. We found that the expression of IL28B mRNA was significantly reduced in liver tissues of HCV patients and in hepatocytes harboring SNP-T compared with those carrying SNP-C. This differential expression of IL28B was also reflected at the promoter level. Most importantly, we found that a unique nuclear protein DNA binding complex strongly binds to SNP-T but not SNP-C in hepatocytes. Our preliminary data suggest that hepatocytes with SNP-T genotype fail to express high amounts of IL28B due to binding of an unknown transcription factor to IL28B promoter, contributing to the persistence of HCV infection. Since the underlying molecular mechanisms are largely unknown, we propose to determine the differential expression of IL28B in primary human hepatocytes and in liver tissues of HCV patients harboring different SNPs, and identify the unknown transcription factor responsible for the reduced expression of IL28B in hepatocytes carrying SNP-T. Our goals are to elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which IL28B is differentially regulated by genetic variation during HCV infection. This will help us understand how the IFN lambda system controls viral infections, which in turn may help improve antiviral therapies.

Protected areas such as nature reserves have been a major cornerstone of biodiversity conservation. However, human activities have compromised conservation goals in many nature reserves, and climate change poses additional threats to their long-term viability and success. Although some studies have analyzed climate change impacts on the conservation effectiveness of nature reserves, most have focused on individual nature reserves in localized regions. Funding is provided to assess the changes in species distribution within and across networks of nature reserves in broad geographic regions, and to analyze the effects of climate change on the long-term survival of plant and animal species. An exceptional setting for achieving the objectives is the globally important forested macrosystem that is the historical geographic range of the world-famous endangered giant panda (2.2 million km2 across 19 provinces of China). Across this vast macrosystem there are currently 63 panda reserves and over 1,000 reserves for other purposes, which together constitute a reserve meta-network (network of networks). Using state-of-the-art climate change projections, remote sensing techniques, meta-uncertainty analyses, and species distribution models, a multi-disciplinary and international team of researchers will analyze climate change impacts on conservation effectiveness of this meta-network of reserves as well as current and future geographic distribution of the panda and around 30 bamboo species that comprise 99% of its diet.

This project will lead to transformative and significant outcomes, such as testing and extending two fundamental theories (niche theory and connectivity theory) at macroscales. It will also generate powerful and lasting broader impacts. Through active engagement with stakeholders, the research team will use project results to develop and evaluate effective and efficient conservation strategies of global importance in the context of climate change. Improving conservation strategies for a well-known charismatic endangered species will help to increase the public awareness of the potential climate change impacts on biodiversity, and encourage public engagement on climate change mitigation and adaptation. Through strategic communication and hands-on workshops, the results and methods will be widely disseminated to inspire others to analyze the impacts of climate change on other species and other nature reserve networks around the world. Furthermore, the project will train undergraduate and graduate students as well as post-doctoral scholars, who will gain broad and deep knowledge and learn important skills to become future visionary leaders and globally-engaged researchers who can creatively address future challenges to biodiversity research and conservation.

This award provides support to U.S. researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a 14-country initiative on global change research through the Belmont Forum and the European Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Global Change (FACCE-JPI). The Belmont Forum is a high level group of the world's major and emerging funders of global environmental change research and international science councils. It aims to accelerate delivery of the international environmental research most urgently needed to remove critical barriers to sustainability by aligning and mobilizing international resources. FACCE-JPI brings together 21 countries committed to building an integrated European Research Area addressing the interconnected challenges of sustainable agriculture, food security and impacts of enviornmental change. Belmont Forum and FACCE-JPI countries participated in this initiative under a funding framework developed by the G8 Heads of Research Councils. This framework supports multilateral research projects that address global challenges in ways that are beyond the capacity of national or bilateral activities. Each partner country provides funding for their researchers within a consortium to alleviate the need for funds to cross international borders. This approach facilitates effective leveraging of national resources to support excellent research on topics of global relevance best tackled through a multinational approach, recognizing that global challenges need global solutions.

The Belmont Forum and FACCE-JPI have provided support for research projects that seek to deliver knowledge needed for action to mitigate and adapt to detrimental environmental change and extreme hazardous events that relate to Food Security and Land Use Change. This award provides support for the U.S. researchers to cooperate in consortia that consist of partners from at least three of the participating countries and that bring together natural scientists, social scientists and research users (e.g., policy makers, regulators, NGOs, communities and industry).

This project brings together researchers and stakeholders from four different countries. The team will use the framework of telecoupling - socioeconomic and environmental interactions among coupled human and natural systems at different scales over great distances - to examine feedbacks between food security and land use. Results of this project include an enhanced capacity to predict effects from shifts in food flows and land use; and tools to facilitate policy changes that will improve food production and distribution while ensuring a more sustainable environment.

The globalization of trade in agricultural commodities is increasingly connecting consumers and producers around the world. A growing fraction of forest conversion and other land placed into agricultural production is associated with commodities produced for global markets. Much of the demand for food that was historically met by local agriculture is increasingly being met by global trade; in the past three decades food exports have increased 10-fold. This project will quantify and model this type of global scale connection that links natural and human systems by studying how agricultural markets and land use in China and Brazil are linked via commodity trade. The natural environment is incorporated in this model in two ways: first, the local land use choices affect soil quality and water, which in turn affects subsequent agricultural choices; second, the expansion of agriculture into tropical forest has an effect on global climate and biodiversity. The models produced by this project will increase our understanding of how human and natural systems change in concert even when the connections are over great distances (telecoupled). This project is a first effort to quantify complex dynamics of distantly coupled agricultural and economic systems by going beyond the traditional focus on a single system, one-way impacts, or comparative analysis of systems. It represents an exciting new frontier of research in coupled systems, with substantial contributions to the theory, methods, and applications of telecoupled systems. The work is of further importance in providing a broader view and new perspective on international commodity trade, which is in the national interest, and in training the next generation of scientists

The goal of this proposal is to quantify the telecoupling framework to address fundamental questions about human and natural systems such as: What are the effects of telecouplings on human-nature dynamics across scales in distant systems? How do telecouplings and local couplings enhance or offset each other in terms of their effects on human-nature dynamics? To address these questions and associated hypotheses, the project will focus on major telecouplings involving the trade of agricultural products (e.g., soybeans for food and animal feed) between Brazil and China, two of the world's most important emerging economies. These two countries constitute an excellent example of telecoupled systems, but little is known about the effects of their rapidly increasing trade on human-nature dynamics. By leveraging existing remote sensing and socioeconomic data and collecting complementary new data, researchers will model complex dynamics and relationships among key components of telecoupled systems. Analyses at the international and national scales will be conducted with the widely used Global Trade Analysis Project model. They will be complemented by in-depth studies at the regional and local scales through ecological fieldwork and socioeconomic surveys, as well as through developing and validating a telecoupled agent-based model. These studies, spanning local to international scales, will be joined via systems integration.