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The Kathryn Fuller Science for Nature Fund
Fuller Fellowships: Suggested Research Topics
This year WWF will provide Fuller Doctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowships to individuals conducting research in an eligible WWF priority place pertaining to three broad topics:
- ecosystem services
- measuring and monitoring carbon stocks in forests
- climate change impacts on and adaptation of freshwater resources
Suggested research topics for each of these areas are presented below. Research addressing these issues will receive preference in the selection process for Fuller Doctoral Fellowships.
Natural ecosystems and their species support human livelihoods and economies in countless ways; they store carbon to slow climate change, purify and regulate water supplies, pollinate crops, and provide foods and medicines. Estimating and communicating the value of these “ecosystem services” can provide new motivations for nature conservation, as well as new sources of funding it, via payments for ecosystem services (PES). Research is needed in estimating ecosystem service values, determining how they relate to conservation priorities, and understanding who may benefit from PES or other incentives intended to compensate providers of ecosystem services.
Suggested topics
- Evaluating concordance between ecosystem services and conservation priorities. Do they overlap spatially? Can we manage for both?
- Estimating economic benefits (i.e. ecosystem services) and costs (e.g. forgone income from agriculture) of conservation
- Providing ecological and economic analyses to support a specific PES proposal
- Determining effects of efforts to conserve ecosystem services on human communities, especially distributional effects: do the poorest communities bear disproportionate costs or benefits?
Measuring and monitoring carbon stocks in forests
Destruction of the world’s forests contributes roughly 20 percent of overall greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) is therefore a critical component in combating climate change. This presents an opportunity for conservation, whereby reducing rates of deforestation can help not only slow climate change, but also protect forest biodiversity and ecosystem services. In order to achieve this goal there is an essential need to estimate forest biomass and carbon stocks in forest ecosystems, monitor them over time at multiple scales, identify synergies with conservation priorities, and connect these science findings to emerging policy frameworks.
Suggested topics
- Estimating and monitoring carbon stocks within protected areas or specific habitats to determine contributions to REDD (using remote sensing, field sampling, or a mix)
- Evaluating the overlap of carbon stocks with additional ecosystem services (e.g., water purification, flood control) to identify bundled benefits
- Evaluating concordance between patterns of forest carbon, deforestation risk, and biodiversity to identify win-win areas
- Estimating costs of reducing emissions through forest projects, compared to other climate mitigation strategies
Climate change impacts and adaptation for freshwater resources
Water sustains life, yet with little or no regard for its value, humans have devastated ecosystems, particularly freshwater, in order to meet the demands of population growth and economic development. Protecting the environment and supply of its most precious resource is critical to successful conservation, and now, adding increased urgency to this mission, is a further challenge: climate change. Shifts in climate patterns and extremes are creating significant changes in hydrological regimes. Understanding how complex aquatic ecosystems will respond to emerging climate conditions is an extremely difficult task. Large shifts in “normal” ecological conditions in rivers, lakes, and wetlands are already occurring in regions such as southeastern Australia, southern Africa, and globally at high latitudes and altitudes. Conservationists and managers need a clear understanding of freshwater climate science, its underpinnings and implications for policy and management to maintain the value of human and nature dependent freshwater resources under changing climatic regimes.
Suggested topics
- Evaluating the impacts of climate change on freshwater systems
- Identifying and possibly quantifying freshwater ecosystem and species thresholds to climate change
- Studying the hydrological functioning of freshwater ecosystems and their vulnerability to climate change
- Developing freshwater adaptation strategies that are implementable at the “field” level of conservation management and planning
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