Leader: Lauren Pintor
Topic Focus
Biodiversity is critical for the maintenance and persistence of the ecosystem functions and services that sustain life. Humans depend on it for sustained food production, for clean water, clean air, medicine and shelter. This makes the accelerated loss of biodiversity a crisis, in part, because it alters the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services in relation to sustainability. As a result, there is a critical need to further advance our understanding of the ways in which biodiversity conservation and human development can thrive in unison.
There are multiple examples of research priorities that have been identified in the literature (Niesenbaum 2019) to advance this goal. Some include:
- Identifying the ecosystem functions and services provided by biodiversity that benefit humans.
- Biodiversity and poverty reduction.
- Sustainability, Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge.
- Biodiverse agriculture/Agrobiodiversity.
- Identifying measurable indicators of biodiversity and sustainability.
- Biologically-inspired design innovation.
Goals
The overall goal of this working group is to develop an Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research Collaborative (IURC) in Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainability. Beyond the well-known benefits of research for undergraduates, IURC’s challenge students to think about the wider significance of their study and directly experience the value of research collaboration. For faculty, engaging with undergraduates in team-based interdisciplinary research allows faculty to network and explore new interdisciplinary ideas centered on sustainability, through a forum that involves assembling smaller chunks of data and/or developing lower stakes projects into larger research programs. This type of research model (e.g. IURC) has been shown to accelerate the development interdisciplinary projects of common interest through the unified goal of developing undergraduate researchers.
Primary Objectives
- Identify a set of project ideas that examine the relationship between biodiversity and sustainability that are suitable for undergraduate researchers.
- Identify interdisciplinary teams on campus interested in working with undergraduate researchers in these areas of interest.
- Identify and apply for funding to support an Undergraduate Research Collaborative in Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainability.
For more information or to get involved, contact Lauren Pintor: Pintor.6@osu.edu