Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

This research will address some of our most important environmental challenges: understanding ecosystem resilience, optimizing agricultural landscapes for both food production and conservation of biodiversity, understanding contributions of Indigenous-managed lands to conservation, and determining how we can mitigate threats to Canada's rapidly declining migratory birds during their migration and overwintering periods. Lands managed by Indigenous communities may play a key role in increasing landscape diversity and climate resilience, contributing to the conservation of biodiversity. In the Neotropics, Indigenous agroecosystems, such as those of the Mopan and Q'eqchi Maya, create an intricate, shifting mosaic of land types that may provide resources for many species. In tropical regions Indigenous landscapes may function as climate refuges because they consist of complex habitat mosaics that provide predictable food resources for both humans and wildlife. One reason Indigenous-managed Neotropical landscapes may increase ecosystem resilience is because they have high landscape complexity and landscape complementarity - habitat types that are diverse and provide many resources. As some migratory birds in Canada spend part of their life-cycle in the Neotropics, this research will help us understand how to conserve Canadian migrants at the same time as helping us understand how land management can help conserve Neotropical resident species. As climate changes and extreme weather events become more common, anthropogenically modified landscapes in the Neotropics may become increasingly important as reliable food sources for wild species. I propose to study the contributions of Maya agroecosystems to landscape and resource complexity and predictability at multiple spatial scales, and ultimately to learn how these agroecosystems may help conserve resident and migratory birds, and insects that they feed on, in a changing climate. This will help us understand how Indigenous land management helps to conserve birds, and in turn to understand contributions of birds to ecosystem services such as maintaining plant health, regulating agricultural pests, and dispersing seeds, which may further increase and stabilize biodiversity at small and large spatial and temporal scales. This research addresses key priorities of the IUCN Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework Working Group, which highlights the "crucial importance" of identifying and recognizing the conservation contributions of Indigenous-managed lands. I will work with Maya partners to compare bird and insect communities in Maya agroecosystems, agricultural lands managed using western agriculture, and natural forests. Thirteen highly qualified personnel, including Maya youth, will be trained through this research program over the next 5 years.