Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Virginia
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

The conceptualizations and tactics needed to achieve our long-term objectives have yet to be worked out because the principal investigators are widely dispersed across the U.S. and Canada. Although we have reached consensus (via conference calls and email) regarding our collective interest in pursuing the objectives and the general direction we need to go, we have not met together in person and many details remain unresolved. In particular, much collaboration is required before we are ready to organize the expert workshop that is central to long-term objectives 1 and 2. Thus, the work proposed herein will focus on planning to make the workshop successful. This planning will relate to seven specific objectives: 1. select a pilot ecosystem; 2. select a suite of ecosystem services to analyze; 3. select a suite of human benefits associated with the selected services; 4. select a suite of indicators of human well-being; 5. develop preliminary conceptual models to link conservation actions, biodiversity, selected ecosystem services, human benefits, and human well-being; and 6. recruit and hire graduate students to assist with the proposed work at Virginia Tech and McGill University. 7. seek funding partners to share costs of research pursuant to long-term objectives.