The Global Change Center is committed to supporting early career researchers through our Early Career Synergy Grants. This is the third year of this initiative, designed to foster innovative research collaborations among GCC faculty while promoting the professional growth of postdoctoral affiliates and advanced IGC IGEP Fellows. The grants prioritize projects that establish new connections between faculty with limited prior collaboration or that explore entirely new research directions among existing collaborators.

We are pleased to announce the recipients of this year's Early Career Synergy Grants!

IGC Fellow Thomas Bustamante

Effect of altered hydrology on bluehead chub nest destruction: Implications of human activity on a critical keystone species

Thomas Bustamante, Fish & Wildlife Conservation

Working with Dr. Emmanuel Frimpong and Dr. Tess Thompson

This project will experimentally measure bluehead chub (Nocomis leptocephalus) nest erosion across a gradient of hydrological conditions and flooding intensities to assess a possible mechanism for chub nest failure in impaired environments: nest destruction via altered flooding patterns. This will be done on three streams along a gradient of hydrological intensity: Stroubles Creek, Toms Creek, and North Fork Roanoke River.

IGC Fellow Anu Rai

Belonging and meaningful participation: Do relational dynamics shape women's engagement in African fisheries governance? 

Anu Rai, Forest Resources & Environmental Conservation

Working with Dr. Michael Sorice and Dr. Elizabeth Nyboer

The aim of this project is to understand how African Women Fish Processors and Traders Network (AWFISHNET) contributes to sustainable and small-scale fisheries in Africa, and to assess how a sense of belonging shapes engagement and outcomes among national WFOs. Specifically they will (1) document the types of support provided by AWFISHNET, and how those vary across countries and organizational contexts; (2) evaluate the outcomes of AWFISHNET’s support for national WFOs, including leadership capacity, economic opportunity, governance participation, and climate resilience; and (3) examine how relational factors, particularly belonging, shape engagement with AWFISHNET and influence organizational outcomes.

GCC Postdoc Affiliate Yilun Zhao

Linking Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning in Grasslands Using Satellite Time Series

Yilun Zhao, Biological Systems Engineering

Working with Dr. Yanghui Kang and Dr. Leighton Reid.

This study tests three hypotheses linking biodiversity, invasion-driven community composition, and ecosystem functioning. First, ecosystem productivity may not increase linearly with biodiversity due to dominance by highly productive species. Second, more diverse ecosystems are expected to exhibit greater resilience through complementary responses to environmental variability. Third, sites with higher species richness are expected to show greater spectral diversity.

To test these hypotheses, the study pairs field-based biodiversity data across diverse plots with ecosystem productivity and resilience metrics derived from satellite data. Specifically, we will (1) quantify ecosystem productivity across sites with varying biodiversity and invasion intensity, (2) assess relationships between biodiversity and resilience metrics derived from remote sensing time series, and (3) evaluate whether spectral diversity reflects plant species richness. The study includes 237 grassland sites across Virginia and North Carolina. 

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