A collaboration between the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes (CBO) and the Center for Behavior, Institutions, and the Environment (CBIE) at ASU aims to unify social and biological science research and provide a more unified methodology to analyze and code coupled social-ecological systems (SES) in order to mitigate biodiversity declines.

Two CBO- and CBIE-affiliated graduate students, Maria del Mar Mancha-Cisneros and Ute Brady, are working with other graduate students and postdoctoral research associates at ASU and other U.S. and Canadian universities to begin standardizing analytical practices for SES in order to attain more successful conservation outcomes.

The team is working on a Wiki-site that will provide scholars with a portal to learn about common pool resource (CPR) methodologies, as well as the identification of CPR variables that are of importance in a variety of coupled SES.

By advancing common sets of variables, the teams aim to encourage the adoption of more unified methods of analysis to foster better cross-comparisons of case studies involving natural resources and biodiversity preservation efforts.

CBO and CBIE students will travel to the 2017 Biennial Conference of The International Association for the Study of the Commons titled “Breaking the Code,” in Utrecht, The Netherlands, where the team will be presenting findings of their research efforts.

Future collaborations between CBO and CBIE will aim to further strengthen the interactions and collaborations between the centers, with a particular focus on broadening the interdisciplinary examination of complex coupled infrastructure systems