Assessing impacts of social-ecological diversity on resilience in a wetland coupled human and natural system: Data release

Theory posits that resilience of ecosystems increases when there is a diversity of agents (e.g., species) and linkages between them. If ecosystems are conceptualized as components of “coupled human and natural systems”, then a corollary would be that novel types of human-induced diversity may also foster resilience. We explored this hypothesis by studying how socially created diversity mediated the impact of a historically severe drought on a network of wetlands in the foothills of the California Sierra Nevada containing a metapopulation of the threatened California Black Rail (Laterallus jamaicensis coturniculus). We examined how (1) diversity in motivations for land ownership affected use of irrigation water and response to drought, (2) differences in natural and irrigated water sources affected wetland drying in response to drought, and (3) these processes affected the persistence of rails and the transmission risk of West Nile virus, an emerging infectious disease that threatens peo...