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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons™

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University of Vermont

2012

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Articles 1 - 27 of 27

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Common Garden Experiments Reveal Uncommon Responses Across Temperatures, Locations, And Species Of Ants, Shannon L. Pelini, Sarah E. Diamond, Heidi Maclean, Aaron M. Ellison, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Nathan J. Sanders, Robert R. Dunn Dec 2012

Common Garden Experiments Reveal Uncommon Responses Across Temperatures, Locations, And Species Of Ants, Shannon L. Pelini, Sarah E. Diamond, Heidi Maclean, Aaron M. Ellison, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Nathan J. Sanders, Robert R. Dunn

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Population changes and shifts in geographic range boundaries induced by climate change have been documented for many insect species. On the basis of such studies, ecological forecasting models predict that, in the absence of dispersal and resource barriers, many species will exhibit large shifts in abundance and geographic range in response to warming. However, species are composed of individual populations, which may be subject to different selection pressures and therefore may be differentially responsive to environmental change. Asystematic responses across populations and species to warming will alter ecological communities differently across space. Common garden experiments can provide a more mechanistic …

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Technical Feasibility Of Small-Scale Oilseed And On-Farm Biodiesel Production: A Vermont Case Study, Emily J. Stebbins-Wheelock, Robert Parsons, Qingbin Wang, Heather Darby, Vernon Grubinger Dec 2012

Technical Feasibility Of Small-Scale Oilseed And On-Farm Biodiesel Production: A Vermont Case Study, Emily J. Stebbins-Wheelock, Robert Parsons, Qingbin Wang, Heather Darby, Vernon Grubinger

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

This article investigates the technical feasibility of small-scale oilseed production and on-farm processing of biodiesel and livestock feed using primary data from two Vermont farms. Results indicate that small-scale production of sunflowers, canola, and soybeans, and on-farm processing of livestock feed and biodiesel are technically feasible, but yields depend on many factors. Increased local expertise, information-sharing among the farm and Extension communities, and improved access to harvesting and processing equipment can improve productivity and efficiency. Additional experience in seed drying and expeller pressing techniques should reduce fat content in the seed meal, improve meal value, and improve oil production efficiency. …

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Shedding Light On Plant Litter Decomposition: Advances, Implications And New Directions In Understanding The Role Of Photodegradation, Jennifer Y. King, Leslie A. Brandt, E. Carol Adair Nov 2012

Shedding Light On Plant Litter Decomposition: Advances, Implications And New Directions In Understanding The Role Of Photodegradation, Jennifer Y. King, Leslie A. Brandt, E. Carol Adair

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Litter decomposition contributes to one of the largest fluxes of carbon (C) in the terrestrial biosphere and is a primary control on nutrient cycling. The inability of models using climate and litter chemistry to predict decomposition in dry environments has stimulated investigation of non-traditional drivers of decomposition, including photodegradation, the abiotic decomposition of organic matter via exposure to solar radiation. Recent work in this developing field shows that photodegradation may substantially influence terrestrial C fluxes, including abiotic production of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. Research has also produced contradictory results regarding controls on …

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A Physiological Trait-Based Approach To Predicting The Responses Of Species To Experimental Climate Warming, Sarah E. Diamond, Lauren M. Nichols, Neil Mccoy, Christopher Hirsch, Shannon L. Pelini, Nathan J. Sanders, Aaron M. Ellison, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Robert R. Dunn Nov 2012

A Physiological Trait-Based Approach To Predicting The Responses Of Species To Experimental Climate Warming, Sarah E. Diamond, Lauren M. Nichols, Neil Mccoy, Christopher Hirsch, Shannon L. Pelini, Nathan J. Sanders, Aaron M. Ellison, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Robert R. Dunn

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Physiological tolerance of environmental conditions can influence species-level responses to climate change. Here, we used species-specific thermal tolerances to predict the community responses of ant species to experimental forest-floor warming at the northern and southern boundaries of temperate hardwood forests in eastern North America. We then compared the predictive ability of thermal tolerance vs. correlative species distribution models (SDMs) which are popular forecasting tools for modeling the effects of climate change. Thermal tolerances predicted the responses of 19 ant species to experimental climate warming at the southern site, where environmental conditions are relatively close to the ants' upper thermal limits. …

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Null Model Tests For Niche Conservatism, Phylogenetic Assortment And Habitat Filtering, Werner Ulrich, Marcin Piwczyński, Fernando T. Maestre, Nicholas J. Gotelli Oct 2012

Null Model Tests For Niche Conservatism, Phylogenetic Assortment And Habitat Filtering, Werner Ulrich, Marcin Piwczyński, Fernando T. Maestre, Nicholas J. Gotelli

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Phylogenetic and trait analyses are powerful tools for disentangling the mechanisms underlying the structure of plant and animal communities, and their use has become prominent in the last decade. However, few studies have simultaneously incorporated data on species traits or phylogeny, environment, and species co-occurrences. Therefore, the relative importance of these factors as drivers of community assembly is largely unknown. 2.We introduce new and conceptually simple null model tests and appropriate metrics to disentangle the relationships between species co-occurrence, traits or phylogeny and environmental factors not covered by available packages for phylogenetic analysis. We illustrate the methods with an extensive …

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Bioenergy Harvesting Impacts On Ecologically Important Stand Structure And Habitat Characteristics, Caitlin E. Littlefield, William S. Keeton Oct 2012

Bioenergy Harvesting Impacts On Ecologically Important Stand Structure And Habitat Characteristics, Caitlin E. Littlefield, William S. Keeton

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Demand for forest bioenergy fuel is increasing in the northern forest region of eastern North America and beyond, but ecological impacts, particularly on habitat, of bioenergy harvesting remain poorly explored in the peer-reviewed literature. Here, we evaluated the impacts of bioenergy harvests on stand structure, including several characteristics considered important for biodiversity and habitat functions. We collected stand structure data from 35 recent harvests in northern hardwood-conifer forests, pairing harvested areas with unharvested reference areas. Biometrics generated from field data were analyzed using a multi-tiered nonparametric uni-and multivariate statistical approach. In analyses comparing harvested to reference areas, sites that had …

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Estimating Litter Decomposition Rate In Single-Pool Models Using Nonlinear Beta Regression, Etienne Laliberté, E. Carol Adair, Sarah E. Hobbie Sep 2012

Estimating Litter Decomposition Rate In Single-Pool Models Using Nonlinear Beta Regression, Etienne Laliberté, E. Carol Adair, Sarah E. Hobbie

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Litter decomposition rate (k) is typically estimated from proportional litter mass loss data using models that assume constant, normally distributed errors. However, such data often show non-normal errors with reduced variance near bounds (0 or 1), potentially leading to biased k estimates. We compared the performance of nonlinear regression using the beta distribution, which is well-suited to bounded data and this type of heteroscedasticity, to standard nonlinear regression (normal errors) on simulated and real litter decomposition data. Although the beta model often provided better fits to the simulated data (based on the corrected Akaike Information Criterion, AICc), standard nonlinear regression …

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Adventures In Library Salary Surveys, Scott L. Schaffer Aug 2012

Adventures In Library Salary Surveys, Scott L. Schaffer

UVM Libraries Conference Day

Salary surveys are an important tool for the library community and the administrators and boards responsible for the oversight of libraries. However, such assessments must be constructed and analyzed with great care. The Vermont Library Association Personnel Committee has conducted three salary surveys over the past several years, one focusing on academic libraries and two on public libraries. Significant issues have included confidentiality, participation rate, definitions, length and difficulty of questions, collection of data, and representativeness. Suggestions and lessons learned will be shared.

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Bailey/Howe Reference Analytics: What Two Years Of Data Tell Us, Elizabeth Berman Aug 2012

Bailey/Howe Reference Analytics: What Two Years Of Data Tell Us, Elizabeth Berman

UVM Libraries Conference Day

Analyzing the last two academic years (2010-2011 and 2011-2012) of reference-desk statistics, this presentation will highlight trends at the Bailey/Howe Reference Desk, and offer scenarios for the future of reference services.

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Land Use Adaptation To Climate Change: Economic Damages From Land-Falling Hurricanes In The Atlantic And Gulf States Of The Usa, 1900-2005, Asim Zia Jul 2012

Land Use Adaptation To Climate Change: Economic Damages From Land-Falling Hurricanes In The Atlantic And Gulf States Of The Usa, 1900-2005, Asim Zia

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Global climate change, especially the phenomena of global warming, is expected to increase the intensity of land-falling hurricanes. Societal adaptation is needed to reduce vulnerability from increasingly intense hurricanes. This study quantifies the adaptation effects of potentially policy driven caps on housing densities and agricultural cover in coastal (and adjacent inland) areas vulnerable to hurricane damages in the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal regions of the U.S. Time series regressions, especially Prais-Winston and Autoregressive Moving Average (ARMA) models, are estimated to forecast the economic impacts of hurricanes of varying intensity, given that various patterns of land use emerge in the Atlantic …

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Are Range-Size Distributions Consistent With Species-Level Heritability?, Michael K. Borregaard, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Carsten Rahbek Jul 2012

Are Range-Size Distributions Consistent With Species-Level Heritability?, Michael K. Borregaard, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Carsten Rahbek

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

The concept of species-level heritability is widely contested. Because it is most likely to apply to emergent, species-level traits, one of the central discussions has focused on the potential heritability of geographic range size. However, a central argument against range-size heritability has been that it is not compatible with the observed shape of present-day species range-size distributions (SRDs), a claim that has never been tested. To assess this claim, we used forward simulation of range-size evolution in clades with varying degrees of range-size heritability, and compared the output of three different models to the range-size distribution of the South American …

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Ecosystem Services: The Economics Debate, Joshua Farley Jul 2012

Ecosystem Services: The Economics Debate, Joshua Farley

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

The goal of this paper is to illuminate the debate concerning the economics of ecosystem services. The sustainability debate focuses on whether or not ecosystem services are essential for human welfare and the existence of ecological thresholds. If ecosystem services are essential, then marginal analysis and monetary valuation are inappropriate tools in the vicinity of thresholds. The justice debate focuses on who is entitled to ecosystem services and the ecosystem structure that generates them. Answers to these questions have profound implications for the choice of suitable economic institutions. The efficiency debate concerns both the goals of economic activity and the …

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Genetic Patterns Of Domestication In Pigeonpea (Cajanus Cajan (L.) Millsp.) And Wild Cajanus Relatives, Mulualem T. Kassa, R. Varma Penmetsa, Noelia Carrasquilla-Garcia, Birinchi K. Sarma, Subhojit Datta, Hari D. Upadhyaya, Rajeev K. Varshney, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg, Douglas R. Cook Jun 2012

Genetic Patterns Of Domestication In Pigeonpea (Cajanus Cajan (L.) Millsp.) And Wild Cajanus Relatives, Mulualem T. Kassa, R. Varma Penmetsa, Noelia Carrasquilla-Garcia, Birinchi K. Sarma, Subhojit Datta, Hari D. Upadhyaya, Rajeev K. Varshney, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg, Douglas R. Cook

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan) is an annual or short-lived perennial food legume of acute regional importance, providing significant protein to the human diet in less developed regions of Asia and Africa. Due to its narrow genetic base, pigeonpea improvement is increasingly reliant on introgression of valuable traits from wild forms, a practice that would benefit from knowledge of its domestication history and relationships to wild species. Here we use 752 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) derived from 670 low copy orthologous genes to clarify the evolutionary history of pigeonpea (79 accessions) and its wild relatives (31 accessions). We identified three well-supported lineages …

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Do Anthropogenic Dark Earths Occur In The Interior Of Borneo? Some Initial Observations From East Kalimantan, Douglas Sheil, Imam Basuki, Laura German, Thomas W. Kuyper, Godwin Limberg, Rajindra K. Puri, Bernard Sellato, Meine Van Noordwijk, Eva Wollenberg Jun 2012

Do Anthropogenic Dark Earths Occur In The Interior Of Borneo? Some Initial Observations From East Kalimantan, Douglas Sheil, Imam Basuki, Laura German, Thomas W. Kuyper, Godwin Limberg, Rajindra K. Puri, Bernard Sellato, Meine Van Noordwijk, Eva Wollenberg

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Anthropogenic soils of the Amazon Basin (Terra Preta, Terra Mulata) reveal that pre-Colombian peoples made lasting improvements in the agricultural potential of nutrient-poor soils. Some have argued that applying similar techniques could improve agriculture over much of the humid tropics, enhancing local livelihoods and food security, while also sequestering large quantities of carbon to mitigate climate change. Here, we present preliminary evidence for Anthropogenic Dark Earths (ADEs) in tropical Asia. Our surveys in East Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) identified several sites where soils possess an anthropogenic development and context similar in several respects to the Amazon's ADEs. Similarities include riverside locations, …

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Early Developmental Responses To Seedling Environment Modulate Later Plasticity To Light Spectral Quality, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg, John R. Stinchcombe, Johanna Schmitt Mar 2012

Early Developmental Responses To Seedling Environment Modulate Later Plasticity To Light Spectral Quality, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg, John R. Stinchcombe, Johanna Schmitt

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Correlations between developmentally plastic traits may constrain the joint evolution of traits. In plants, both seedling de-etiolation and shade avoidance elongation responses to crowding and foliage shade are mediated by partially overlapping developmental pathways, suggesting the possibility of pleiotropic constraints. To test for such constraints, we exposed inbred lines of Impatiens capensis to factorial combinations of leaf litter (which affects de-etiolation) and simulated foliage shade (which affects phytochrome-mediated shade avoidance). Increased elongation of hypocotyls caused by leaf litter phenotypically enhanced subsequent elongation of the first internode in response to low red:far red (R:FR). Trait expression was correlated across litter and …

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Protecting Important Sites For Biodiversity Contributes To Meeting Global Conservation Targets, Stuart H.M. Butchart, Jörn P.W. Scharlemann, Mike I. Evans, Suhel Quader, Salvatore Aricò, Julius Arinaitwe, Mark Balman, Leon A. Bennun, Bastian Bertzky, Charles Besançon, Timothy M. Boucher, Thomas M. Brooks, Ian J. Burfield, Neil D. Burgess, Simba Chan, Rob P. Clay, Mike J. Crosby, Nicholas C. Davidson, Naamal De Silva, Christian Devenish, Guy C.L. Dutson, David F.Díaz Fernández, Lincoln D.C. Fishpool, Claire Fitzgerald, Matt Foster, Melanie F. Heath, Marc Hockings, Michael Hoffmann, David Knox, Frank W. Larsen, John F. Lamoreux Mar 2012

Protecting Important Sites For Biodiversity Contributes To Meeting Global Conservation Targets, Stuart H.M. Butchart, Jörn P.W. Scharlemann, Mike I. Evans, Suhel Quader, Salvatore Aricò, Julius Arinaitwe, Mark Balman, Leon A. Bennun, Bastian Bertzky, Charles Besançon, Timothy M. Boucher, Thomas M. Brooks, Ian J. Burfield, Neil D. Burgess, Simba Chan, Rob P. Clay, Mike J. Crosby, Nicholas C. Davidson, Naamal De Silva, Christian Devenish, Guy C.L. Dutson, David F.Díaz Fernández, Lincoln D.C. Fishpool, Claire Fitzgerald, Matt Foster, Melanie F. Heath, Marc Hockings, Michael Hoffmann, David Knox, Frank W. Larsen, John F. Lamoreux

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Protected areas (PAs) are a cornerstone of conservation efforts and now cover nearly 13% of the world's land surface, with the world's governments committed to expand this to 17%. However, as biodiversity continues to decline, the effectiveness of PAs in reducing the extinction risk of species remains largely untested. We analyzed PA coverage and trends in species' extinction risk at globally significant sites for conserving birds (10,993 Important Bird Areas, IBAs) and highly threatened vertebrates and conifers (588 Alliance for Zero Extinction sites, AZEs) (referred to collectively hereafter as 'important sites'). Species occurring in important sites with greater PA coverage …

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Spatial Patterns Of Soil Nitrification And Nitrate Export From Forested Headwaters In The Northeastern United States, Donald S. Ross, James B. Shanley, John L. Campbell, Gregory B. Lawrence, Scott W. Bailey, Gene E. Likens, Beverley C. Wemple Mar 2012

Spatial Patterns Of Soil Nitrification And Nitrate Export From Forested Headwaters In The Northeastern United States, Donald S. Ross, James B. Shanley, John L. Campbell, Gregory B. Lawrence, Scott W. Bailey, Gene E. Likens, Beverley C. Wemple

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Nitrogen export from small forested watersheds is known to be affected by N deposition but with high regional variability. We studied 10 headwater catchments in the northeastern United States across a gradient of N deposition (5.4 - 9.4 kg ha-1 yr-1) to determine if soil nitrification rates could explain differences in stream water NO 3- export. Average annual export of two years (October 2002 through September 2004) varied from 0.1 kg NO3--N ha-1 yr-1 at Cone Pond watershed in New Hampshire to 5.1 kg ha-1 yr-1 at Buck Creek South …

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Models And Estimators Linking Individual-Based And Sample-Based Rarefaction, Extrapolation And Comparison Of Assemblages, Robert K. Colwell, Anne Chao, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Shang Yi Lin, Chang Xuan Mao, Robin L. Chazdon, John T. Longino Mar 2012

Models And Estimators Linking Individual-Based And Sample-Based Rarefaction, Extrapolation And Comparison Of Assemblages, Robert K. Colwell, Anne Chao, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Shang Yi Lin, Chang Xuan Mao, Robin L. Chazdon, John T. Longino

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Aims: In ecology and conservation biology, the number of species counted in a biodiversity study is a key metric but is usually a biased underestimate of total species richness because many rare species are not detected. Moreover, comparing species richness among sites or samples is a statistical challenge because the observed number of species is sensitive to the number of individuals counted or the area sampled. For individual-based data, we treat a single, empirical sample of species abundances from an investigator-defined species assemblage or community as a reference point for two estimation objectives under two sampling models: estimating the expected …

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Understorey Diversity In Southern Boreal Forests Is Regulated By Productivity And Its Indirect Impacts On Resource Availability And Heterogeneity, Peter B. Reich, Lee E. Frelich, Richard A. Voldseth, Peter Bakken, E. Carol Adair Mar 2012

Understorey Diversity In Southern Boreal Forests Is Regulated By Productivity And Its Indirect Impacts On Resource Availability And Heterogeneity, Peter B. Reich, Lee E. Frelich, Richard A. Voldseth, Peter Bakken, E. Carol Adair

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Understanding the relationship between species diversity and productivity is central to linking compositional and functional aspects of terrestrial ecosystems, and little is known about such issues in boreal forests. We used structural equation modelling (SEM) to test several hypotheses about direct and indirect influences of productivity, its correlate basal area, and resources on understorey vascular plant diversity on 2025 plots in 81 southern boreal forests in Minnesota, USA. We first examined the hypothesis that increasing basal area reduces plot-scale species richness due to competitive exclusion from the most limiting resource, light. As expected, light pre-emption increased with total basal area, …

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Empirical Correction Of A Toy Climate Model, Nicholas A. Allgaier, Kameron D. Harris, Christopher M. Danforth Feb 2012

Empirical Correction Of A Toy Climate Model, Nicholas A. Allgaier, Kameron D. Harris, Christopher M. Danforth

College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

Improving the accuracy of forecast models for physical systems such as the atmosphere is a crucial ongoing effort. The primary focus of recent research on these highly nonlinear systems has been errors in state estimation, but as that error has been successfully diminished, the role of model error in forecast uncertainty has duly increased. The present study is an investigation of an empirical model correction procedure involving the comparison of short forecasts with a reference "truth" system during a training period, in order to calculate systematic (1) state-independent model bias and (2) state-dependent error patterns. An estimate of the likelihood …

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Statistical Challenges In Null Model Analysis, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Werner Ulrich Feb 2012

Statistical Challenges In Null Model Analysis, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Werner Ulrich

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

This review identifies several important challenges in null model testing in ecology: 1) developing randomization algorithms that generate appropriate patterns for a specified null hypothesis; these randomization algorithms stake out a middle ground between formal Pearson-Neyman tests (which require a fully-specified null distribution) and specific process-based models (which require parameter values that cannot be easily and independently estimated); 2) developing metrics that specify a particular pattern in a matrix, but ideally exclude other, related patterns; 3) avoiding classification schemes based on idealized matrix patterns that may prove to be inconsistent or contradictory when tested with empirical matrices that do not …

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High Conservation Value Or High Confusion Value? Sustainable Agriculture And Biodiversity Conservation In The Tropics, David P. Edwards, Brendan Fisher, David S. Wilcove Jan 2012

High Conservation Value Or High Confusion Value? Sustainable Agriculture And Biodiversity Conservation In The Tropics, David P. Edwards, Brendan Fisher, David S. Wilcove

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Green labeling of products that have been produced sustainably is an emerging tool of the environmental movement. A prominent example is the Forest Stewardship Council, which certifies timber that is harvested to manage and maintain forests defined as having High Conservation Value (HCV). The criteria for HCV are now being applied to four rapidly expanding crops in the tropics: oil palm, soy, sugarcane, and cacao. However, these criteria do not provide adequate protection for biodiversity when applied to agriculture. The only criterion that provides blanket protection to forests is one that protects large expanses of habitat (≥20,000-500,000 ha, depending on …

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Conservation And Livelihoods: Identifying Trade-Offs And Win-Wins, Brendan P. Fisher Jan 2012

Conservation And Livelihoods: Identifying Trade-Offs And Win-Wins, Brendan P. Fisher

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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Biogenic Vs. Geologic Carbon Emissions And Forest Biomass Energy Production, John S. Gunn, David J. Ganz, William S. Keeton Jan 2012

Biogenic Vs. Geologic Carbon Emissions And Forest Biomass Energy Production, John S. Gunn, David J. Ganz, William S. Keeton

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

In the current debate over the CO2 emissions implications of switching from fossil fuel energy sources to include a substantial amount of woody biomass energy, many scientists and policy makers hold the view that emissions from the two sources should not be equated. Their rationale is that the combustion or decay of woody biomass is simply part of the global cycle of biogenic carbon and does not increase the amount of carbon in circulation. This view is frequently presented as justification to implement policies that encourage the substitution of fossil fuel energy sources with biomass. We present the opinion that …

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Carbon Storage, Timber Production, And Biodiversity: Comparing Ecosystem Services With Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, W. Scott Schwenk, Therese M. Donovan, William S. Keeton, Jared S. Nunery Jan 2012

Carbon Storage, Timber Production, And Biodiversity: Comparing Ecosystem Services With Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, W. Scott Schwenk, Therese M. Donovan, William S. Keeton, Jared S. Nunery

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Increasingly, land managers seek ways to manage forests for multiple ecosystem services and functions, yet considerable challenges exist in comparing disparate services and balancing trade-offs among them. We applied multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and forest simulation models to simultaneously consider three objectives: (1) storing carbon, (2) producing timber and wood products, and (3) sustaining biodiversity. We used the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) applied to 42 northern hardwood sites to simulate forest development over 100 years and to estimate carbon storage and timber production. We estimated biodiversity implications with occupancy models for 51 terrestrial bird species that were linked to FVS …

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Eorganic: The Organic Agriculture Community Of Practice For Extension, Alexandra G. Stone, Danielle D. Treadwell, Alice K. Formiga, John P.G. Mcqueen, Michelle M. Wander, James Riddle, Heather M. Darby, Debra Heleba Jan 2012

Eorganic: The Organic Agriculture Community Of Practice For Extension, Alexandra G. Stone, Danielle D. Treadwell, Alice K. Formiga, John P.G. Mcqueen, Michelle M. Wander, James Riddle, Heather M. Darby, Debra Heleba

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

eOrganic is the organic agriculture community of practice (CoP) and resource area for eXtension. eOrganic's primary community of interest (CoI) is organic farmers and the agricultural professionals who support them. The 250 members of the eOrganic CoP include farmers, researchers, certifiers, and extension/other agricultural professionals. eOrganic's mission is to build a diverse national CoP and use web technologies to synthesize existing information, emerging science, and practical knowledge into information resources and training materials for its CoI. eOrganic strategies to achieve that mission include collaborative publication, stakeholder engagement, community development, projectmanagement, evaluation, and fundraising. eOrganic's public site currently offers 240 articles, …

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Costs Of Food Safety Certification On Fresh Produce Farms In Vermont, Florence A. Becot, Virginia Nickerson, David S. Conner, Jane M. Kolodinsky Jan 2012

Costs Of Food Safety Certification On Fresh Produce Farms In Vermont, Florence A. Becot, Virginia Nickerson, David S. Conner, Jane M. Kolodinsky

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

This article addresses the economic costs of good agricultural practices (GAPs) audits of small and medium size farms in Vermont. It focuses on the costs of infrastructure, equipment, and labor required to successfully pass a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) GAPs audit. In-depth interviews and surveys of produce farmers in 2011 revealed that the cost of GAPs certification ranges between $37 and $54 per acre, and an additional 7 hours were required each week during the growing season. Based on this exploratory research, certifying all the farms in Vermont would cost between $228,216 and $3,019,114. Our study explored all the …

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