Other Environmental Sciences Commons^™

Nondetection Sampling Bias In Marked Presence-Only Data, Trevor Hefley, Andrew J. Tyre, David M. Baasch, Erin E. Blankenship

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

1 Species distribution models (SDM) are tools used to determine environmental features that influence the geographic distribution of species’ abundance and have been used to analyze presence-only records. Analysis of presenceonly records may require correction for nondetection sampling bias to yield reliable conclusions. In addition, individuals of some species of animals may be highly aggregated and standard SDMs ignore environmental features that may influence aggregation behavior.

2 We contend that nondetection sampling bias can be treated as missing data. Statistical theory and corrective methods are well developed for missing data, but have been ignored in the literature on SDMs. We …

Correction Of Location Errors For Presence-Only Species Distribution Models, Trevor Hefley, David M. Baasch, Andrew J. Tyre, Erin E. Blankenship

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

1. Species distribution models (SDMs) for presence-only data depend on accurate and precise measurements of geographical and environmental covariates that influence presence and abundance of the species. Some data sets, however, may contain both systematic and random errors in the recorded location of the species. Environmental covariates at the recorded location may differ from those at the true location and result in biased parameter estimates and predictions from SDMs.

2. Regression calibration is a well-developed statistical method that can be used to correct the bias in estimated coefficients and predictions from SDMs when the recorded geographical location differs from the …

Statistical Indicators And State–Space Population Models Predict Extinction In A Population Of Bobwhite Quail, Trevor Hefley, Andrew J. Tyre, Erin E. Blankenship

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Early warning systems of extinction thresholds have been developed for and tested in microcosm experiments, but have not been applied to populations of wild animals. We used state–space population models and a statistical indicator to detect a transcritical bifurcation extinction threshold in a population of bobwhite quail (Colinus virginianus) located in an agricultural region experiencing habitat deterioration and loss. The extinction threshold was detectible using two independent data sets. We compared predictions from state–space population models to predictions from a statistical indicator and found that predictions were corroborated. Using state–space population models, we estimated that our study population …

Miscanthus Establishment And Overwintering In The Midwest Usa: A Regional Modeling Study Of Crop Residue Management On Critical Minimum Soil Temperatures, Christopher J. Kucharik, Andy Vanloocke, John D. Lenters, Melissa M. Motew

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Miscanthus is an intriguing cellulosic bioenergy feedstock because its aboveground productivity is high for low amounts of agrochemical inputs, but soil temperatures below ‒3.5°C could threaten successful cultivation in temperate regions. We used a combination of observed soil temperatures and the Agro-IBIS model to investigate how strategic residue management could reduce the risk of rhizome threatening soil temperatures. This objective was addressed using a historical (1978–2007) reconstruction of extreme minimum 10 cm soil temperatures experienced across the Midwest US and model sensitivity studies that quantified the impact of crop residue on soil temperatures. At observation sites and for simulations that …

Assessing Migration Of Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus Colubris) At Broad Spatial And Temporal Scales Evaluación De La Migración De Archilochus Colubris A Escalas Amplias De Tiempo Y Espacio, Jason Courter, Ron J. Johnson, William C. Bridges Jr., Kenneth Hubbard

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Phenological patterns in birds appear to be temperature-dependent in part, and global temperatures are undergoing change. Many studies of bird phenology are conducted at broad temporal but local spatial scales, making it difficult to assess how temperature affects bird migration across landscapes. Recently, networks of “citizen science” volunteers have emerged whose collective efforts may improve phenology studies as biases associated with such efforts are recognized and addressed. We compared mean Rubythroated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) first arrival dates from Journey North (2001-2010) with data from the North American Bird Phenology Program (1880-1969). Ruby-throated Hummingbirds arrived earlier in the more recent period …

The Agricultural Model Intercomparison And Improvement Project (Agmip): Protocols And Pilot Studies, Cynthia Rosenzweig, J. W. Jones, J. L. Hatfield, Alex Ruane, K. J. Thornburn, J. M. Antle, G. C. Nelson, C. Porter, S. Janssen, B. Basso, F. Ewert, D. Wallach, G. Baigorria, J. M. Winter

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) is a major international effort linking the climate, crop, and economic modeling communities with cutting-edge information technology to produce improved crop and economic models and the next generation of climate impact projections for the agricultural sector. The goals of AgMIP are to improve substantially the characterization of world food security due to climate change and to enhance adaptation capacity in both developing and developed countries. Analyses of the agricultural impacts of climate variability and change require a transdisciplinary effort to consistently link state-of-the-art climate scenarios to crop and economic models. Crop model …

The Agricultural Model Intercomparison And Improvement Project (Agmip): Protocols And Pilot Studies, Cynthia Rosenzweig, J. W. Jones, J. L. Hatfield, A. C. Ruane, K. J. Boote, P. Thornburn, J. M. Antle, G. C. Nelson, C. Porter, S. Janssen, S. Asseng, B. Basso, F. Ewert, D. Wallach, G. Baigorria, J. M. Winter

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) is a major international effort linking the climate, crop, and economic modeling communities with cutting-edge information technology to produce improved crop and economic models and the next generation of climate impact projections for the agricultural sector. The goals of AgMIP are to improve substantially the characterization of world food security due to climate change and to enhance adaptation capacity in both developing and developed countries. Analyses of the agricultural impacts of climate variability and change require a transdisciplinary effort to consistently link state-of-the-art climate scenarios to crop and economic models. Crop model …

Spatial And Temporal Unpredictability Of Colony Size In Cliff Swallows Across 30 Years, Charles R. Brown, Mary Bomberger Brown, Erin A. Roche

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Most colonially breeding animals occupy colonies that range in size from a few pairs to thousands of individuals, but the causes of colony size variation are largely unknown. Three general hypotheses are: (1) that variation in colony size is maintained by fluctuating selection via spatial and temporal changes in fitness associated with different colony sizes; (2) that colony formation reflects heterogeneity in habitat, with some sites having resources to support more individuals than others; and (3) that individuals assess the presence or annual reproductive success of current colony residents at each site and aggregate preferentially at high-quality sites. These hypotheses …

The Relative Importance Of Exogenous And Substrate-Derived Nitrogen For Microbial Growth During Leaf Decomposition, B. M. Cheever, J. R. Webster, E. E. Bilger, S. A. Thomas

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Heterotrophic microbes colonizing detritus obtain nitrogen (N) for growth by assimilating N from their substrate or immobilizing exogenous inorganic N. Microbial use of these two pools has different implications for N cycling and organic matter decomposition in the face of the global increase in biologically available N. We used sugar maple leaves labeled with ¹⁵N to differentiate between microbial N that had been assimilated from the leaf substrate (enriched with ¹⁵N) or immobilized from the water (natural abundance ¹⁵N:¹⁴N) in five Appalachian streams ranging in ambient NO₃-N concentrations from about 5 to 900 …

2013 Interior Least Tern And Piping Plover Monitoring, Research, Management, And Outreach Report For The Lower Platte River, Nebraska, Mary Bomberger Brown, Joel G. Jorgensen, Lauren R. Dinan

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

This document reports on our monitoring, research, management, and outreach activities during the past 12 months (2012–2013). We prepared it to inform our partners, cooperating agencies, funding sources, and other interested parties of our activities and to provide a preliminary summary of our results.

The lower Platte River and its major tributaries provide important nesting and migratory stopover habitat for two bird species of special conservation concern: the state and federally endangered Interior Least Tern (Sternula antillarum athalassos) and threatened Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus). The Tern and Plover Conservation Partnership (TPCP), based at the University of …

Surface Energy Balance Model Of Transpiration From Variable Canopy Cover And Evaporation From Residue-Covered Or Bare Soil Systems: Model Evaluation, Luis Octavio Lagos, Derrel Martin, Shashi B. Verma, Suat Irmak, Ayse Kilic, Dean E. Eisenhauer, Andrew E. Suyker

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

A surface energy balance model (SEB) was extended by Lagos et al. Irrig Sci 28:51–64 (2009) to estimate evapotranspiration (ET) from variable canopy cover and evaporation from residue-covered or bare soil systems. The model estimates latent, sensible, and soil heat fluxes and provides a method to partition evapotranspiration into soil/residue evaporation and plant transpiration. The objective of this work was to perform a sensitivity analysis of model parameters and evaluate the performance of the proposed model to estimate ET during the growing and non-growing season of maize (Zea Mays L.) and soybeans (Glycine max) in eastern …

Influence Of Management And Precipitation On Carbon Fluxes In Great Plains Grasslands, Matthew Rigge, Bruce K. Wylie, Li Zhang, Stephen P. Boyte

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Suitable management and sufficient precipitation on grasslands can provide carbon sinks. The net carbon accumulation of a site from the atmosphere, modeled as the Net Ecosystem Productivity (NEP), is a useful means to gauge carbon balance. Previous research has developed methods to integrate flux tower data with satellite biophysical datasets to estimate NEP across large regions. A related method uses the Ecosystem Performance Anomaly (EPA) as a satellite-derived indicator of disturbance intensity (e.g., livestock stocking rate, fire, and insect damage). To better understand the interactions among management, climate, and carbon dynamics, we evaluated the relationship between EPA and NEP data …

Coastal Towns Adapt To Realities Of Climate Change, Christine Woodside

Wrack Lines

The effects of climate change on the rate of sea level rise have hit the streets of every coastal town in Connecticut. The future will bring more waters creeping inland not only on the coast of New England, but around the world.

Modeling Rain-Fed Maize Vulnerability To Droughts Using The Standardized Precipitation Index From Satellite Estimated Rainfall-Southern Malawi Case Study, Harikishan Jayanthi, Gregory J. Husak, Chris Funk, Tamuka Magadzire, Adams Chavula, James P. Verdin

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

During 1990s, disaster risk reduction emerged as a novel, proactive approach to managing risks from natural hazards. The World Bank, USAlD, and other international donor agencies began making efforts to mainstream disaster risk reduction in countries whose population and economies were heavily dependent on rain-fed agriculture. This approach has more significance in light of the increasing climatic hazard patterns and the climate scenarios projected for different hazard prone countries in the world. The Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) has been monitoring the food security issues in the sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and in Haiti. FEWS NET monitors the rainfall …

Characterizing Ledaps Surface Reflectance Products By Comparisons With Aeronet, Field Spectrometer, And Modis Data, T.K. Maiersperger, P.L. Scaramuzza, L. Leigh, S. Shrestha, K.P. Gallo, C.B. Jenkerson, J.L. Dwyer

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

This study provides a baseline quality check on provisional Landsat Surface Reflectance (SR) products as generated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center using Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive Processing System (LEDAPS) software. Characterization of the Landsat SR products leveraged comparisons between aerosol optical thickness derived from LEDAPS and measured by Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET), as well as reflectance correlations with field spectrometer and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. Results consistently indicated similarity between LEDAPS and alternative data products in longer wavelengths over vegetated areas with no adjacent water, while less reliable performance was …

Uncertainty Associated With Estimating A Short-Term (1–3 Hr) Particulate Matter Concentration From A Human-Sighted Visual Range, William C. Malm, Bret A. Schichtel

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

Several state air quality agencies have developed policies to issue air quality health index (AQI) warnings based on low values of visual range (V_r). Vr has been defined in the context of how far away a black object has to be such that it is just noticeable or visible. This distance at which a landscape feature can just be detected is referred to as the V_r. AQI warnings are based on the levels of particulates (PM_2.5) resulting from fire smoke, often with less than 24-hr average concentrations. Because monitoring data are not available in …

A Fire Severity Mapping System For Real-Time Fire Management Applications And Long-Term Planning: The Firesev Project, Robert E. Keane, Penny M. Morgan, Gregory K. Dillon, Pamela G. Sikkink, Eva C. Karau, Zack A. Holden, Stacy A. Drury

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

Accurate, consistent, and timely fire severity maps are needed in all phases of fire management including planning, managing, and rehabilitating wildfires. The problem is that fire severity maps are commonly developed from satellite imagery that is difficult to use for planning wildfire responses before a fire has actually happened and can’t be used for real-time wildfire management because of the timing of the imagery delivery. Moreover, imagery is difficult to use for controlled fires such as prescribed burning. This study, called FIRESEV (FIRE SEVerity Mapping Tools) created a comprehensive set of tools and protocols to deliver, create, and evaluate fire …

An Investigation Of The Differences Between Real Time Mesoscale Analysis And Observed Meteorological Conditions At Raws Stations In The Northeast United States, Joseph J. Charney, Shiyuan Zhong, Michael T. Kiefer, Xiaoqing Zhu, Greg Soter, Adam Cinderich

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

This project investigates the differences between the gridded meteorological fields produced by the Real Time Mesoscale Analysis (RTMA) and observed meteorological conditions at Remote Automated Weather Stations (RAWS) for two years in the northeastern United States. National Weather Service (NWS) fire weather forecasts are produced using the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD), which is a gridded analysis of meteorological fields generated by forecasters at NWS forecast offices nationwide. The NDFD is verified by comparing its gridded meteorological fields against the RTMA, which is an advanced modeling and data assimilation system that provides the best-available hourly gridded estimate of surface and …

Archival Of Eastern U.S. Fire Scar History Data, Michael C. Stambaugh, Joseph M. Marschall, Richard P. Guyette

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

Fire scar histories are a critical fire data source because they form a foundation for defining fire regimes. The objective of this project was to properly archive the data (fire scar event chronologies, tree-ring chronologies) and metadata of eastern U.S. fire scar study sites developed under project #06-3-1-16, “Developing and Using Fire Scar Histories in the Southern and Eastern United States”, PI: Richard Guyette. Datasets to be archived included tree-ring chronologies (annual resolution), fire event chronologies (annual to seasonal resolution), and wood samples. Crossdated tree-ring measurements used to date fire scars have been submitted to the International Tree-Ring Databank. All …

Archiving Data For The National Fire And Fire Surrogate Study (Ffs), James Mclver

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

This final report describes the results of the project ‘Archiving Data for the National Fire and Fire Surrogate study (FFS)’, which was funded by the Joint Fire Science Program ($9,982; Project 12-­‐04-­‐ 01-­‐7) under Task Statement RFA 2012-­‐4 (Dataset Archival Task). To complete this project, we gathered, documented, and archived the complete dataset for the National Fire and Fire Surrogate study, including pre-­‐treatment data, and post-­‐treatment data collected through four years after treatment. The FFS was originally funded by the JFSP in spring 2000 and was completed in spring 2006, at which time a final report was submitted. The study …