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Update on BioBlitz and potential to NSF funding for undergraduate research; relationship to biodiversity inventory
 “Pee Bus” update
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Will talk to Steve about hiring two students to assess the core campus this summer in preparation for next steps of the grant application and the bio blitz next spring.
The group identified the following next steps (or commitments) during the meeting:
What
Send water event detail
Talk to Steve – can he have a student this summer, need feedback on this idea
Keep driving for detail on cost, sources
Draft of description out in the next week
Draft something up, proposal for this summer, for Steve’s feedback
Job description of the student position
Funds in the budget, do any need to be identified
Start on a spreadsheet of variables to collect and how to collect them.
Who
Jackie
UNHSI staff
UNHSI
Mike and El will start
By When
With notes
EcoTF Meeting Minutes, 3/20/14

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Tom Ballestero, Civil Engineering
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Doug Bencks, Campus Architect
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Jackie Cullen, UNHSI
El Farrell, UNHSI
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John Hart, Thompson School
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Tom Kelly, UNHSI
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Tom Lee, Natural Resources and the
Environment
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Mike Palace, Earth Systems
Research Center
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Pete Pekins, Natural Resources and the Environment
Meeting chair or facilitator: Mike Palace, Doug Bencks
Content manager: Jackie Cullen
Mike shared a document on what a Bio Blitz is, past BB events, creating your own. Seacoast
Science Center will be doing one in fall ’14. Would like to be involved/attend that one and put ours off until spring ’15, time to build a background, work with GIS, talk to experts, different groups etc. and maybe get some maps together. Also talked to Shane Brant from Cooperative
Extension about a hub of conservation groups in the area that getting involved with would be good. By then we think we could set up critical species to monitor long-term to assess ecosystem health.
 Who’s going to do this? Have an idea to go for NSF funding to do a sustainable Research
Experience for Undergrads (REU). o Set up with money to organize/maintain, mainly funding for students across US to come with a summer stipend sometimes 5-6k. Don’t take classes but work with professors/PhD students, get introduced to overall concepts and develop a research project over the summer. o Idea is that some could be involved in the Bio Blitz spring/summer ’15. o Looked around the country, found that they have Sustainability REU for different things, N. Carolina has one for engineering, sustainable materials. o Having UNHSI could be a unique experience to get them involved in cultural aspects, and one that some wouldn’t normally get o Talked to Ruth Varner, interested in promoting some STEM and REU programs at UNH so we can talk to her about involvement
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How competitive?
EcoTF Meeting Minutes, 3/20/14

o Not sure how competitive it is to get funding from NSF. Others have been successful in the past, we will be talking to them.
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Concern o Pushing it off so far, one question is the idea to perfect the bio blitz or jumpstart an inventory process? What do we do between now and then, if it’s a bio blitz and involves all those different groups, which could be really productive, what are we doing between now and then to make it really successful. o Really thing we need to do initial steps. Find out what’s available and set up a framework, even if just for birds or trees in college woods. We can start to expand and get larger around the time of the bio blitz. o Seems like a perpetually elusive goal.
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Need to get what was there first. Work on overarching framework as we get that data
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Tom L – mike is right, we need to find out what we do know, we have a lot of data on plants in college woods. o Question: are we limiting to college woods?
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No – all properties within 2/3 miles of UNH would be reasonable.
 Maybe first year, college woods and horticultural farm, and build out from there.
 To take initial step to determine what we have, what’s the best way to do that?
Spreadsheet? Provide names of who we think has data, reach out ad ask them to enter what they have? o yes, would be best way, can have a notes section to add/change thing. o Go for people we know who have data and ask them if they have anyone else in mind we should also contact. o Mike and El will start on that and get a Google doc, o Tom – should also draft an email of the Where/What/W.W.W.H. of everything.
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How to set things up o Could do it with the grid that Tom L and Steve set up?
 Could be used, was a specific grid for that area but is possible. o What about the bio timber framework?
 Not a good framework for biodiversity data?
 Stewardship reports produced 10yrs ago for properties, method of describing property not just from forestry but also wildlife.
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Wildlife is superficial. Is good but not a real solid estimate of what is there.
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Want this to be a tool that can be used to guide land use decision, ongoing management decisions etc. o Set goals for various regions of the campus. o Does that make our goals different from just seeing how much information we can capture? o any info we can get now is a start. o we have the platform but we need a plan of what to do with a lot of data, they’re not in apposition to determine how it should be organized but will set up what someone else tells them to set up.
 we can do that. Latitude and Longitude for each species, point samples in a field.
EcoTF Meeting Minutes, 3/20/14

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From there, anyone doing any kind of planning and using this as a tool, should be able to use the data. o This type of information is what can help us be a model for management resources.
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Assume for argument that project goes through with EPA, how would the nitrogen footprint exercise dovetail what we’re talking about? o If we’re looking at nitrogen cycle, wouldn’t it be relevant to land management if we’re trying to reduce nitrogen export to ecosystems? And thus wouldn’t that have implications for ecosystem health
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Some of the nitrogen footprint is not geospatial. Can be used to inform management but won’t dovetail in the same way, linked though.
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Don’t see the connection. If you’re ID’ing trees/insects etc. in college woods unless you know the specific relationship to the nitrogen cycle, don’t see it. o Street vacuuming – can pick up a lot of nitrogen in the leaves on the ground in the fall. o If you were to plan buffers like streams etc. then you would build more connection. o Also collecting on aquatic areas, if there’s an impact on aquatic ecosystems would we see it?
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Would be hard to see, like the Great Bay study, not just one thing that effects it.
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Any management decisions we would try to show the benefit on both ends, nitrogen reduction and/or conservation efforts.
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Thinking along the lines of multi-functionality like in agriculture. Multiple benefits.
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What’s the foundation? Have to partition things by description so you can build a model with partitions so you can link things like sources, nitrogen etc. College woods is one thing but a place like Foss Farm has a lot of diversity from age, forestry, inputs, a train cuts it in half. o This is what bugs me about bio blitz is getting a list but then how to institute the value into change over time? Struggling with that notion. Have to figure that out at the start. o Is Seacoast Science Ctr. Just on that site?
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Going to give us an overall picture but will be missing a lot of things because it’s one day. o Needs to be coherently listed in a bigger context. o Grid is nested in something you can describe ecologically. o Epscor project has a lot of monitoring technology in different places.
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We’re a university that says we’re serious about sustainability, seems that managing for ecosystem health/services is a part of that, and if we’re going to do that purposefully, what do we need? I’ve been assuming we need some sort of baseline to say where we are and against that, say where we should be? o Yes, and at what spatial scale do you need it
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Have species list at least of plants, some animals, can infer animal habitat with what we have but it’s fairly superficial.
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Question is how detailed do you want to get?
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Having a good list of vertebrates and plants is desirable. o Question is more how detailed do we need to get, not how detailed CAN we get?
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Seems that it’s about how decisions are made, so how is it made now?
EcoTF Meeting Minutes, 3/20/14

o That’s why we’re here o Made without this particular information. o Management tool so we know what we have, critical areas, and where we’d like to be as a university. And with climate change, adaptation, impacts of climate change, having a baseline could say more about that. Also talked about it supporting teaching, could be a resource for interdisciplinary teaching, and can be a database that can support research. o and to be able to see how it’s changing.
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Would it be mapped out to ID a high biodiversity zone and recommend no buildings/roads etc. (For example) o Also listing operationally what we’re doing on those lands. o The outset of this was discussing can we set growth boundaries, o And we don’t have enough information based on what data is out there now to do that?
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For college woods/woodman farm the information is pretty good, not a lot of detail.
 is that in a geospatial database? o Yes, not incorporated into Doug’s databases but they are already starting to communicate about combining them.
 thought we agreed that approach is good, easily applied, can be tweaked, numerical evaluation you can sit down and discuss. o See the value of knowing what’s out there. Biodiversity is a resource that we should be careful not to diminish too much and have that responsibility.
 you can link that into what we’ve made already with College Woods and
Woodman farm.
 would be nice to know what breeding birds we have here so when we talk about tree management we know what bird species might be there.
 want it to tell us where species of higher concern are located and what we’re not going to protect.
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We need good maps of what’s there and in a grid like Steve’s already started. o Take that and set the bio blitz information by the same grid so we can be consistent on all properties,
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Process map: o We want to grid, exactly or somewhat like Steve has done already for College
Woods and Hort. Farm.
 want it as high resolution as we can and can grid it later.
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Pete is talking about a foundation of information, which to me is habitats, ecosystems. Can be ID’d using a grid system. Habitat, natural communities, soils, water courses, wetlands, typography, slope asset, fundamental information that more can be hung on. Need to talk to Steve for what might be missing here.
 Tom K: would be something that would add value as opposed to being a stand along process
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Need to bound this project, is it core campus, and then out to where? Dairy Farm,
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Demeritt?
If you have this framework, this is what sells the grants we’ll apply for.
Want to look at the master plan
 I’d look at the most vulnerable to development first.
EcoTF Meeting Minutes, 3/20/14

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Need to develop boundaries. o If they’re all linked, you avoid the question of “why did you stop there?” o linkage from campus core to areas like Foss farm is really thin geographically.
Would be, to me, a reasonable place to cut it. Once you’re on that side of the road then it’s all linked together. Almost like there’s two chunks and Kingman is a third one.
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Master Plan has already in a way bound it.
 need to decide what we’re including and to have Steve tell us what it would take before we apply for the grant. o answer has everything to do with the objective. If it’s better management for infrastructure maybe it’s just core campus. o we have to prioritize what’s the most important and start there. o if you link this to the Growth of the university that has a major sustainability effort, that’s what will sell it to a panel. If we’re going to grow it could be college
 woods, agricultural lands, we have almost limitless choices of impact which is why it’s so important to do. o no doubt college woods is a priority; and now we have a starting point already done. We know that agricultural land is a priority, so what would be next.
What’s next? o Next thing is the big block to the south and Kingman Farm.
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Big block includes McDonald, Foss East/West and Thompson Farm.
 Biotimber inventory was done on all four of those properties, doesn’t classify wetlands.
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Should have the data, Steve should know where they are. o Do we want to be doing anymore in the core campus? Where is that in the priorities for this group?
 Should be the first priority. What’s been most disturbed and could probably benefit the most.
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How much data would be out there in Granite etc.? Has a lot of soils typography infrastructure and wetlands. o How can we get pulled together information before the grant cycle:
 Labor, what’s needed, what we have to look for.
 Is that a reasonable goal? To get two chunks up to the level of College
Woods and the Hort. Farm? o If the grant cycle was this summer, I think you have enough. Argument Mike can make based on what we have can be made easily and then use students to go generate to get to the level that was produced on the other two. Uses, surveys. If you had a year, what should you prioritize around a grant that might produce quickly and efficiently. o Squirming over delaying, are there things we could do now that would support the strength of the grant and would start to fill out what we’re saying. o Steve would have to be involved but need someone to do the leg work for him.
 Students under grant would be doing sustainability, not just biodiversity.
 12 students, a few would be working on the biodiversity categorization.
 I think we have enough right now (Mike). Would be interesting to have two students do work this summer to help Steve.
 Pete: could focus on the core campus to do what Steve’s done on the farm and college woods.
EcoTF Meeting Minutes, 3/20/14

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Grant, only some would focus on this area, and could do the big block to the south next summer or wherever we haven’t gotten yet.
 Where to get students for summer ‘14 o One for sophomores due April 9 th . o Have to ask Steve if it’s possible for him to have students this summer.
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If it’s just going to be core campus this summer I’d say just one would be fine. o Roughly be 3,500-4,000 for one student. 40 hrs/week $10/hr o Does anyone have any students in mind that might fit into this?
 Mike has a rising Junior that’s great.
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Teach the capstone course, always junior becoming seniors that need projects, but many already work in a lab o Clean Air Cool Planet climate fellows program, most of the students in it have just graduated.
 Need to clearly lay out what we’ve discussed o What’s the purpose of this? o What are the goals o Who’s involved o Costs
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Next Steps: o Talk to Steve – can he have a student this summer, need feedback on this idea o Draft something up, proposal for this summer, for Steve’s feedback
 Job description of the student position o Keep driving for detail on cost, sources o Funds in the budget, do any need to be identified o Start on a spreadsheet of variables to collect and how to collect them. – Mike can start o Draft of description out in the next week
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Pee bus opening is tonight downtown
 Not sure if they’ve built a his and hers, might just be for men.
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Has gotten a lot of press lately, is in Holloway competition and is a senior project so they need to start collecting data
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Have negotiated storage, reuse is for agriculture, and they only have maybe 1000 gal/year, most agricultural locations would have 10k gal/acre. o Can you quantify impact?
 Part of what they’re doing, reducing nitrogen
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Urea is a common form, nitrogen plans being built all across the US, one in N. Dakota right now to produce ammonium nitrate.
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Farmer told group the 10k gallons number
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Look at dollars per lb. removed, wastewater = $1200/lb. removed. Stormwater = 400/lb. removed.
 What’s the gallon to lb. ratio? o Urine concentration can vary
EcoTF Meeting Minutes, 3/20/14

o Have to calculate how many pounds were there, then calculate how much per pound.
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Business student is involved in Holloway competition
 Only time we’ve used liquid manure was poultry waste from UNH to get Dover compost grass to compost, needs liquid nitrogen to compost. Stuff from the barns was fine,
EcoTF Meeting Minutes, 3/20/14