Coordinating Studies on Southwest Forests & Woodlands
Neil Cobb, Merriam-Powell Center for Environmental Research, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ and Eck Doerry, Department of Computer Science, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ
Summary
Utah
Colorado
New Mexico
Arizona
Ponderosa Pine Mortality
Pinyon Pine Mortality
Figure 1. Distribution of Tree Mortality
A severe regional drought that began in the late 1990’s rapidly and dramatically altered
southwestern forest and woodland ecosystems (Fig. 1). The drought became a catalyst,
bringing researchers and land managers together to consider a long-term strategy to
understand the drought in light of global climate change. The result of these interactions
was the Drought Impacts on Regional Ecosystems Network (DIREnet). The network
consists of 45 core participants from 24 institutions and coordinates studies on drought
impacts on forest and woodlands of the Southwest. It also seeks to understand the role of
climate change in mediating such extreme events. DIREnet will promote specific research
questions and collaborations that could not be addressed without such pan-regional
coordination. An example of promoting collaborations is a recent study documenting the
impacts of the drought and ensuing bark-beetle outbreaks, and proposing a linkage to
climate change (Breshears et al 2005). This is an important study that documents the
extent (Fig. 1) and intensity (Fig. 2) of a major drought that was hotter than past droughts
and may be one of the first documented global change droughts.
The overall plan for the network is illustrated in Figure 3. The network activities include
identifying research themes, targeting funding opportunities and products, developing a
coordination plan that includes a powerful online research forum, and the development of
education (Figure 4) and outreach efforts.
September 20, 2003 North of San Francisco Peaks
Juniper Woodland
Figure 2. Rapid conversion of Pinyon-Juniper
Woodland to Juniper Woodland, resulting from
drought followed by Pinyon-specific bark beetle
outbreak
Principle Investigators
Neil Cobb, Northern Arizona U.
Eck Doerry, Northern Arizona U.
Core Participants (Steering Committee)
Craig Allen, USGS/Bandelier NP
Bill Romme, Colorado State University
David D. Breshears, University of Arizona
Lisa Floyd, Prescott College
Jeff Mitton, UC-Boulder
Tom Swetnam, U of Arizona
Mike Allen, U. California-Riverside
Julio Betancourt, USGS/U of Arizona
Scott Collins, UNM/ Sevilleta LTER
Vince Gutshick, New Mexico State U.
Eugene Schupp, Utah State U.
Robin Tausch, USFS-Rocky Mtn. Res. Sta.
Core Participants
Scott Anderson, Northern Arizona U.
Jarret Barber, Montana State University
Catherine Gehring, Northern Arizona U.
George Koch, Northern Arizona U.
Joel McMillin, USFS –FHM Arizona
Margaret Moore, Northern Arizona U.
Tomoe Natori, Dine College
Kiona Ogle, Montana State University
John Prather, Northern Arizona U.
Paul M. Rich, Los Alamos National Lab
Pete Fule, Northern Arizona University
Tad Theimer, Northern Arizona U.
Thomas Whitham, Northern Arizona U.
John Bailey, Northern Arizona U.
Karen Eisenhart, U. of Colorado
Bruce Hungate, Northern Arizona U.
Tom Kolb, Northern Arizona U.
Mark Miller, USGS, CPFS
Esteban Muldavin, U. New Mexico
Jose Negron, USFS-Forest Health Colorado
Catherine Ortega, Fort Lewis College
Deana Pennington, LTER Network Office
Christine Turner, USGS
Tom Sisk, Northern Arizona U
Phillip vanMantgem, USGS
Yaguang Xu, Northern Arizona U.
Drought Impacts on Regional Ecosystems
Network
Collaboratory Vision
Community Data
Resources
Publications/Online Data
GIS/Remote Sensing
Study Descriptors
Technical Resources
Cross-Data Analytical Tools
Collaborative Visualizations
Authentication
Discussion Forums
Personal Analyses Tool Kits
Cross-Pollination & Outreach
Graduate Student Exchange
Navajo Nation Outreach Program
Special sections to SERF & INRAM
Products
Grand Theme & Review Papers
Original Research Papers
IT advancement papers
Modeling
White paper protocols
Policy Papers
DIREnet
NSF Funded
Network
Coordination
Themes
NAU Coordinating Team
Steering Committee
Core Participants
Resetting ecosystems: Landscape to Region
Evolutionary Ecology of Extreme Events
Global Climate Change
Phenology Shifts
Cascading Impacts on Biodiversity
Invasive Species
Other Networks
Information Portals
Figure 5. Extensions of network activities
NEON
NEON Climate Domains
The success of DIREnet will in large part be measured by our ability to foresee and
make connections with other networks and programs. For example, how well would
the proposed NEON climate domains help us document the ecological impacts of
this or future droughts. Figure 6 shows that the Rocky Mountain-Colorado Plateau
(Domain 13) contained the vast majority of the mortality observed in southwestern
forests and woodlands. Thus, if NEON infrastructure had been dispersed across
three fixed platforms and one mobile platform, it would have greatly aided our ability
to understand the processes and document the patterns of the drought-related
mortality across the region and over different time scales. The drought and its
relationship with climate change should be used as a model in developing NEON
infrastructure and determining its deployment.
Ponderosa Pine Mortality
Pinyon Pine Mortality
Core Network Participants
S.E.R.F.
Although our network emerged from a need to understand an extreme event that is
regionally resetting major ecosystem types, the potential for DIREnet easily extends
to other complementary themes and programs (Figure 5) including 1) an examination
of drought as a special case of extreme events (Gutshick & BassiriRad 2003), 2) a
global perspective on drought impacts (Kogan 1997), 3) the major environmental
challenges suggested by the national Research Council for NEON (Tilman et al
2003), and associated work on climate change (CLIMAS), and 4) the socioeconomic
implications of drought (Swetnam et al in prep).
Breshears, D.D., N.S. Cobb, P.M. Rich, K.P. Price, C.D. Allen, R.G. Balice, W.H. Romme,
J.H. Kastens, M.L. Floyd, J. Belnap, J.J. Anderson, O.B. Myers, and C.W. Meyer. 2005.
Regional vegetation die-off in response to global-change type drought. (In Press,
Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences USA).
May 17, 2003 North of San Francisco Peaks
PJ Woodland
Extending the Network
Google: DIREnet
Figure 3. Functions of the Network
Figure 4. Website of Graduate Class dedicated to
understanding ecological impacts of climate
change
Key Hypotheses
1) Spatial and temporal climate variability (Comrie et al. 1998) correlate with tree mortality
(Logan & Powell 2001), fire (Swetnam & Betancourt 1992) and ecosystem productivity
across the region (Allen et al. 1998);
2) Northern populations of Southwest tree species will experience less drought stress and
hence less selection for drought tolerance
3) Evolutionary paths will be redirected. There is evidence that extreme events such as these
droughts exert the major selection pressures (Gutschick & BassiriRad 2003) and may
explain diverse patterns of trait associations;
4) Drought & tree mortality will greatly alter fire regimes across the region in complex ways;
5) Consequences of the death and changing distributions of dominant trees will be
community-wide (Whitham et al. 2003). For example, with over 1000 species dependent
upon pinyon pine (Brown et al. 2001), drought will affect diverse taxa from microbes to
vertebrates and only a coordinated network can bring the findings of such diverse taxa
and disciplines together;
6) Ecosystems will be completely transformed (versus intact ecosystems moving upwards
along gradients of temperature and precipitation) (Scheffer et al. 2001);
7) Invasive species will expand across the region as a result of wide-scale disturbance; and
8) The recovery phase is prolonged and may account for major effects on inclusive fitness
(Gutschick & BassiriRad 2003), thus, it is imperative to follow the patterns of resource
use, growth, development, and reproduction over long periods and diverse geographic
locations, by coordinating research of many groups and institutions.
Figure 6. Distribution of tree mortality in relation to NEON climate
domains. Arrows show mortality across the Rocky Mtns-Colorado
Plateau (Domain 13) and the Great Basin (Domain 15).
DIREnet Informatics
The Southwest Ecological Research Forum (SERF): exploring a novel informatics metaphor
Motivations:
DIRENET Data Archiving Goals:
• Conventional community websites are often just
passive data warehouses  hard to search, weak
metadata, quickly outdated.
• Most of scientific “action” – analysis, discussion,
collaboration – happens off-line.
• Drinking from a firehose: scientists need more help
indexing, organizing, and staying aware of ongoing
developments in a data-rich world.
Architectural Concept:
•Based on a flexible, extensible core
•Core provides all security, analysis
tools, collaboration tools, and interface
•Able to “plug in” modules containing
new datasets for easy expansion
•Begin with focus on DIRENET drought
data.
DIRENET
Drought
Impact Data
SERF Design Goals:
• Complete, extensible data archive for DIRENET community.
• Interactive Community: Authentication, user-customizable
tools/interfaces, access control
• Powerful tools for online collaboration and data awareness
• Bring not just research data, but also scientific interaction
within the community online in a virtual lab space!
Other
ecodata
Cross-data type
integration and
analysis schema
E-Lab Notebooks
Core SERF userinteraction tools
Access Control
and Security
Dynamic Webaccessible Interface
Core Database
Infrastructure
• Dynamic, customized interface. Users have access to
differing data and operations depending on identity.
• Secure user data upload and sharing.
• User curation. Users have control over their own data and
records  easy editing and full control over access/sharing.
• Powerful search mechanisms: Search across datasets;
Pubs
Security
Awareness
Other
ecodata
• POPULATION ECOLOGY: Mortality,
physiology, genetics, …
•COMMUNITY ECOLOGY:
Composition and dynamics
•ECOSYSTEM ECOLOGY:
Productivity, biomass, water, …
•LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY: Remote
Sensing, aerial photography
•CLIMATOLOGY: Rainfall, Soil,
Wind,…
•PALEOECOLOGY:
Dendrochronology, paleoclimate, …
• Others?? (Extensible Data Model)
SERF Features:
People
Labs
Other
ecodata
Core SERF System
Framework
Search and
indexing
Discussion
Target Data Types:
DIRENET
Research
Data
SERF
create and download “virtual datasets” drawn from such searches.
• Data-connected discussion forums: Authorized users
contribute to “discussion forums” attached to specific datasets.
• Interconnection with Grid: Ultimate goal is to allow searches
spanning datasets in SERF and other Grid sources.
• Data Awareness: SERF users can request notification when
specific kinds of datasets/data types are added to SERF.
• E-Notebook: SERF Users can bookmark and annotate search
results, data records, and other SERF contents in an online notebook.
Progress to date:
Grid
•
•
•
•
•
Core SERF infrastructure created and installed.
People, Pubs, and Labs modules complete and being populated.
Search and virtual result set download tools complete.
Several research data sets (climatology) installed.
Prototypes of data uploading mechanisms.