H.J. ANDREWS LTER/CASCADE CENTER FOR ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT MEETING NOTES

October 8, 1999

Meetings Begin at 9:00 a.m. in the Large Conference Room�FSL 200

Upcoming Meetings: 11/5/99, 12/3/99, 1/7/2000

ATTENDEES

Mark Harmon, Art McKee, Fred Swanson, Stan Gregory, Jane Smith, John Cissel, Pam Druliner, Don Henshaw, Theresa Valentine, Jeff Miller, Erica Hoffa, Bill Ferrell, Hua Chen, Ted Dyrness, Tamao Kasahara, Bonnie West, Bruce Caldwell, Greg Downing, Craig Creel, Linda Ashkenas, Barbara Bond, Shiela Turner, Steve Andrews, Steve Wondzell, Al Levno, Mark Meleason, Barb Schrader, Howard Brunner, Steve Acker, Julia Jones, Randy Molina, Mike Wimberly, David Boughton, Pamela Wright, Cindy McCain.

11 a.m. - 12 noon Future Science Hour Discussions

November 5 David Boughton � Thinking about the problem of biodiversity in a dynamic landscape.

December 3 Erica Hoffa � Modeling potential carbon storage across western Oregon and Washington incorporating disturbance.

Major New Publications

Standard Soil Methods for Long-term Ecological Research: Robertson, Coleman, Bledsoe, Sollins (eds)�2nd vol. in Oxford Press LTER Network Series (10 of the 20 chapters have Andrews-associated authors)

Special Issue of Remote Sensing of Environment, Theme: Linking ground-based and satellite measurements of vegetation, Warren Cohen and Chris Justice (eds)�vol. 70, no. 1, Oct. 99

(7 of the 9 articles have Andrews-associated authors)

NEW FACES

Theresa Valentine is our new spatial data manager replacing George Lienkaemper. She comes with work experience at the Siuslaw National Forest and most recently with the State GIS/spatial data Service Center in Salem. She is a PNW employee supervised by Don Henshaw. Her first chore is to develop a spatial database management system to serve the larger community and to implement it with Andrews data.

Steve Andrews and Shiela Turner attend to represent the Cooperative Wildlife Unit in Nash Hall, and they are stationed at Andrews on the northern spotted owl demography study crew. Jim Thrailkill, their former supervisor, recently took a position with the McKenzie Watershed Council. Replacement for Jim is being recruited.

David Boughton is working as a postdoc on risk assessment of biodiversity at regional scales taking a theoretical approach. He comes from the University of Texas and is working with Tom Spies.

BIOLOGY COLLOQUIUM

Stan Gregory and Andrews LTER group have the lead on OSU Biology Colloquium for 2001. Stan will convene a steering group to develop the theme and program. He anticipates featuring LTER work.

ANNUAL ANDREWS SYMPOSIUM

Mark asks for ideas for themes and volunteers for steering committee for this important part of our program. Give him input. We will discuss further at the November meeting. The 1-day symposium is planned for February 2000.

FACILITIES

Al Levno reviews the status of design and construction of Andrews kitchen/dining/laundry facilities. Seating is now planned for 65 to 80. Third-draft prospectus is available from Tami Lowry. Meeting with Forest Service engineers is scheduled for October 13. Options for improving quality of water at the Andrews headquarters site will also be discussed at that meeting. We tried a reverse-osmosis treatment system, which failed. Then we considered Mono Spring as a source, but the estimate to pipe in that water jumped from $40K to $180K, which put us out of reach financially. Now we consider status quo or another run at a treatment system.

MEADOW STUDIES

John Cissel reviews a field trip to Lookout Mountain meadows where issues of meadow maintenance and studies, including Bunchgrass Meadow burning, were discussed. Notes are available from John or Fred.

N. FORK TIMBER SALE

Had one day of felling but fire restrictions cut that off. May proceed next week with cutting followed quickly by helicopter logging. This is an important step in implementing the Blue River Landscape Plan.

BLUE RIVER LANDSCAPE PLAN

John Cissel is leading revision of the plan to expand and update it with new information. Information on this project is available on the Cascade Center webpage constructed by Pam Druliner.

NSF

Terry Yeats (UNM with some link with Sevilleta LTER on themes of ecosystem-climate variability-human diseases) takes over as Division of Environmental Biology Director at NSF from Bruce Hayden.

TOM CALLAHAN

Tom Callahan died after a long battle with cancer. In his work at NSF, Tom was instrumental in the birth and growth of LTER of which we are all very much beneficiaries. Art McKee, who was a long-time friend and even lab-partner in college with Tom, is assembling a fund and a letter to send in support of Blandy Farm, Virginia, a biological field station where Tom worked and enjoyed nature.

ANDREWS LTER OPERATIONS

Mark summarizes the October 6 Andrews LTER Executive Committee meeting where he led us in reviewing our organization, our system of meetings, and making decisions. Mark has begun to document this to help communicate with leadership of our home institutions as well as to display our administrative system on the web for open use.

LTER COORDINATING COMMITTEE MEETING

Art comments on lessons from the recent LTER CC meeting at Hubbard Brook. Minutes are available via email from Art.

BIODIVERSITY STUDIES

Art reports that BON, as a small scale start up of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), is dead, but there may be opportunity for regional biodiversity work linking with major collections for successful individual proposals. After discussion of the group�s interests, Art agrees to check out NSF receptivity to work at Andrews to regional scales on patterns of biodiversity.

ALL SCIENTISTS MEETING

Plans for the LTER All Scientists meeting are well underway for August 2-4, 2000, in Snowbird, Utah, right before the ESA meeting. Many workshops are planned. We will try to get as many participants there as possible because these meetings have been very productive in terms of collaborative relationships.

CROSS-SITE LTER STUDIES

An RFP is expected shortly (maybe November) from NSF for intersite studies. We�ve had good success in this arena. We want to coordinate internally a bit, so we�re not competing with ourselves.

GRAD STUDENTS

Erica Hoffa reports that grad students had a potluck dinner last weekend and discussed matters including attendance at the upcoming All Scientists meeting. Mark suggests a group drive to Snowbird and view ecological matters along the way. A student-faculty dinner gathering is in the planning stage for this fall.

SCIENCE HOUR 11-12

Mike Wimberly � Simulating the historical dynamics of Pacific Northwest forests.

Use of information on historical range of ecosystem conditions and variability is growing. For example, the new, proposed Forest Service rule for implementing the National Forest Management Act includes a provision to emulating the historical range of ecosystem variability as a basis for sustaining ecosystem health and native species. Mike is working on defining historic variability.

His work is founded in part on the assumption that history provides a viable model of a system that sustained native species. He asks: How do the amount and spatial pattern of habitats vary under different disturbance regimes? How do natural systems and management systems compare? What are the implications for biodiversity? He draws on paleoecological and dendrochronological data, models age class distributions, and simulates landscape patterns with a model (Landscape Age-class Dynamics Simulator [LADS]).

LADS runs off fire frequency, size, and severity distributions using Cathy Whitlock�s work on frequency and severity information from Impara�s dissertation. For the Coast Range, he distinguished a coastal zone (wide to N, narrow to S) that had bigger, less frequent fires than the eastern, valley-margin zone. Fires are produced in the landscape considering climate and topography, using a fire spread model with 10-ha pixels and 40-year time steps. More recently, he has been using a percolation spread model.

His model output is quite scale dependent�results such as range of historical variability of % of old-growth forest in the landscape is broader in small analysis areas. Model output compares favorably with various estimates of historic extent of old growth, but today�s extent of old growth in the Coast Range is much lower than the modeled historical levels.

Mike outlines limits (e.g., inability to validate model, limits to knowledge of fire regimes) and probable valid uses of the model. Efforts are now underway to link with spatially explicit population models. Posters on this work are outside Mike�s office (FSL 346). David Boughton�s talk for the November meeting extends this theme. Vigorous discussion followed!

PUBLICATION ACTIVITIES

Boone, Richard D.; Grigal, David F.; Sollins, Phillip [and others]. 1999. Soil sampling, preparation, archiving, and quality control. In: Robertson, G. Philip; Coleman, David C.; Bledsoe, Caroline S.; Sollins, Phillip, eds. Standard soil methods for long-term ecological research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press: 3-28.

Cohen, Warren B.; Justice, Christopher O. 1999. Validating MODIS terrestrial ecology products: linking in situ and satellite measurements. Remote Sensing of Environment. 70(1): 1-3.

Gardner, Jennifer J. 1999. Charcoal accumulation in lake sediments following a modern fire in the central Cascade Range, Oregon. Eugene, OR: University of Oregon. M.S. thesis. 88 p.

Garman, Steven L.; Swanson, Frederick J.; Spies, Thomas A. 1999. Past, present, and future landscape patterns in the Douglas-fir region of the Pacific Northwest. In: Rochelle, James A.; Lehmann, Leslie A.; Wisniewski, Joe, eds. Forest fragmentation: wildlife and management implications. Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV: 61-86.

Grigal, David F.; Bell, James C.; Ahrens, Robert J. [and others]. 1999. Site and landscape characterization for ecological studies. In: Robertson, G. Philip; Coleman, David C.; Bledsoe, Caroline S.; Sollins, Phillip, eds. Standard soil methods for long-term ecological research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press: 29-52.

Groffman, Peter M.; Holland, Elisabeth A.; Myrold, David D. [and others]. 1999. Denitrification. In: Robertson, G. Philip; Coleman, David C.; Bledsoe, Caroline S.; Sollins, Phillip, eds. Standard soil methods for long-term ecological research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press: 272-288.

Harmon, Mark E.; Lajtha, Kate. 1999. Analysis of detritus and organic horizons for mineral and organic constituents. In: Robertson, G. Philip; Coleman, David C.; Bledsoe, Caroline S.; Sollins, Phillip, eds. Standard soil methods for long-term ecological research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press: 143-165.

Harmon, Mark E.; Nadelhoffer, Knute J.; Blair, John M. 1999. Measuring decomposition, nutrient turnover, and stores in plant litter. In: Robertson, G. Philip; Coleman, David C.; Bledsoe, Caroline S.; Sollins, Phillip, eds. Standard soil methods for long-term ecological research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press: 202-240.

Jones, J. A.; Post, D. A. 1999. Ecological hydrology--intersite comparison of long-term streamflow records from forested basins in Oregon, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Puerto Rico. LTER The Network News. 12(2): 10, 15.

Lajtha, Kate; Driscoll, Charles T.; Jarrell, Wesley M.; Elliott, Edward T. 1999. Soil phosphorus: characterization and total element analysis. In: Robertson, G. Philip; Coleman, David C.; Bledsoe, Caroline S.; Sollins, Phillip, eds. Standard soil methods for long-term ecological research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press: 115-142.

Lajtha, Kate; Jarrell, Wesley M.; Johnson, Dale W.; Sollins, Phillip. 1999. Collection of soil solution. In: Robertson, G. Philip; Coleman, David C.; Bledsoe, Caroline S.; Sollins, Phillip, eds. Standard soil methods for long-term ecological research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press: 166-182.

Milne, Bruce T.; Cohen, Warren B. 1999. Multiscale assessment of binary and continuous landcover variables for MODIS validation, mapping, and modeling applications. Remote Sensing of Environment. 70(1): 82-98.

Myrold, David D.; Ruess, Roger W.; Klug, Michael J. 1999. Dinitrogen fixation. In: Robertson, G. Philip; Coleman, David C.; Bledsoe, Caroline S.; Sollins, Phillip, eds. Standard soil methods for long-term ecological research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press: 241-257.

Olson, R. J.; Briggs, J. M.; Porter, J. H. [and others]. 1999. Managing data from multiple disciplines, scales, and sites to support synthesis and modeling. Remote Sensing of Environment. 70(1): 99-107.

Reich, Peter B.; Turner, David P.; Bolstad, Paul. 1999. An approach to spatially distributed modeling of net primary production (NPP) at the landscape scale and its application in validation of EOS NPP products. Remote Sensing of Environment. 70(1): 69-81.

Robertson, G. Philip; Coleman, David C.; Bledsoe, Caroline S.; Sollins, Phillip, eds. 1999. Standard soil methods for long-term ecological research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc. 462 p.

Robertson, G. Philip; Sollins, Phillip; Ellis, Boyd G.; Lajtha, Kate. 1999. Exchangeable ions, pH, and cation exchange capacity. In: Robertson, G. Philip; Coleman, David C.; Bledsoe, Caroline S.; Sollins, Phillip, eds. Standard soil methods for long-term ecological research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press: 106-114.

Running, S. W.; Baldocchi, D. D.; Turner, D. P. [and others]. 1999. A global terrestrial monitoring network integrating tower fluxes, flask sampling, ecosystem modeling and EOS satellite data. Remote Sensing of Environment. 70(1): 108-127.

Sollins, Phillip; Glassman, Carol; Paul, Eldor A. [and others]. 1999. Soil carbon and nitrogen: pools and fractions. In: Robertson, G. Philip; Coleman, David C.; Bledsoe, Caroline S.; Sollins, Phillip, eds. Standard soil methods for long-term ecological research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press: 89-105.

Thomlinson, John R.; Bolstad, Paul V.; Cohen, Warren B. 1999. Coordinating methodologies for scaling landcover classifications from site-specific to global: steps toward validating global map products. Remote Sensing of Environment. 70(1): 16-28.

Turner, David P.; Cohen, Warren B.; Kennedy, Robert E. [and others]. 1999. Relationships between leaf area index and Landsat TM spectral vegetation indices across three temperate zone sites. Remote Sensing of Environment. 70(1): 52-68.