Comments & Reply to Peter White
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 19:38:51 -0400
From: Keith_Langdon@nps.gov (Keith Langdon)
To: Chuck_Parker@nps.gov (Chuck Parker), pick@pick.uga.edu,
"WHITE; PETER S." , jmorse@clemson.edu,
msharkey@southey.ca.uky.edu, Becky_Nichols@nps.gov (Becky Nichols),
Mike_Jenkins@nps.gov (Mike Jenkins), Dana_Soehn@nps.gov (Dana Soehn)
Subject: Re: ATBI design
Peter (and Pick,Mike,John,Chuck,et al)
Thanks for your first draft on the sampling design issue. I also appreciate
your dialog with the Park folks last week while you were here. This issue is of
intense interest to me. Below I have some comments in no particular order...
I think that the "freedom of choice" mode on how involved various scientists
get in sampling is THE ONLY way to go. The sliding scale for funding also seems
like a good general model to follow. (Its also is quite possible that some
workers, especially those heavy into taxonomy may participate yet never visit
the Park, prefering instead to receive and ID "morpho" species in their subject
of interest- they may also need funding.) Chuck has coined the terms
"structured" and "traditional" to represent the 2 major poles of interest we may
have involved. I think these are appropriate for our use, although in reality I
believe that many of our partners will fall somewhere in between the poles -
having varying interest in both ecology and systematics.
Mapping of species in the Park - This is a critical part for the ATBI as far as
I am concerned. And to do this, the sampling of biodiversity must be stratified
in such a way as to lend itself to park-wide modeling of distributions.( There
is a very useful discussion of mapping biodiversity by David R.B.Stockwell at:
www.sdsc.edu/biodiversity/Doc/overview.html ) Here is where I have a
question...Will the selection of landscape reference catchment areas (or
whatever) lend itself to the distributional mapping ? As I understand it, these
areas would be sought for their ease of access and to represent distinctive
major ecological communities e.g. Cove hardwoods. The areas would be several
square kilometers, and necessarily contain other communities that blend with
cove hardwoods as gradients change. So far, I'm with you, but you mention the
importance of "sampling across gradients" as an important design element we must
not miss. Does this mean that we will sample EACH different community in the
several sq. km area ? Many specialists can only sample small plots, so they
will stratify within the area, including say, ecotones ? If we record the
mappable community that the ACTUAL sample comes from, so that we can understand
its affinity (or lack thereof) for that particular community - for map
symbolization purposes - then I'm with you. There several levels and methods to
map distributions of our species...as long as we are keeping distributions in
mind, I'm happy !
The User's Guide - The more I think on it, the more embarressed I am that I
haven't already put out such a guide to prospective researchers...this will be
something our new office manager, Nancy Keohane works on for the 1999 CY permit
season. It could, however, be expanded when the ATBI gets going, to reflect a
"scoreboard" of what communities have been sampled for what organisms, where, as
we discussed during your visit...or maybe this is best kept as a computer
inquery ?
Impact of collecting - There was some discussion of this when you were here. I
believe we decided that it was of 2 types : impact to the Park of collecting at
defined sites, and concern that some field sampling activities would bias the
overall sampling of biodiversity at sites. To the first type, I would say that
I doubt that we will come close to causing the kind of distruction currently
occurring in the Park due to any one of a number of human induced causes. I
would hope we would consider the use of a dedicated crew to collect and process
specimens from bulk samples. If we can get the TWIG's to consolidate such
collections as makes sense...Malaise, light trap, pitfall, etc. These could be
handled by a crew that we invest some time training, and instruct in techniques
to avoid intolerable impacts to sites. As to the second concern about
impacts...this is a problem that can only be minimized by knowing more about
what & how sampling will be done. Perhaps this should be on agenda for Dec,
meeting ?
I will probably have more thoughts on this, but don't hold up your revision. We
are making progress here, and I like the direction we are going. I do feel that
we need the "considered" opinion of more TWG's NOW instead of waiting till Dec.
I look forward to reading the responses from the rest of you.
Keith
| Discover Life in America | Science | Inventory Design | Langdon - 20 September, 1998 |