Preview of Next Three Months in Response to Jocelyn Kaiser's Inquiry
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 01:46:03 -0400
To: jkaiser@aaas.org (JKAISER)
From: pick@pick.uga.edu (John Pickering)
Subject: ATBI Nature Quest in May
Cc: sborenstein@krwashigton.com, tkiernan@npca.org, Keith_Langdon@nps.gov,
bob_miller@nps.gov, ltangley@usnews.com, dtoomey@mail.wuncfm.unc.edu
Jocelyn Kaiser
Science
Jocelyn,
Thanks for your inquiry. I'm delighted that you're so on top of things and
are anticipating our news. Here's a preview of the next 3 months.
March and April will be relatively quiet in the Smokies -- a bit too cool
for most organisms and a little too early for our still nascent
organization to do much by then. Around March 1, we will announce the
existence our first training and sorting center and a house (or duplex) to
facilitate visits by small groups of scientists. Nothing to write home
about but an essential beginning.
Our field work will start in earnest with a big opening event for the media
and general public in May. Over the Memorial Holiday, we plan to have a
Nature Quest to study ants, flies, and mushrooms. By involving an army of
volunteers over 5 days, our goal is to sample over 1,000 sites across the
Park and collect data to build distribution maps for selected taxa. I just
posted the announcement about this on <www.discoverlife.org>g under
"Events." The North American Dipterists Society are among our partners in
this event. We also hope to have help from the mycologists and
myrmecologists -- though most of them don't know it yet!
While the cat is now out of the bag, it's still a little premature for
press coverage. We're still lining up all the event's coordinators and
participants. After I get input from others this next week, I'll be ready
to fill you in on the details and key participants -- probably after the
18th, when our Executive Committee will discuss it.
The Science article that you wrote last year helped our credibility
immensely. Thank you. If you would like to write a follow-up one, I'd be
delighted to help you. It would be wonderful if you'd consider doing
something on the Nature Quest, for example.
I've registered you on our electronic emailing list and you should now
start receiving (infrequent) updates.
Cheers,
Pick
_________________________________________________________
John Pickering
Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-2602
Office: 706-542-1115 Messages: 706-542-3379
Laboratory: 706-542-1388 FAX: 706-542-3344
e-mail: pick@pick.uga.edu Home: 706-353-7076
Web sites: <www.discoverlife.org>g <http://dial.pick.uga.edu>
_________________________________________________________
>
> Dear Dr. Pickering,
>
> I spoke with you a little over a year ago for a brief article about
> the Smokies ATBI in Science magazine. I understand you're doing some
> sort of pilot project in March. I couldn't seem to find anything about
> the pilot on your Web site. Can you fill me in? What's the start date?
>
> Jocelyn Kaiser
>
> ***********************
> Jocelyn Kaiser
> Science Magazine
> AAAS
> 1200 New York Avenue NW
> Washington, DC 20005
> (202) 326-6598
> (202) 371-9227 (Fax)
>
| Discover Life in America | Science | Nature Quest | Kaiser - 10 February, 1999 |