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Research: Looking Ahead at YERC
YERC 5-year Research Plan -- June 7, 2007
In 1993, during the creation of YERC and its predecessor Y.E.S. (Yellowstone Ecosystem Studies), we surveyed the “stakeholders” of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). Based on that response as well as our initial organizational capacity (our small staff as well as our “research fellows”—a precursor program to our SAC), we charted three interdisciplinary research initiatives: predator-prey relations (The Great Carnivores), aquatic systems (Wild Waters of Yellowstone), and vegetation remote sensing (High Tech Landscapes). Within these initiatives, we conducted about 30 research projects over the past 12 years – many are ongoing, forming the basis for long-term studies.
In each five-year period starting in 1996-2000 and 2001-2005, we set specific research goals, always embedded within the organizational mission. We accomplished these with minor modification and in the face of funding uncertainties.
One important goal for YERC (2001-05) was to improve linkages between the three existing research initiatives mentioned above. Our remote sensing program, which we now think of as our “geospatial ecology” program, served that role well, providing data over the scale of landscapes and ecosystems for our predator-prey and aquatic studies.
As YERC moves forward to formulate its one-year and five-year research plan, it is useful to assess these within a framework of YERC’s philosophy, goals, and most importantly, YERC’s mission. The basis of our guiding philosophy can be found on various sections of our web site. Please review those if you can. In essence, our philosophy is our goal: to increase the role of science at the decision-making table in GYE. Our mission has morphed a bit over the past few years but has pretty much been to “understand the nature of ecosystems through science”. Later versions have added, “collaborative research education” as a means to achieve the mission.
As with any planning process it is important to build on what has worked well and reflect on what has not. With the support of our partners, mostly co-Is, we have built a substantial ecosystem-scale research program based on collaborative, interdisciplinary science. Our successes have brought welcome change and new directions. So our strategic planning effort this fall and winter is timely.
Our basic research design 12 years ago is still intact today: take advantage of ecosystem-scale experiments provided by unplanned natural and “policy” experiments. These can be grouped into the major ecological drivers (employing the term ‘driver’ to represent general classes that may also represent feedback/feedforward phenomenon) present in the GYE. These drivers operate at various spatial scales and occurrence patterns across the GYE:
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Fires of 1988 (and subsequent plant community and species niche responses)
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Climate change (drought, early snow melt, lengthened (?) growing season, mild winters, etc.)
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Land Cover/Land Use Change (anthropogenic activities)
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Flooding (1995-1997 were 25, 50, and 100 year events)
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Wolf Reintroduction (coincident with flooding events)
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Invasions (weeds and pathogens)
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Insect Outbreaks / Forest Mortality (recent rate increase)
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Ungulate Populations and their Migrations (or lack thereof)
To enhance our studies of the drivers and ecosystem responses, an increased focus on the GYE, rather than YNP is appropriate in order to facilitate inferences at the ecosystem scale and take advantages of gradients in climate, elevation and land use activities. Many of our projects were initially focused in the representative northern range of YNP, but we have gradually expanded our study areas across the ecosystem. We recently received funding to collect wall-to-wall coverage of the Central Yellowstone Ecosystem (5 million acres; 20,000 km2) using a variety of state-of-the-art, high-resolution, remote-sensing instruments, including: AVIRIS, the gold-standard, hyperspectral 224-channel spectrometer and AirSAR, the gold-standard, multiple-frequency, multi-polarization imaging radar sensor. Together, these provide the first large-scale fusion effort sponsored by NASA to map the 3-D structure and composition of vegetation (including stand age).
Below is the list of key “areas of interest” that constitute the focus for YERC’s 5-year research plan. These are based on initial feedback from YERC’s SAC, current YERC proposals, YERC staff and input from folks like YNP’s Yellowstone Center for Resources (YCR), the NPS I&M Network, GYCC, key Forest Service personnel and others:
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Build upon the successes of our long-term, large-scale, collaborative research projects
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Focus on climate change and carbon/water dynamics
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Increase focus on aquatic ecosystems: river, stream, riparian, floodplain, lake issues
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Integrate understanding of biodiversity through geospatial modeling -- a more ecological version of our remote sensing program
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Build capacity for retrospective studies using combined archival information as well as stratigraphic techniques
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Employ systems approaches to address macro-scale hypotheses in the GYE (e.g., our NoRoNET idea, involvement in NEON, a LTER, or a NSF FIBR, etc.)
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Focus on general issues that threaten YNP, serving a role in assisting YCR, with strong emphasis on geospatial research program components, e.g., LU/LCC, invasive spread, pathogens, extend I&M to outside the park, etc.
In review of our past and current projects and the guidance (verbal and written suggestions and feedback) from our SAC on future projects and themes, we have assembled a 6 x 6 matrix populated with past, current, and possible future projects.
Research Project Themes (theme replaces our former initiative concept):
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Climate Change: Carbon and Water Dynamics
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Aquatic Ecology and the Terrestrial Interface (floodplains, wetland, and riparian habitat)
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Geospatial Modeling of Functional Types
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Coupled Predator-Prey Systems
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Invasions (weeds and pathogens)
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Disturbance and Biodiversity
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