DIREnet Informatics

Extending the Network

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).

Arizona

New Mexico

S.E.R.F.Collaboratory VisionCommunity DataResources

Publications/Online DataGIS/Remote SensingStudy DescriptorsTechnical Resources

Cross-Data Analytical ToolsCollaborative VisualizationsAuthenticationDiscussion ForumsPersonal Analyses Tool Kits

Cross-Pollination & OutreachGraduate Student Exchange

Navajo Nation Outreach Program Special sections to SERF & INRAM

ThemesResetting ecosystems: Landscape to Region

Evolutionary Ecology of Extreme EventsGlobal Climate Change

Phenology ShiftsCascading Impacts on Biodiversity

Invasive Species

ProductsGrand Theme & Review Papers

Original Research PapersIT advancement papers

Modeling White paper protocols

Policy Papers

DIREnet

CoordinationNAU Coordinating Team Steering CommitteeCore Participants

Other NetworksInformation Portals

S.E.R.F.Collaboratory VisionCommunity DataResources

Publications/Online DataGIS/Remote SensingStudy DescriptorsTechnical Resources

Cross-Data Analytical ToolsCollaborative VisualizationsAuthenticationDiscussion ForumsPersonal Analyses Tool Kits

Cross-Pollination & OutreachGraduate Student Exchange

Navajo Nation Outreach Program Special sections to SERF & INRAM

ThemesResetting ecosystems: Landscape to Region

Evolutionary Ecology of Extreme EventsGlobal Climate Change

Phenology ShiftsCascading Impacts on Biodiversity

Invasive Species

ProductsGrand Theme & Review Papers

Original Research PapersIT advancement papers

Modeling White paper protocols

Policy Papers

DIREnet

CoordinationNAU Coordinating Team Steering CommitteeCore Participants

Other NetworksInformation Portals

NSF FundedNetwork

Google: DIREnet

Drought Impacts on Regional Ecosystems Network

May 17, 2003 North of San Francisco Peaks

September 20, 2003 North of San Francisco Peaks

PJ Woodland Juniper Woodland

Core Network ParticipantsPrinciple InvestigatorsNeil Cobb, Northern Arizona U. Eck Doerry, Northern Arizona U.

Core Participants (Steering Committee)Craig Allen, USGS/Bandelier NP Mike Allen, U. California-RiversideBill Romme, Colorado State University Julio Betancourt, USGS/U of ArizonaDavid D. Breshears, University of Arizona Scott Collins, UNM/ Sevilleta LTERLisa Floyd, Prescott College Vince Gutshick, New Mexico State U.Jeff Mitton, UC-Boulder Eugene Schupp, Utah State U.Tom Swetnam, U of Arizona Robin Tausch, USFS-Rocky Mtn. Res. Sta.

Core ParticipantsScott Anderson, Northern Arizona U. John Bailey, Northern Arizona U.Jarret Barber, Montana State University Karen Eisenhart, U. of Colorado Catherine Gehring, Northern Arizona U. Bruce Hungate, Northern Arizona U.George Koch, Northern Arizona U. Tom Kolb, Northern Arizona U.Joel McMillin, USFS –FHM Arizona Mark Miller, USGS, CPFSMargaret Moore, Northern Arizona U. Esteban Muldavin, U. New MexicoTomoe Natori, Dine College Jose Negron, USFS-Forest Health ColoradoKiona Ogle, Montana State University Catherine Ortega, Fort Lewis CollegeJohn Prather, Northern Arizona U. Deana Pennington, LTER Network OfficePaul M. Rich, Los Alamos National Lab Christine Turner, USGSPete Fule, Northern Arizona University Tom Sisk, Northern Arizona UTad Theimer, Northern Arizona U. Phillip vanMantgem, USGS Thomas Whitham, Northern Arizona U. Yaguang Xu, Northern Arizona U.

The Southwest Ecological Research Forum (SERF): exploring a novel informatics metaphor

Core SERF System Framework

Dynamic Web-accessible Interface

Access Control and Security

Core Database Infrastructure

Core SERF user-interaction tools

DIRENETDrought Impact

Data

Other ecodata

Other ecodata

Other ecodata

Cross-data type integration and analysis schema

Motivations:• 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.

DIRENETResearch

Data

Security

Search and indexing

Discussion

Awareness

E-Lab Notebooks

Grid

SERF

Upload

People

Labs Pubs

DIRENET Data Archiving Goals:

• 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)

Target Data Types: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.

Progress to date:• 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.

SERF Features:• 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; 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.

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!

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.

Summary

Colorado

Utah

Ponderosa Pine MortalityPinyon Pine Mortality

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).

Figure 2. Rapid conversion of Pinyon-Juniper Woodland to Juniper Woodland, resulting from drought followed by Pinyon-specific bark beetle outbreak

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).

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 1. Distribution of Tree Mortality

Figure 5. Extensions of network activities

Key Hypotheses

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

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.

Figure 3. Functions of the Network

Figure 4. Website of Graduate Class dedicated to understanding ecological impacts of climate change

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

NEON Climate Domains NEON