Access Newsletter Goes Electronic

The USGS Biological Informatics Program published its final print issue of the Access newsletter for Spring 2011 and created its first electronic edition, now emanating from USGS Core Science Systems. Starting this summer, Access will be exclusively electronic.  To subscribe to the new Access, send your e-mail address to ron_sepic@usgs.gov.

To see the new Access newsletter, go to www.usgs.gov/core_science_systems/access.  The online version contains the full-text for all of the Spring 2011 issue's articles.

Benefits of the new Access include: broader coverage (addresses data management issues for biology and many other disciplines); more in-depth articles; four-color graphics; issues to be searchable through the award-winning search engine, Raptor.  Access articles are now available through Facebook, Twitter, and via RSS feed; and have only a tiny carbon footprint. Don't miss an issue of the new Access newsletter!

GAP Helps Promote Great Outdoors

Mapping the Nation: GIS for Federal Progress 

and Accountability showcases many

ways that federal government agencies 

rely on GIS analysis and maps.  Map image

and text from the GAP Analysis website,
"Mapping the Nation" page.

USGS Core Science Systems' Gap Analysis Program (GAP), which provides important biodiversity data as well as information regarding the protection status of native U.S. species, has been actively involved in Secretary Salazar's efforts to promote the President's America's Great Outdoors Initiative.  As the Secretary and his senior staff visited the Governors of each state this spring, their briefing materials included GAP maps illustrating the State’s Federal and State land ownership boundaries.  The maps were created by expert cartographers and wildlife ecologists in the GAP Moscow, Idaho office using GAP Protected Areas and Species Distribution databases.  These colorful and informative maps will soon be available to the public in large and small formats on the Gap Analysis Web site.

Dan Ashe Sworn In as New Director of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Photo Caption: Dan Ashe
swearing in ceremony.
Credit: Tami Heilemann/USFWS

The USGS Biological Informatics Program (BIP) extends its congratulations and welcome to Daniel M. Ashe, the new  director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  Mr. Ashe was formally nominated by President Obama, and was just recently confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the 16th Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Sec. Salazar praised Mr. Ashe on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website, saying:

"Dan has served with distinction and integrity in the Fish and Wildlife Service for more than 15 years. He has worked tirelessly to prepare the Service to meet the resource challenges of the 21st century, and his leadership and vision have never been more necessary," said Salazar. "I’m excited to work with him to foster innovative science-driven conservation programs and policies to benefit our nation’s fish and wildlife and its habitat."

Mr. Ashe's previous experience includes serving as the chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System, where he directed operation and management of the 150 million-acre system, and serving as the Fish and Wildlife Service’s assistant director for external affairs, where he directed the agency’s programs in legislative, public, and Native American affairs, research coordination, and state grants-in-aid.  Prior to joining the Service, Ashe served as a member of the professional staff of the former Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Biological Informatics Program (BIP) has a number of partnerships and collaborative efforts with the Fish and Wildlife Service, including the Invasive Plant Atlas of New England (IPANE), species pages for the USFWS Migratory Bird Programs Focal Birds Species, the Tricolored Blackbird Portal, and regional and national syntheses of Species of Greatest Conservation Need identified in the State Wildlife Action Plans, and many others.  We look forward to continuing these and other collaborations in the future.

Read the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Press Release >>
Watch the YouTube video of Dan Ashe being sworn in >>

Vegetation Characterization Products Now Available for Cowpens National Battlefield and Ninety Six National Historic Site

Ninety Six National
Historic Site

USGS-National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Characterization Program (VCP) documentation for Cowpens National Battlefield and Ninety Six National Historic Site has been completed and is available on the VCP Web site h and . Cowpens National Battlefield and Ninety Six National Historic Site products include aerial photography - graphic of orthophoto mosaic, and flight line index; project report - vegetation description and key, Cumberland-Piedmont network report - photointerpretation, GIS operations; accuracy assessment report - accuracy assessment methods and results; field data - graphic of field plots, field plots database, physical descriptive for plots, and species list for plots; geospatial vegetation information - graphics of vegetation communities, geodatabase, and plot and AA photos; accuracy assessment information - graphic of accuracy assessment points, and contingency matrix; metadata, and a link to NPS information about Cowpens National Battlefield and Ninety Six National Historic Site. The goal of the VCP is to classify and map the vegetation communities of National Parks that have a natural resource component. Complete documentation is currently available for one hundred fourteen park units and two U.S. Fish and Wildlife refuge units. The VCP is managed by the USGS Center for Biological Informatics in cooperation with the NPS Inventory and Monitoring Program. The USGS Vegetation Characterization effort includes the management and upkeep of the VCP protocols, Web-based access to the standards, and the Web-based access to NPS Vegetation Characterization program finished products.

Butterflies and Moths Of North America (BAMONA) Receives MARS Award

The Butterflies and Moths Of North America (BAMONA) Web site was recently selected as one of 25 recipients of the MARS Best Free Reference Web Sites award for 2011. Other noteworthy recipients include Google Translator, WikiLeaks, The ICUN Red List of Threatened Species, and the Public Library of Science (PLOS).

Voted for by member librarians from around the United States, the BAMONA site is to be recognized by MARS this year as an outstanding site for reference information and is included in the list of MARS Best Free Reference Web Sites of 2011. MARS is the "MARS: Emerging Technologies in Reference" section of the Reference and User Services Association of the American Library Association (ALA).

Celebrate Pollinator Week!

The Senate passed Resolution 580 "Recognizing the importance of pollinators to ecosystem health and agriculture in the United States and the value of partnership efforts to increase awareness about pollinators and support for protecting and sustaining pollinators by designating June 24 though June 30, 2007 as 'Pollinator Week'." Read Resolution 580.

Additionally, Mike Johans, Secretary of Agriculture at the United States Department of Agriculture, issued a proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to join in celebrating the vital significance of pollinators to agriculture and to public lands as well as the Department's conservation assistance to farmers and ranchers and its management of ecosystems providing valuable pollinator habitats through the Nation, and recognizing Pollinator Week. Read the Proclamation (University of Arizona Press).

Pollinator Week is June 20 through June 26, 2011. To learn more about this year's events, click here.

The declaration of Pollinator Week was brought about largely through the efforts of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC).

Bee Identification Guide Project Receives Funding to Cover Western Species

Labeled bee specimen
collected
 in Lovettsville, VA.
Photo: Elizabeth
Sellers, USGS.

The Polistes Foundation, with oversight by Sam Droege and Michael Orr from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), received $50,000 in funds to create extended identification guides for bees to include the Western United States and Canada from the Vetlesen Foundation.  Identification of the United State's 4000 species of native bees is unusually tricky.  Approximately 400 species  haven't been described by science and many are so poorly known that identification is problematic.   Furthermore, no field guide or uniform technical guide exists for bees, thus for researchers, naturalists, and biologists, identification of the bees they study is their most difficult task.  These funds will make their jobs just a bit easier. To learn more about this project visit the Pollinator Project Web site.