Australian Wildlife Health Network Makes Use of the NBII's Wildlife Disease Information Node (WDIN)

Each week the Australian Wildlife Health Network (AWHN) distributes the AWHN Digest (via e-mail), which contains a summary of wildlife disease related news occurring both in Australia and internationally. Similarly, WDIN also publishes a wildlife disease news summary. Through its blog, the Wildlife Disease News Digest, WDIN staff provide almost daily reports of wildlife disease related issues and events that are making national and international news. The AWHN Digest has designated a section within its publication to highlight and reuse news items from the WDIN Digest. Both organizations recognize the potential for collaboration opportunities and are exploring the possibilities.



(Photo: American egret (Casmerodius albus egretta) standing in shallow water. Credit: Randolph Femmer /life.nbii.gov).

Vegetation Characterization Products Now Available for Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site and Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site

USGS-National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Characterization Program (VCP) documentation for Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site and Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site has been completed and is available on the VCP Web site. Products include aerial photography - graphic of orthophoto mosaic, and spatial orthophoto data; project report - photointerpretation key, vegetation descriptions, vegetation key, photos of map class, and accuracy assessment; field data - graphic of field plots, plots field 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 Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site and Sand Creek Massacre 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 seventy-four 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.

Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database Offers Interactive Species Maps

NBII Invasive Species Information Node (ISIN) partner, the USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species (NAS) database, recently made some upgrades to its Web site. NAS now offers point distribution maps. These appear as a separate link from any species search and from the top of any species page. These new maps depict spatial accuracy of the point and species status at each location. The map background can be changed and various other spatial layers can be turned on/off. Additional environmental layers are planned for the future.

Silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix)
Northern Snakehead fish (Channa argus)
Nutria (Myocastor coypus)

Also, the site has been converted from classic .ASP to .NET. As a result, all of the Web page addresses have changed.  However, the change is simple: the basic URL remains the same but will contain the letter X after any “ASP within the former URLs (as can be seen in the links above).

(Photo: Silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix), exotic to United States with map showing points of distribution.  Photo by the Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures, Auburn University, Alabama.  Photo courtesy of the NAS Web site).

NBII Presents Resources of a Botanical Nature at Botanical Society of America Annual Meeting

The NBII will be well-represented at this year’s Botanical Society of America Annual Meeting, and United States Virtual Herbarium Workshop, August 1-4, 2010 in Providence, Rhode Island. Ms. Elizabeth Sellers (Manager, NBII Botany Project) and Mr. Giri Palanisamy (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, an NBII partner) will represent the NBII at these meetings as members of the USVH Steering Committee and USVH Communications Infrastructure Task Force. In addition to staffing the NBII Exhibit, Ms. Sellers will present a Task Force report at the USVH Annual Meeting, including an overview of the new USVH Web site  www.usvirtualherbarium.org, hosted by the University of Tennessee SunSITE and developed with help from Mr. Palanisamy and other Task Force members. Mr. Palanisamy will also represent the NBII’s role as the U.S. Node to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) by providing his expertise on the Integrated Publishing Toolkit developed by GBIF.

Ms. Jennifer Carlino (Manager, NBII California, Pacific Northwest, and Mountain Prairie Information Nodes) and Ms. Marcia NcNiff (Manager, NBII Northeast Information Node) will also attend the meetings, representing the NBII’s contributions and participation in several of the regional herbarium and collection networks associated with the USVH project. And Dr. Gerald Guala will represent the NBII-hosted Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) at the meetings, the standard for taxonomy for NBII and numerous other Federal and non-Federal data systems. Plant specimens represent a valuable scientific resource that can help provide key information for addressing national issues such as climate change, land use effects, and invasive species. But access to these collections varies dramatically. The USVH project is the primary project of an alliance of U.S. herbaria, regional herbarium networks, universities, and other organizations and individuals to digitize and increase access to all botanical specimens held in U.S. herbaria. As a nationally recognized authority on bioinformatics, the NBII will provide expertise on biological data hosting, publishing and standards, and help guide the continued progress of the USVH project.

(Photo: Yellow flower of the American skunkcabbage (Lysichiton americanus).  Photo by © 2007 Ted Niehaus/NBII LIFE. Note: The Creator has granted the Source the authority to distribute the images: images may be used for any nonprofit purposes. Contact the Source to request a copy of the archival master, or for any commercial uses).

NBII, Including GAP, To Be Represented at International Congress of Conservation Biology

Forming partnerships with the conservation science community is of great importance to the NBII Program, including its Gap Analysis Program (GAP) component.  To promote such partnerships, the NBII and GAP have been working closely with the Society for Conservation Biology on a series of focus groups, three of which will be held during the International Congress of Conservation Biology (ICCB), which will be held in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, from July 3-7.  An exhibit booth will also be continuously manned throughout the meeting by Meredith Lane, Ben Wheeler, Bernadette LeMasters, and Hugh O'Connor (NBII); and John Mosesso, Steve Williams, Jocelyn Aycrigg, and Matt Rubino (GAP).  Feedback and input from participants in the focus groups and at the exhibit booth will be sought, especially on Raptor (the NBII's new Web search engine), NBII LIFE (Library of Images From the Environment), and the GAP Online Analysis Tool.

(Photo: Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina) by John J. Mosesso. Photo courtesy of life.nbii.gov)

Southern Appalachian Information Node (SAIN) Assessment

Dr. Miriam Davis and Ms. Amber Conger were lead authors for two posters featuring SAIN that were presented at the University of Tennessee's (UT) 2010 College of Communication and Information Research Symposium, "Communication and Information in a Digital Age." The posters were co-authored by UT School of Information Science faculty, including Dr. Carol Tenopir, Dr. Vandana Singh, Dr. Suzie Allard, and Dr. Lorraine Normore. "Increasing Biodiversity Information Sources for the Southern Appalachian Information Node: Developing a Matrix for Environmental Decision-Making" presented a matrix identifying environmental decision makers in the Southeast, a key audience for SAIN information, which can be used at multiple levels of granularity. "Evaluating Usage of the Southern Appalachian Information Node: A Baseline Assessment" found that the NBII and SAIN staff are actively promoting SAIN to relevant scientific communities, and other scientists and unaffiliated organizations frequently point to SAIN as a resource of value.

(Photo: Purple Wild crane's-bill (Geranium maculatum) flowers beside a hiking trail in an eastern Appalachian forest.© 2009 Elizabeth A. Sellers, Courtesy of life.nbii.gov)

Invasive Species, Pollinators, and the Encyclopedia of Life (EoL)

USGS biological informatics scientists Elizabeth Sellers (NBII Invasive Species, Pollinators), Annie Simpson (NBII Invasive Species), and Gerald Guala (Integrated Taxonomic Information System, botany) have been invited to contribute their expertise on invasive species, pollinators, and botany at the Encyclopedia of Life's Taxonomic Triage Workshop, July 7-8 at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. The workshop will inform and improve the EOL’s ability to prioritize content acquisition in the coming year and beyond. In particular, Ms. Simpson and Ms. Sellers will assist EOL in identifying key species and information gaps and priorities in EOL's taxonomic coverage of invasive and pollinating species - two groups for which more species information is needed for effective management and control in the case of invasive species; and for conservation in the case of pollinators, many of which are showing marked population decreases. Dr. Guala will provide his botanical and taxonomic expertise toward the overall task of determining what content is required for a rich species page and which vascular plant groups are a priority for inclusion in EOL.

Photo: Neon Cuckoo Bee (Thyreus nitidulus). © Elizabeth Sellers 2009).