Wednesday, July 29, 2009

National Early Detection Network Presented at the Consortium of Northeast Herbaria

Les Mehrhoff, Director of the Invasive Plant Atlas of New England (IPANE), gave a short presentation on the National Early Detection Network (NEDN) at a meeting of the Consortium of Northeast Herbaria in Durham, NH, in June. He is working with NBII ISIN, NIN, and Botany as well with Randy Westbrooks (USGS) and John Madsen (Invasive Plant Atlas of the MidSouth [IPAMS]) to develop this network. Herbaria are important potential partners because they may be asked to identify plants that may be new to their area and possibly invasive. IPANE is working to provide specimens of potentially invasive plants to the herbaria in the northeast that may not have these specimens because they don’t currently occur in their area. Invasive plant specimen sharing is being done in the hopes that having specimens of potentially invasive plants might facilitate the identification of unrecognized “Early Detection Species” and prompt the herbaria to notify the NEDN of their discovery.

For additional information please contact: Dr. Les Mehrhoff, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut at les.mehrhoff@uconn.edu or (860) 486-5708.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Coastal Prairie Restoration Database Available for Download

The Central Southwest/Gulf Coast Information Node (CSWGCIN) has recently expanded its Animals and Plants of the Region section to include a page devoted to the coastal prairie region. Coastal Prairie provides information on those prairies situated along the western Gulf Coast in southwestern Louisiana and southcentral Texas. Researchers with the National Wetlands Research Center (NWRC) have determined that a combination of anthropogenic changes have left less than one tenth of a percent of the original habitat undisturbed. Site visitors will discover the Coastal Prairie Restoration Information System (CPR), a downloadable Microsoft Access database, which allows users to search for data on 650 Louisiana coastal prairie species. In addition, the page provides links to information on the species at risk and the work being done by several groups to restore this critical habitat.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Vegetation Characterization Products Now Available for Capitol Reef National Park

USGS-National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Characterization Program (VCP) documentation for Capitol Reef National Park has been completed and is available on the VCP Web site . Products include aerial photography - graphic of orthophoto mosaic, spatial orthophoto data, and flightline index; project report - photointerpretation key, vegetation descriptions, vegetation key, photos of map class, and accuracy assessment; field data - graphic of field plots, field database, physical descriptive for plots and species list for plots; geospatial vegetation information - graphic of vegetation communities, geodatabase and field photos; accuracy assessment information - graphic of accuracy assessment points, and contingency matrix; metadata, and a link to NPS information about Capitol Reef National Park. 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 fifty 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. (Theresa Singh, Houston, TX, 936-271-5324)


(Photo: Capital Reef National Park - is 98,650 ha (243,768 acres), and is located in south-central Utah, approximately 4.8 km (3 miles west of the park) is Torrey and 88 km (55 miles to the east) is Hanksville.)

Friday, July 10, 2009

USGS Microbiology Web site Debut

The new USGS Microbiology Web site showcases the research and scientists that study the secret world of microbes. With topics such as fish and wildlife disease, water quality, and climate change, and features including research summaries, images, and links to individual scientists and centers, this new site reveals the wide variety of expertise used to study microbes and their impact on Earth and its life. USGS Microbiology Coordinator, Kay M. Briggs
Phone: 703-648-4046.


Photo: Lyngbya with epifluorescence illumination and Sytox Green. Photo credit: Barry H. Rosen, USGS.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

NBII and GBIF booth at ESA Conference 2009 in Albuquerque, New Mexico

The USGS National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) and Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) will have a joint booth in the exhibits hall. The USGS-NBII is the U.S. national node of GBIF. You are especially invited to come and learn how to install and use the new GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT), for enabling access to, sharing, and integration of your specimen and observation records with those of the international community.

The Ecological Society of America 94th Annual Meeting will be held August 2-7, 2009 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Visit the ESA website for more information and registration.

On Friday, August 7, 2009 from 8:00 AM-11:30 AM in the Brazos, Albuquerque Convention Center, Annie Simpson from the US Geological Survey will be leading the session on Standards, Protocols, and Tools for Sharing Ecological Information: Data Interoperability on a Global Scale (session OOS 49). Liz Sellers will be facilitator for this oral session. Other USGS representation will include Annette Olson, Viv Hutchison, and Lisa Zolly. For more details, visit the OOS 49 session page of the ESA website.

Organizer: Annie Simpson, US Geological Survey
Co-organizers: Elizabeth Sellers, National Biological Information Infrastructure, and Viv Hutchison, US Geological Survey