Overview

The Terrestrial Ecology Observing Systems (TEOS) research group is one of five applications areas that collaborates with other CENS research groups to design, develop, deploy, evaluate, and support embedded networked sensing systems for in-situ continuous measurement of environmental, physiological and ecological variables within diverse terrestrial ecosystems. During the past year we have successfully deployed a variety of sensing systems, imagers, and platforms.  These systems range from test deployments of newly developed technologies to science-driven deployments of mature sensing systems. The majority of these systems, including both fixed and mobile arrays, have been deployed at our James Reserve field site. Expanding beyond our test deployments in prior years, we are increasingly focusing our efforts on multi-scale and multi-modal approaches to observing ecosystem processes. As more compact and robust digital cameras and more sophisticated methods of image analysis become available, a broader range of quantitative questions are being addressed with innovative applications of imagers as biological sensors. TEOS researchers are also adapting inexpensive, consumer-grade digital cameras and Internet-linked “webcams” for quantitative ecological research. The breadth of TEOS research is increasingly involving collaborative work with other programs outside of CENS and with a diverse group of ecologists and ecosystem researchers nationally and internationally.  Most significantly, the James Reserve has been able to provide the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) a test bed for prototype deployments and testing of NEON systems. 

TEOS research includes five project areas: imagers for animal observing systems; imagers for plant observing systems; automated minirhizotron and arrayed rhizosphere sensing systems (AMARSS+NIMS); system infrastructure for environmental sensing and image acquisition; and, EcoPDA for data collection.

Imagers for Animal Observing Systems: Camera-based animal observing systems are being developed for a range of research programs involving bird behavior and herpetological surveys. The key technological needs have been to increase the frequency of data capture and to develop image processing software for automated classification of avian behavior activities in real time. Key activities have involved deployments of Cyclops imaging systems, and adaptations of this technology to meet researcher needs. The wildlife observation cameras installed last year at remote UCNRS sites as well as the two additional tower cameras at the JR have continued to reliably produce and upload images.  They are collected automatically, documenting raptor nesting locations and bighorn sheep activity.

Imagers for Plant Observing Systems: High-resolution digital cameras with pan-tilt controls and mounted on fixed towers at the James Reserve have been deployed in a variety of applications designed to utilize imagers as biological sensors for phenological changes and physiological condition. The timing of leaf flushes and flowering events, which can be affected by short-term changes in microclimate as well as longer-term global climate change, are easily quantified using rapidly acquired digital images. Analyses of visible-light digital images for “greenness” of leaves and of landscapes are providing measures of physiological condition, leaf area change, and photosynthetic activity.  Daily images of a both woody and herbaceous target plants are allowing detection of flowering and leafing events. Images of leaf development in Pteridium aquilinum (bracken fern) coupled with instrumental monitoring of solar irradiance and ecophysiological measurements of photosynthetic carbon assimilation have allowed a new approach to understanding the dynamics of stomatal response to dynamic light environments. Research has continued with a Moss-CAM digital camera to model the seasonal patterns of photosynthetic response of the star moss, Tortula princeps. 

Networked Minirhizotron and Arrayed Rhizosphere Sensing Systems: The soil environment is extremely heterogeneous at even a sub-millimeter scale, while soil surface-canopy-atmosphere fluxes integrate over tens of meters to kilometers.  The objective of the AMARSS and linked research has been to examine the soil spatial and temporal heterogeneity “within a pixel” by using a series of models relating aboveground microclimate and soil energy balance measurements to belowground measurements made by AMARSS.  The soil environmental measurements at the James Reserve have been collecting high-resolution spatial and temporal soil data with ten stations along an 80 m transect in the forest understory.  Each station consists of an array of belowground sensors including soil CO2, soil temperature, soil water content, and aboveground air temperature, relative humidity, and photosynthetic active radiation. The hypothesis driving this research is that soil CO2 fluxes occur at predictable soil moisture and temperature values, but become spatially and temporally complex depending on the local characteristics of the forest overstory.   Thus, soil temperature and water content, the two parameters that most influence the biological processes in the soil directly relating to CO2 flux, are being modeled and correlated with aboveground measurements of energy balance and carbon flux at the atmosphere/soil interface. In the near future, manipulations of the soil leaf litter and moisture content will allow correlations of aboveground energy flux measurements to what is occurring belowground.  Measurements of microclimate and soil energy balance over manipulated and undisturbed areas, made using mobile NIMS systems, will be related to sub-surface temperature and moisture content measured by AMARSS, and analyzed to compare results with existing ecosystem models.

System for environmental sensing and image acquisition: The environmental sensing system (ESS) for microclimate sensing has been a key component of a collection of tools that provide a nearly complete, end-to-end, sensor-to-user facility for deploying and managing a wireless sensing system.  CMS2, based on ESS, is now poised to become the successor to the original CMS, which has been in operation for over five years and has collected more than 60,000,000 measurements.  Placing CMS2 sensors side-by-side in the same environment with the original CMS stations has allowed us to verify that the newer hardware and software in CMS2 produced results consistent with CMS and provides verification of the original CMS data.  With CMS2 working reliably and CMS requiring heroic measures to be kept alive, we plan to remove the older system within the coming months.  The lessons learned from this one deployment have touched or influenced almost every mote-based development and deployment activity in CENS.

EcoPDA: handheld data-logging systems: Field researchers work to quantify and forecast changes in biodiversity at multiple spatial scales, and to understand the intrinsic dynamics of biodiversity and its responses to anthropogenic drivers of change. Handheld instruments complement embedded sensing systems by supporting much broader spatial coverage and engagement of human observational faculties. For example, standardized biodiversity monitoring protocols for data collection are conducted at field sites world-wide, and data are compared across sites and over time. Consequently, strict adherence to standard practices and protocols is critical. Technologies that facilitate rapid and robust reporting of data to shared databases can be an important management device for ensuring compliance with protocols, introducing data integrity checks, and making data available in the timeliest fashion. We are developing applications using powerful handheld computers, already widely used in personal and industrial applications, that incorporate low-power processors, wireless communication capabilities, and flexible sensor interfaces. These personal data assistants (PDAs) and cellular telephones are merging into so-called smart phones, which are programmable and increasingly contain integrated sensors, such as cameras, microphones, and global positioning satellite (GPS) receivers. We have been working with Conservation International to adapt these devices for environmental monitoring in new and innovative ways. Over time, they will create a new device for mobile monitoring activities.

 Table 1. - TEOS Embedded Networked Systems and Applications