LUQ Newsletter
August 2005

 

Robert Waide

 

New Project\Student

Brittany Barker, a new Ph.D. student, will begin her studies at the University of New Mexico this fall.  Bob Waide and Joe Cook are her co-advisors.  Brittany spent some time at El Verde this summer and is in the process of developing a research project.  She has expertise in genetic analysis that she hopes to incorporate into her project.  She will also be doing some work on stable isotopes and food webs.

 

Workshop at ESA

The LTER Network is trying to develop a workshop for the ESA meeting in Merida, Yucatan.  Hague Vaughn, Manuel Maass, and Bob Waide are the co-organizers.  Initial discussions have centered on the theme of developing and delivering science information in response to emerging needs, including:

• Grand Challenges

• Delivering needed info to decision-makers

• Integrated accessible data in support of predictive models

• Early warning

• Coordinated contributions to International Conventions including GEO

 

The workshop would establish a simplified needs framework beforehand, describe what is being done and identify additional actions/recommendations.  If you are interested in participating, please contact one of the organizers.

Michael Gannon

 

Book

“Bats of Puerto Rico: An Island Focus and a Caribbean Perspective”. Michael R. Gannon, Allen Kurta, Armando Rodríguez-Durán, and Michael R. Willig. For information on how to obtain our book "Bats of Puerto Rico” follow the link http://ites.upr.edu/horde/services/go.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ttup.ttu.edu%2Fbooks%2F0896725510.htm

 

 

Eda Melendez-Colom

 

LTER Information Manager

I have been elected member to the Information Managers Executive Committee (IMEXEC) at the 2005 Montreal IM Annual Meeting. IMEXEC is the IM Committee's directive and some of its member work directly with other groups of the LTER Community such as NSF and the PIs.

 

It is an honor for me to have been elected since this is a group that has more exposure to the rest of the LTER community. I think it is also a great thing that it happened exactly this year, previous to our submission to our next proposal.

 

Now I will be even more involved in Network activities. This committee has an extra meeting every year around February. Every two months they have conference calls. I am very much looking forward to work even closer to this great group of people. The appointment lasts for three years (up to 2008).

 

 

Nick Brokaw

LTER Meeting - Interdisciplinary ecology/social science research
A meeting of social scientists and others representing nearly all the LTER sites took place in Athens, Georgia, August 3-5. Twenty-nine people attended, including Brokaw. Ted Gragson (Lead PI, Coweeta) and Morgan Grove (USFS social scientist, Baltimore Ecosystem Study) organized the meeting. The goal of the meeting was to discuss interdisciplinary ecology/social science research in LTER, at site and Network levels.  This meeting was part of the effort toward LTER network-level research.

For LUQ-LTER this is important for two main reasons. First, humans are changing the ecosystems of northeast Puerto Rico. We must study that (LTER 4 will not include social science in the main proposal, but will help us move toward incorporating it eventually.  (Most of you will soon get a draft of LTER 4). Second, NSF increasingly wants to see management actions resulting from LTER work, which means connecting with people. When it is ready, I will forward to you Gragson and Grove’s report on this meeting.

 

Alonso Ramírez

 

CTE: Abiotic responses to the canopy trimming

A quick look at the data for air temperature in Block B showed some clear responses to the canopy trimming experiment.

 

We know that air temperature peaks during June - July and then decreases slowly toward the end of the year.  I look at the slope of this relationship (time vs. air temperature) from July to December 2004 in Block B.

 

Plots where the canopy was trimmed had a smooth slope for maximum temperature, meaning that maximum temperature remained high during the 7-month period. Untrimmed plots showed a change of 3-4 C in air temperature (from 26 in July to

22-23 in December), while trimmed plots did not change much, only ~ 1 C (from 26-27 in July to 25-26 in December).

 

Minimum temperatures showed the opposite pattern: trimmed plots change a lot more than untrimmed plots.  Average temperature and air humidity had similar patterns in all plots.

 

We are also measuring other variables in the CTE:  soil temperature, soil moisture, air temperature, and light.  I will try to summarize the responses shown by all variables and give you an idea of the magnitude of the effects in the future.  Remember that all measurements are been done with Campbell Scientific Inc. data loggers and sensors.

 

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Compiled by Jody Potter (Jody.Potter@unh.edu), University of New Hamshire
Web-published by Eda C. Meléndez-Colom (emelend@ites.upr.edu)
August 17, 2005