Kristin Vanderbilt

Biogeochemistry of unpolluted forested watersheds in the Oregon Cascades: temporal patterns of precipitation and stream nitrogen fluxes

We analyzed long-term organic and inorganic nitrogen inputs and outputs in precipitation and streamwater in six watersheds at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in the central Cascade Mountains of Oregon. Total bulk N deposition, averaging 1.6 to 2.0 kg N ha−1 yr−1, is low compared to other sites in the United States and little influenced by anthropogenic N sources. Streamwater N export is also low, averaging <1 kg ha−1 yr−1. DON is the predominant form of N exported from all watersheds, followed by PON, NH4-N, and NO3-N. Total annual stream discharge was a positive predictor of annual DON output in all six watersheds, suggesting that DON export is related to regional precipitation. In contrast, annual discharge was a positive predictor of annual NO3-N output in one watershed, annual NH4-N output in three watersheds, and annual PON output in three watersheds. Of the four forms of N, only DON had consistent seasonal concentration patterns in all watersheds. Peak streamwater DON concentrations occurred in November-December after the onset of fall rains but before the peak in the hydrograph, probably due to flushing of products of decomposition that had built up during the dry summer. Multiple biotic controls on the more labile nitrate and ammonium concentrations in streams may obscure temporal DIN flux patterns from the terrestrial environment. Results from this study underscore the value of using several watersheds from a single climatic zone to make inferences about controls on stream N chemistry; analysis of a single watershed may preclude identification of geographically extensive mechanisms controlling N dynamics.

Completing the data life cycle: using information management in macrosystems ecology research

An important goal of macrosystems ecology (MSE) research is to advance understanding of ecological systems at both fine and broad temporal and spatial scales. Our premise in this paper is that MSE projects require integrated information management at their inception. Such efforts will lead to improved communication and sharing of knowledge among diverse project participants, better science outcomes, and more transparent and accessible (ie “open”) science. We encourage researchers to “complete the data life cycle” by publishing well-documented datasets, thereby facilitating re-use of the data to answer new and different questions from the ones conceived by those involved in the original projects. The practice of documenting and submitting datasets to data repositories that are publicly accessible ensures that research results and data are available to and use-able by other researchers, thus fostering open science. However, ecologists are often unfamiliar with the requirements and information management tools for effectively preserving data and receive little institutional or professional incentive to do so. Here, we provide recommendations for achieving these ends and give examples from current MSE projects to demonstrate why information management is critical for ensuring that scientific results can be reproduced and that data can be shared for future use.

Fostering ecological data sharing: collaborations in the International Long Term Ecological Research Network

The International Long Term Ecological Research (ILTER) Network was established in 1993 and is now composed of thirty-eight national networks representing a diversity of ecosystems around the globe. Data generated by the ILTER Network are valuable for scientists addressing broad spatial and temporal scale research questions, but only if these data can be easily discovered, accessed, and understood. Challenges to publishing ILTER data have included unequal distribution among networks of information management expertise, user-friendly tools, and resources. Language and translation have also been issues. Despite these significant obstacles, ILTER information managers have formed grassroots partnerships and collaborated to provide information management training, adopt a common metadata standard, develop information management tools useful throughout the network, and organize scientist/information manager workshops that encourage scientists to share and integrate data. Throughout this article, we share lessons learned from the successes of these grassroots international partnerships to inform others who wish to collaborate internationally on projects that depend on data sharing entailing similar management challenges.

A multilingual metadata catalog for the ILTER ：Issues and approaches

article i nfo The International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) Networks strategic plan calls for widespread data exchange among member networks to support broad scale synthetic studies of ecological systems. However, natural language differences are common among ILTER country networks and seriously inhibit the exchange, interpretation and proper use of ecological data. As a first step toward building a multilingual metadata catalog, the ILTER has adopted Ecological Metadata Language (EML) as its standard, and ILTER members are asked to share discovery level metadata in English. Presently, the burden of translation is on the data providers, who frequently have few resources for information management. Tools to assist with metadata capture and translation, such as localized metadata editors and a multilingual environmental thesaurus, are needed and will be developed in the near future. In the longer term, ILTER will cooperate with other communities to develop ontologies that may be used to automate the process of translation and will produce the most linguistically and semantically accurate metadata translations.

Examples of ecological data synthesis driven by rich metadata, and practical guidelines to use the Ecological Metadata Language specification to this end

We present two examples of scientific results using a semi-automated data synthesis driven by quality, rich-content metadata: 1) Antarctic climate and 2) effects of drought on biodiversity. We use a framework for semi-automated processing of data supported by quality controlled, content-rich metadata expressed in the Ecological Metadata Language (EML). We discuss a set of common practices for EML newcomers as a valuable guide for the EML use. We provide some simple tools that can be used to address quality control as the EML is generated. Based on our extended EML experience, we make recommendations about the future of EML.

A Prototype System for Multilingual Data Discovery of International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) Network Data

Shared ecological data have the potential to revolutionize ecological research just as shared genetic sequence data have done for biological research. However, for ecological data to be useful, it must first be discoverable. A broad-scale research topic may require that a researcher be able to locate suitable data from a variety of global, regional and national data providers, which often use different local languages to describe their data. Thus, one of the challenges of international sharing of long-term data is facilitation of multilingual searches. Such searches are hindered by lack of equivalent terms across languages and by uneven application of keywords in ecological metadata. To test whether a thesaurus-based approach to multilingual data searching might be effective, we implemented a prototype web-services-based system for searching International Long-Term Ecological Research Network data repositories. The system builds on the use of a multilingual thesaurus to make searches more complete than would be obtained through search term-translation alone. The resulting system, when coupled to commodity online translation systems, demonstrates the possibility of achieving multilingual searches for ecological data.

Case Studies of Ecological Integrative Information Systems: The Luquillo and Sevilleta Information Management Systems

The thirty-year-old United States Long Term Ecological Research Network has developed extensive metadata to document their scientific data. Standard and interoperable metadata is a core component of the data-driven analytical solutions developed by this research network Content management systems offer an affordable solution for rapid deployment of metadata centered information management systems. We developed a customized integrative metadata management system based on the Drupal content management system technology. Building on knowledge and experience with the Sevilleta and Luquillo Long Term Ecological Research sites, we successfully deployed the first two medium-scale customized prototypes. In this paper, we describe the vision behind our Drupal based information management instances, and list the features offered through these Drupal based systems. We also outline the plans to expand the information services offered through these metadata centered management systems. We will conclude with the growing list of participants deploying similar instances.

An Ecoinformatics Application for Forest Dynamics Plot Data Management and Sharing

Several forest dynamics plot research projects in the East-Asia Pacific region of the International Long-Term Ecological Research network actively collect long-term data, and some of these large plots are members of the Center for Tropical Forest Science network. The wealth of forest plot data presents challenges in information management to researchers. In order to facilitate the management of these data, a Forest Dynamics Plot Database and Application Workshop was held in Taiwan 2009. This paper describes the results of the workshop that produced and tested an integrated information management framework. The goal for the framework was to demonstrate how fully documented data archives can be effectively used for data discovery, access, retrieval, analysis, and integration. Results from our work included setting up a database based on the Center for Tropical Forest Science structure on a local relational database (MySQL) server, an authentication interface, a metadata query web page, and 3 workflows to test the framework.