Renewal and Diversity

Dear BES Community,

As we begin 2017, we are grateful for the opportunity to clarify our research outlook. We are hard at work developing a new conceptual model, research questions, hypothesis and experimental plan for the 2018 Renewal Proposal. At the January Quarterly meeting, we had some great input from our Hydrology, Biodiversity and Social Science Breakout Groups. Since then, our ideas have been reviewed and insightfully critiqued by an independent Ad Hoc Advisory Committee and the iterative process continues. We look forward to sharing the new conceptual model once it is finalized.

Long-term Climate data was also discussed at the January meeting with a focus on what is needed for Baltimore disaster and all-hazards planning. Thanks go to Kristin Baja, who presented at our meeting and provided information about the status of the All Hazards Management Plan (AHMP).  This plan is updated every five years and looks at historical hazards. We also looked at Regional Climate Trends – John Dillow and Bob Shedlock, Climate Trends Analysis in BES – Ellen Woytowitz, Climate data sources – Bernice Rosenzweig, and NEXRAD rainfall data for spatial and temporal patterns and links to models (Jim Smith, presented by Peter Groffman).

In February we welcomed a new co-Investigator, Colin Studds, Ph.D., from the Department of Geography and Environmental Systems at UMBC. Colin has plans for investigating mammals and further research on birds in BES to complement our ongoing research on bird dynamics led by Dr. Charles Nilon.

Looking ahead to our April 26th Quarterly Meeting, we will be exploring ways of increasing diversity in BES.  Alan Berkowitz and Bess Caplan have provided the following goals for discussion at our upcoming meeting:
1.      Raise awareness within BES community of the importance and challenges of increasing diversity within our community.
2.      Help BES make progress towards crafting a visionary and feasible Diversity Plan.
3.      Evoke a shared understanding of the roles of diversity in science, and the current landscape of diversity in environmental careers and interventions.
4.      Build bridges for collaboration and contribution within BES and between BES and others in the region.
5.      Make concrete plans for the future of diversity in BES.
6.      Consider producing a short paper about diversity in, of and for BES and the urban social-ecological “workforce.”
We are anticipating a very productive meeting and hope to see you there!

Finally, we are restructuring our social media strategy and want to share the latest details. We hope that these changes will better serve the BES Community and help to raise the profile of the quality research that our project does every day and year after year. We will be archiving the existing Facebook Group and the Education page (BPESL) at the end of March 2017. There will be one BES Facebook page with more varied content appealing to investigators, educators, and artists alike: Baltimore Ecosystem Study - BES. In addition, you can follow us on Twitter @BESlter. Follow us, like our page, comment and discuss! We want to hear your thoughts on what’s happening.

Thank you,
Emma

Urban Ecology at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America

The meeting takes place in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, from 7-12 August. The meeting theme is Novel Ecosystems in the Anthropocene. Certainly this theme is right in our urban niche!  Details of the meeting can be found at http://esa.org/ftlauderdale/

The biggest gathering of professional ecologists each

ESA 2016 Annual Meeting logo

year is the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America. This year, following the recent trends, there will be a lot of urban ecology -- symposium talks, contributed sessions, posters, and mixers.

Myla Aronson, Chair of the Urban Ecology Section, has compiled a list of urban activities, which is insert below.  We have added a couple symposium talks that were not tagged as urban in the ESA program.  This diversity of activities should tempt people to participate.  Hope to see you there!

Urban Sessions at Ecological Society of America, Annual Meeting 2016

Business meeting:

Tuesday, August 9, 2016, 12:00 PM-1:00 PM, 318, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center

ESA Joint Section Mixer (Agroecology, Applied, Asian, Early Career, Education, Human, Inclusive, International, Justice, Long-term Studies, Rangeland, TEK, and Urban)

https://eco.confex.com/eco/2016/webprogram/Session12525.html

Tuesday, August 9, 2016: 6:30 PM-8:00 PM, Grand Floridian Blrm H, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center

Symposiums

SYMP 15: Urban Ecology: A Socio-Ecological Insight from Tropical Regions and Latin America

https://eco.confex.com/eco/2016/webprogram/Session11676.html

Wednesday, August 10, 2016: 1:30 PM-5:00 PM, Grand Floridian Blrm D, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center

SYMP 19: Novel Ecosystems in Cities: Adaptation to Urban Conditions

https://eco.confex.com/eco/2016/webprogram/Session11678.html

Thursday, August 11, 2016: 1:30 PM-5:00 PM, Grand Floridian Blrm B, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center 

Two urban talks in a "non-urban" symposium on Human Ecology, Human Economy: Towards Good Governance of the Anthropocene https://eco.confex.com/eco/2016/webprogram/Session11685.html 

Tuesday 10:10 AM B. Larry Li, University of California Riverside
Building the three pillars in harmony: The case of urban development in China  
Tuesday 10:40 a.m. Steward T.A. Pickett, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies; Geoffrey Buckley, Ohio University The legacy of past paradigms of governance and the challenge for the future

Organized Oral Sessions

OOS 29: Urban Woodlands: Remnants, Regeneration and Restoration

https://eco.confex.com/eco/2016/webprogram/Session11737.html

Thursday, August 11, 2016: 8:00 AM-11:30 AM, Grand Floridian Blrm G, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center

OOS 40: From Studying to Shaping: Reframing Urban Ecology into a Proactive Science Through Pedagogy, Practice and Research

https://eco.confex.com/eco/2016/webprogram/Session11729.html

Friday, August 12, 2016: 8:00 AM-11:30 AM, Grand Floridian Blrm G, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center

Contributed Oral Sessions

COS 12: Sustainability: Urban Systems

https://eco.confex.com/eco/2016/webprogram/Session12151.html

Monday, August 8, 2016: 1:30 PM-5:00 PM, 222/223, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center

COS 25: Urban Ecosystems I

https://eco.confex.com/eco/2016/webprogram/Session12249.html

Tuesday, August 9, 2016: 8:00 AM-11:30 AM, 222/223, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center

COS 37: Urban Ecosystems II

https://eco.confex.com/eco/2016/webprogram/Session12277.html

Tuesday, August 9, 2016: 1:30 PM-5:00 PM, Floridian Blrm D, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center

COS 49: Urban Ecosystems III

https://eco.confex.com/eco/2016/webprogram/Session12153.html

 Wednesday, August 10, 2016: 8:00 AM-11:30 AM, Floridian Blrm D, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center

Poster Sessions

PS 32: Urban Ecology

https://eco.confex.com/eco/2016/webprogram/Session12065.html

Thursday, August 11, 2016: 4:30 PM-6:30 PM, ESA Exhibit Hall, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center

PS 57: Latebreaking: Urban Ecosystems

https://eco.confex.com/eco/2016/webprogram/Session12597.html

Friday, August 12, 2016: 8:30 AM-10:30 AM, ESA Exhibit Hall, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center

Workshops

WK 43: Practicing Ecology in Novel Ecosystems: Sharing Lessons Learned from Urban Field Work on Private Property

https://eco.confex.com/eco/2016/webprogram/Session11781.html

Thursday, August 11, 2016: 11:30 AM-1:15 PM, Grand Floridian Blrm A, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center

Field Trips

FT 7: A Crosstown Walk on 7th Street: A Socioeconomic Gradient

https://eco.confex.com/eco/2016/webprogram/Session11869.html

Thursday, August 11, 2016: 8:00 AM-11:30 AM, Shuttle Drop-off outside Lobby A area, Ft Lauderdale Convention Center

April 2014 All-Project Meeting: Discussing Theory as a Path to BES IV

It is something of a truism that in a Long-Term Ecological Research project that one is either preparing for a mid-term, external review, or preparing for a renewal proposal.  BES just had its mid-term review in October 2013.  That means we must now be preparing for the 2016 renewal proposal – and that is, in fact, the case.  

A Suite of Preparatory Activities

The activities we have undertaken this year – our quarterly All-Project Meetings, our book of the year, and our webinars on the structure and content of theory in BES are intended to help us prepare for the renewal proposal.  This is serious work, and everybody in BES ought to be involved in these activities.

We have had two webinars to date: 1) a discussion of chapters 1 and 2 in Scheiner and Willig’s (2011) Theory of Ecology, and 2) a discussion of a draft white paper on the theory of urban heterogeneity.  We have recorded these webinars for reference by those who were unable to attend.  Go here for Webinar 1 https://vimeo.com/89529855 and here for Webinar 2 http://vimeo.com/89746068.  The introductory PowerPoint for Webinar 2 is here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bx-QKDoShVRkQmFEa25MQVB0YlU/.

The April Meeting as a Step toward BES IV.

The 8 April 2014, All-Project Meeting continues this work.  In it, we will discuss the theory of urban heterogeneity, examine the existing subtheories we employ, and explore alternative theoretical content, and specific research questions, especially those aimed at integration.  The meeting will incorporate new insights from many members of BES through discussions aimed at clarifying our theoretical structure, enhancing integration, and strategizing about our long-term data collection.

There is homework for the meeting.  

Please read or review the following materials.

Theory of Urban Heterogeneity
1. Cadenasso, M.L., E.J. Rosi-Marshall, S.T.A. Pickett, et al. TBD.  A Theory of Urban Heterogeneity: A Framework to Promote Integration and Hypothesis Generation for BES IV. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx-QKDoShVRkZFBnTGwwWHBEX28/edit?usp=sharing

Structure and Use of Ecological Theory
2.  Kolasa, J. 2011. Theory makes ecology evolve. Pages 21-49 in S. M. Scheiner and M. R. Willig, editors. The theory of ecology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

3. Scheiner, S. M. and M. R. Willig. 2011. A general theory of ecology. Pages 3-18 in S. M. Scheiner and M. R. Willig, editors. The theory of ecology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Metacommunity Theory
4. Leibold, M. A. 2011. The metacommunity concept and its theoretical underpinnings. Pages 163-183 in S. M. Scheiner and M. R. Willig, editors. The theory of ecology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

5. Swan, C. M., S. T. A. Pickett, K. Szlavecz, P. Warren, and K. T. Willey. 2011. Biodiversity and community composition in urban ecosystems: coupled human, spatial, and metacommunity processes. Pages 179-186 in J. Niemela, editor. Handbook of Urban Ecology. Oxford University Press, New York.

The River Continuum and the Urban Watershed Continuum
6. Kaushal, S.S., K.T. Belt. 2012. The urban watershed continuum: evolving spatial and temporal dimensions. Urban Ecosystems. 15:409-435. doi:10.1007/s11252-012-0226-7.

7. Vannote, R. L., G. W. Minshall, K. W. Cummins, J. R. Sedell, and C. E. Cushing. 1980. The river continuum concept. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 37:130-137.

Locational Choice
8. Irwin, Elena G., Kathleen P. Bell, Nancy E. Bockstael, David Newburn, Mark D. Partridge, JunJie Wu. 2009. “The economics of urban-rural space”Annual Review of Resource Economics, 1: 435-459.

9. Brasington, D. 2013. “Housing choice, residential mobility, and hedonic approaches.” In Fischer, M. and P. Nijkamp (ed.), Handbook of Regional Science, Berlin: Springer Verlag, pp. 147-166

Agenda

Here's the agenda for the meeting, to be held in room 206 of the Technology Research Center building on the UMBC campus (5200 Westland Blvd
Baltimore, MD 21227):

8:30 am Coffee and welcome

9-9:15 am Overview of goals for the day and brief overview of the essay (See citation no. 1, above)

9:15-10 am Discussion of homework assignments

10-10:15 am Specific charge to the breakout groups

10:30-12 pm Breakout group session 1

Noon-1:30 pm Lunch on your own/with breakout groups

1:30-2:00 pm Report back from breakout groups

2:00-3:30 pm Breakout group session 2 “Mixing it up”

3:30-4:30 pm Report back from breakout groups and final thoughts

Worksheets

At the meeting we will use two worksheets to extend our thinking, integrative, and data strategies within the theoretical structure begun in the "heterogeneity essay" cited above.  Copies will be handed out at the meeting, but previews are available here:

Worksheet 1.  Identifying subtheories and BES long-term data that can be used to test theory.  If datasets are not being collected that you think would be useful, identify potential new datasets.

Worksheet 2: Identifying Specific Linkages/Interactions Among Subtheories

(a number of links have been provided, but please feel free to add more!)

Join the Meeting In Person or on the Web

The planning for the BES IV proposal has begun, and your contributions to that are crucial.  Be there or be square!  If you cannot attend the 8 April 2014 meeting in person, we encourage you to join via Go-To-Meeting.  The link to start the day at 9:00 a.m. is here: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/716973005  (To break the meeting recording into manageable chunks, we will generate separate links for the time periods after 10:30 a.m. EDT on that day.)

Background Reading for BES Response to the Mid-Term Review

An essay has been written to help outline the needs to be met and the theoretical structure that we must flesh out and fill in to enhance intellectual integration in BES, the improved use of theory, and clearer articulation of the significance and use of long-term data in our social-ecological system.

This essay will be useful background for the January meeting, and for subsequent meetings where the BES community will work together to make improvements in the areas highlighted by the review.

Please find the draft essay here https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx-QKDoShVRkZFBnTGwwWHBEX28/edit?usp=sharing

The January 16 Quarterly All Project Meeting will include an introductory discussion of our strategy for making improvements to BES based on the input from the Mid-Term Review conducted last October.  This essay will prepare BES members for this discussion.

Although this paper will ultimately evolve into a complete publication, the current draft should also be kept in mind through the next 18 months or so of BES strategic efforts to enhance integration.

This is serious homework.

Quarterly Project Meeting on BES III Conceptual Structure

On 25 January 2013, BES will hold a half day session on the conceptual structure of phase III of the project.      This meeting will run from 8:30 till noon, starting with a light breakfast.  This meeting will be held at the USGS Conference Room at 5522 Research Park Drive, on the edge of the UMBC campus in Baltimore County.

The goal of the meeting is to allow our academic and professional community to better integrate our project, to be able to articulate how our various individual projects contribute to the overall goals, and to lay out a strategy to prepare for the external mid-term review to be held in October 2013.

The meeting will review our new guiding question, discuss and link the more specific research questions to that overarching question, and explore how better to use our three theoretical umbrellas for integration.  In addition, how our modeling efforts are being used to promote the hierarchy of research questions and unify the three theoretical areas, will be discussed.

All members of the BES community are invited to participate in this meeting.  It will follow our full day session on education, to be held on Thursday 24 January.

The agenda and several background documents are on file for those with this link:

https://drive.google.com/?usp=chrome_app#folders/0B88E9KO3vp4LLXZ4TUZ6ZHNmOW8

In this folder, background materials, such as the BES III proposal and several papers relevant to the transition from the sanitary to the sustainable city are on file: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B88E9KO3vp4LN3M4WkFwYUpQa1E/edit

I hope to see you there!

BES Quarterly Research Meeting: Green Infrastructure

What's Green Infrastructure?

The BES community will meet, along with managers and policy makers, on 19 April 2012 to discuss green infrastructure. The Baltimore City Office of Sustainability has provided this description of green infrastructure: 

As opposed to ‘gray’ infrastructure, which includes transportation and utility networks, green infrastructure is interconnected ecological systems that include natural areas such as forests and streams as well as constructed elements such as urban parks, trails, streetscapes, stormwater management practices, community gardens, and urban agriculture.

 Green infrastructure provides critical environmental functions and benefits including cleaner water, cleaner air, enhanced habitat and biodiversity. It also provides key social and economic functions such as decreased energy costs, opportunities for recreation and economic development, as well as improved health and quality of life.

Why Green Infrastructure?

 

We are engaging in this discussion because green infrastructure provides an excellent way to both improve the social-ecological functioning of urban ecosystems, and a platform for working with policy makers and managers.  Meeting Chair Morgan Grove has lined up an excellent roster of speakers, for the morning.  These presentations will present background on the nature of green infrastructure, the hydrological components of green infrastructure, the social and economic significance of green infrastructure, and an overview of monitoring research.

Discussions to Promote Collaboration

After lunch, the group will present existing and proposed research projects with the intent of identifying how they can connect to and improve the understanding and functioning of green infrastructure in the Baltimore Metropolitan region.  The second discussion period will focus on how BES research and education can collaborate with government agencies and non-governmental organizations with existing resources.  Follow up will explore plans for developing new resources for this important collaboration.

Importance of Green Infrastructure for BES

Green infrastructure is one of the main ways in which city-suburban-exurban systems can become more sustainable.  It is important for BES to work with green infrastructure as both a research topic and an opportunity to contribute to the improvement of the quality of life and resilience of the Baltimore socio-ecological system.

See the BES News page for the agenda for the meeting: http://beslter.org/science-meeting.html

BES Renewal Process

Planning for Renewal – BES-3

Planning for the renewal of BES will involve working meetings and white papers. A series of six meetings will be held before submission of the BES LTER renewal proposal in February 2010. Each meeting is envisioned to be a day long event. The Mid-Term Review of BES conducted in 2007 provides necessary background. The review team’s report and the NSF Program Officer’s letter are at http://www.beslter.org/internal/frame8-stuff.html (see heading “Renewal Material” and its subheading “2006 Mid-Term Site Review”).

Product – Each meeting will produce a white paper as a contribution toward the renewal proposal. The required content of the white paper is given after the descriptions of the meetings and schedule, below.
Participation – All Co-Principal Investigators, Post Docs, Graduate Students, and agency and partner Collaborators are invited and encouraged to attend the meetings.

Goals and Strategies – All meetings should:
1. Be primarily product oriented;
2. Result in a referenced white paper as input for the renewal proposal;
3. Employ a few synthetic presentations as stimulus for discussion;
4. Be designed to emphasize discussion rather than presentation;
5. Employ the LTER Network’s Integrated Science for Society and Environment feedback model template (Figure 1);
6. Seek to integrate social, and biophysical realms of research;
7. Identify and state the integrated theory motivating activities to be proposed for the renewal;
8. Articulate integrated modeling and quantitative approaches; and
9. Highlight opportunities for teaching and for educational research that emerge from the theme of each meeting.

Meeting Topics and Schedule

Individual Meetings with Agency Stakeholders. Three representatives of BES met with Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Maryland State sustainability officers and other decision leaders in October 2008. We explored how to establish a regular communication to exchange information of mutual interest about research, projects, and policy. The insights from these meetings will be used to design an ongoing process for BES to identify shared concerns and opportunities for interaction with policy, management, and decision leaders in the Baltimore region. Leaders: Morgan Grove, Steward Pickett, and Mary Washington.

Meeting 1 -- October 14, 2008:
Scoping the Renewal Process.

The BES Steering Committee, consisting of all Co-PIs and BES Collaborators met to share thoughts on the five conceptual areas to organize the renewal proposed at the 2007 meeting. The feedback loop (Figure 1) that will be an important conceptual tool for planning and organizing BES-3 was also presented. The structure and goals of the white papers, and the consideration of teaching and education research opportunities in each planning meeting were reviewed. Attendees were asked to study the Mid-Term Review report and the notes from the 2007 Steering Committee meeting concerning components of new theory for BES-3, as well as the LTER Network’s model template for Integrated Science for Society and Environment (ISSE) to prepare for the Steering Committee discussion.

Meeting 2 -- January 23, 2009:
Environmental Change and Environmental Inequity.

The issues of global change is significant for Baltimore, as is the differential impact of current and future environments on different social groups. BES-3 must address climate change directly, and identify the ecosystem services that might be altered by changing climate. Measurement of those ecosystem services, and how they can alter environmental hazard and vulnerability, and consequently, environmental justice should be proposed. Explicit measures of each of these features of the urban ecosystem should be identified and justified. Leaders: Larry Band and Kirstin Dow

Meeting 3 -- April 16, 2009:
Land Change Scenarios and Locational Choice Modeling.

The changing structure of urban areas is a key topic for BES-3. A task before us is to develop scenarios for land cover and land use change. The relationship of land change scenarios to models of locational choices that households and firms might make, and the social and economic drivers of those choices will be identified and specific approaches identified and justified. How policy interacts with scenarios can also be explored. Leaders: Mary Cadenasso and Elena Irwin

Meeting 4 – June 23, 2009:
New Hydro-Ecological-Social Theory.

It is crucial to articulate a new generation of integrated theory covering the various major disciplines that constitute BES. Several areas should be considered as a framework for a new statement of the theory unifying BES-3: 1) An urban stream continuum theory; 2) Controls on ecosystem flux and retention; 4) New social theoretical framework; and 4) Theoretical and conceptual approachs addressing coupling and feedbacks between social and biophysical components of the metropolitan system. The mainly biophysical theory should, in cooperation with social scientists, articulate both the expected social-economic drivers and social-economic effects of urban stream continuum and flux theory, while the mainly social theory should, in cooperation with biophysical scientists, articulate the hypothesized biophysical drivers and effects. Here is where education theory that justifies education research or pedagogical methodologies should be articulated and related to the physical-ecological-social theory that emerges. Leaders: Sujay Kaushal and Austin Troy

Meeting 5 -- October 20, 2009:
Integrated Sampling Strategy

Integration across the multiple disciplines within BES can be enhanced by a clearly articulated sampling strategy that spatially and temporally relates the various social and biophysical samples. Options to be explored are the reconciliation of our current different sampling strategies, complementing the existing strategy by new spatial arrays, or articulating a sampling design essentially de novo. This meeting should produce a fully annotated map for one to several sampling strategies that take advantage of our existing data base while advancing sample integration in BES-3. How the sampling strategy can support teaching and education research should be explored. Leaders: Peter Groffman and Morgan Grove

Meeting 6 -- November 17-18, 2009:
Writing Team Working Meeting

A small group will take on the task of preparing the renewal proposal based on the insights from the planning meetings. The leaders of the previous five meetings and other key BES members will convene at the Cary Institute in Millbrook, New York, in order to draft an integrated proposal for BES-3. This meeting will be a focused, intensive writing session lasting two days. Leader: Steward Pickett

BES-3 Renewal Proposal White Papers

Each of the five preparatory meetings listed above will produce a white paper. The meeting conveners will be responsible for organizing the drafting of the paper, and will involve other contributors as needed and available. The papers should satisfy the following goals: 1) State a clear theoretical motivation for work to be conducted in the third phase of BES; 2) Identify clear relationships between social and biophysical topics; and 3) Suggest the key feedbacks between social and biophysical realms to be investigated.

The components of each white paper should be as follows:
1. Title. A conceptual orientation should be emphasized. Titles for these components of BES-3 should be phrased to engage potential reviewers.
2. Research Questions. What research questions have been addressed to date in BES? Briefly, what has been learned? What new questions or outgrowths of the previous questions should be addressed in the renewal? Where do these new or extended questions fit in the LTER social-biophysical feedback loop (Figure 1)?
3. Motivations for the Questions. What explicit theoretical, methodological, and practical motivations are there for each research question suggested? What well known and cutting edge literature supports the theory, methodology, or practical concern?
4. Key Variables. What are the key variables to be measured to answer the questions? How will scenario generation and future projections be supported by the variables suggested? How can the variables from social and biophysical realms be related?
5. Sampling Plan. What sampling plan supports the suggested research questions? How does this exploit the existing BES sampling array? What future changes to the sampling regime are required? How does this sampling plan support the integration of biophysical disciplines, different social disciplines, and the relationship of biophysical and social research? Draft maps of the suggested sampling regime must be included.
6. Anticipated Findings. What outcomes are expected? What theoretical advances are likely? What methodological advances can be served? What practical contributions can be supported? How does the plan contribute to quantifying the feedbacks in the LTER social-biophysical loop (Figure 1)?
7. Illustrative Material for the draft proposal, such as figures, conceptual diagrams, tables, and brief text boxes can be used to summarize and support key points of the argument of the white paper.
8. Executive Summary. A brief (ca. 200 words) abstract or bulleted summary should be prepared to assist the writing team.
The white paper for each meeting will be due one month after the meeting.