Collecting Data is the Most Abstract Thing You Can Do.

I borrowed that statement from Tim Allen, Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin.  Tim is a colleague of long standing, and I think he’s one of the best thinkers in ecology.  His books on hierarchy and complexity repay detailed attention.  So why does he say that data collection is so abstract, and what does this have to do with urban long-term ecological research?

At first glance, collecting data seems like a pretty concrete activity, like going to work at the bank, or cutting the grass.  To collect data, you pull on your boots, spray tick repellent on your pants cuffs, and head out the door.  Or you fire up the computer and download the latest census data or a remotely sensed image from the National Agricultural Imagery Program.

But the concreteness is only an illusion.  Of course, there is the obvious abstraction of a statistical design.  Spatial and temporal arrangement of samples, the statistical models that will be used to detect any difference among samples are pretty well in mind as you pull on those boots, or following out footwear metaphor, boot up the computer. 

Erica Tauzer preparing to sample a vacant lot in Baltimore.

Lurking behind the statistical abstraction implied by data, are deeper theoretical and conceptual structures.  Data are as much conceptual as they are empirical.  What kinds of questions does girding for battle with data raise about the conceptual realm?  This is an important area of consideration during BES’s Year of Theory.

Data are first of all, framed.  They are collected within in a specified spatial extent, and represent a specified spatial grain size or temporal window.  The spatial or temporal interval between samples is also a kind of framing.  It is no mistake that the term “framework” is so important in discussions of theory.  That term acknowledges that framing, and specifying the relationships of data in the frame, are key tasks for theory.  In other words, framing specifies the scope and spatial and temporal texture of the area of interest.  The framing tells what the data are "for" or "against."

Data collected are relevant to some model, and that model needs to be specified.  Models indicate the entities or processes of concern, how they are related, what the expected dynamics are, and what the potential outcomes are.  Models thus fill in the details of the working of the system within its specified frame.  Often, multiple models are employed to understand a system, as models work best when they have very specific scopes.  Consequently, complementary models that cover different scopes of the pattern or process of interest must be employed.

Data usually rely on some theoretical structure to determine what measurements are appropriate.   Measurement of temperature as a scientific variable would be useless without the theory of heat to explain what processes temperature can affect.  Further biological models, like that of Q10, expressing the relationship of endothermic versus exothermic metabolism to external temperature add richness to the role of temperature data. 

Theories are also key to comparison.  For example, in Baltimore bird biodiversity has been found to relate to vegetation in neighborhoods and nearby parks, while in Phoenix, bird diversity has been found to relate to wealth of neighborhood residents.  At first these seem to imply perhaps contradictory theories.  However, underwriting both relationships is the response of bird communities to vegetation structure.  It turns out that the social and historical drivers of the bird-vegetation relationship differ between the two cities.  A deeper theoretical structure is implied by the initial incongruity between the data of the two cities.

Another example emerges from the watershed approach used in BES.  Why do we measure the things we do in streams?  The watershed approach frames material fluxes as integrated by water within the boundaries of a catchment.  In BES, as in any urban system, piped water input, and the rerouting of water within the watershed in drains and storm sewers are model details that are required.  So the concreteness of data collection assumes the existence of infrastructure within the watershed.  Of course, it also assumes a patch structure that may influence the processing of materials – their transformation or transport – in the watershed.  Finally, the relevant theory suggests that limiting nutrients will be retained in by the biological processes in the watershed, while those that are not limiting will be passed through at levels reflecting their input and the flow resistance within the watershed.  The chemical forms, sizes of particles, and role in organismal metabolism are all details that determine how a material will behave.  In ecosystems outside of urban areas, these last ideas may be combined in the principle of ecosystem retention.  This emerging theory of urban watershed function explains the different behaviors of materials viewed as contaminants, pollutants by virtue of their excessive concentration, and indicators of human activity.

The frameworks of scientific theories are often depicted as nested hierarchies.  The most general form of content of a theory must contain more specific subtheories or models to translate their abstractions into measurables.  Likewise, even those translating theories and models may need to be further specified for very particular times and places.  Hence, the theories in between the most general and the most specific are of great importance.  They are called “midlevel theories” and are the locus of much interdisciplinary and integrative work.  The models of greatest detail may not translate well across disciplines, while the theories at their most general may offer only metaphorical encouragement for integration across disciplines.  Being attuned to different levels of abstraction is important in managing and linking different kinds of data.

Metacity theory provides an example of nested theories in urban ecology.  The most general level of the metacity states the phenomenon of interest: spatially heterogeneous and changing mosaics of urban systems.  This calls for three more specific kinds of theory: those that deal with the landscape mosaics in which fluxes acn be modeled, those that deal with the choices that people, institutions, and organisms make about where to locate or move in the urban compelx, and finally those that portray the combined outcomes of fluxes and cjoices.  Each of these three mid level theories would be supported by still more specific models.  For example, the flux mosaic might include models of human migration, biogeochemical nutrient flows, energy apportionment, and traffic.  Each of the other mid level theories could similarly be subdivided into more specific models.

Each set of data, and each relationship between one kind of data and another, calls for a statement of the framing assumptions, the model structures, and the more inclusive or general theoretical relationships.  Sorting this out, and articulating these relationships for all our supposedly concrete data sets, is a task for the BES Year of Theory.

Allen, T. F. H. and T. W. Hoekstra. 1992. Toward a unified ecology. Columbia University Press, New York.

Ahl, V. and T. F. H. Allen. 1996. Hierarchy theory: a vision, vocabulary, and epistemology. Columbia University Press, New York.

McGrath, B. and S. T. A. Pickett. 2011. The metacity: a conceptual framework for integrating ecology and urban design. Challenges 2011:55-72.

Pickett, S. T. A., J. Kolasa, and C. Jones. 2007. Ecological understanding: the nature of theory and the theory of nature. 2nd edition. Academic Press, Boston.

What's An Urban Long-Term Ecological Research Project To Do?

When in 1997 the National Science Foundation (NSF) requested proposals for up to two urban Long-Term Ecological sites to join the network of wild and production ecosystems that had been studied up to that point, it had both long-standing and new goals in mind.  These goals emerged from two main conditions.

Landscape ecologist M.L. Cadenasso, architect Phanat Xanamane, and landscape architect Victoria Marshall (L-R) work on the "periodic table" of urban land covers for Baltimore using the HERCULES methodology.

First, there was the need to understand ecological systems over the long term.  Since 1980, Long-Term Ecological Research “sites,” as they are still most often called, had been funded to conduct research in specific places over the long term.  This was a reaction to the fact that most scientific ecological studies funded before then had been of short duration, generally 1 to 3 years.  That situation limited ecological understanding because many ecological processes take many years or even decades to play out.  Succession, natural disturbance, the accumulation or loss of nutrients, the change in soil and climate, or the effects of colonization of a new species, for example, are processes that require long times to occur, and thus, similarly long times to evaluate.  Of course, simulation modeling can take existing data and, making careful assumptions about dynamics, make reasonable projections through time.  But at some point the validity of such projections is most securely evaluated against real data.  In 1997, the network of 18 sites included such extremes as moist deciduous forest, and a northern hardwoods mountain transect-- both in the eastern US -- temperate coniferous forest in the Pacific Northwest, coastal sites, a high alpine site, a forest and a tundra site in Alaska, a tropical forest, desert grassland, shrub desert, short grass prairie, an agricultural site, northern and southern lakes, and so on.  (See www.lter.edu for the complete roster and history of sites.)  The urban sites would add a new kind of ecosystem in which long-term changes were undoubtedly important, to the existing roster of LTER sites.

The second goal was to add sites that explicitly examined the role of people as components of the ecosystems to be studied.  Except for the agricultural site in Michigan, usually people were not thought to be of great significance to the structure and functioning of LTER sites.  But beginning in the early 1980s, when more and more ecologists began to look seriously at the history and distant connections of their sites, the conclusion became clear, that people – both present and absent – could no longer be ignored in understanding the ecology of North America.  So NSF acted on this second goal in choosing a focus on systems where people and their actions could never be ignored – urban ecosystems.

The final goal, according to the 1997 Request for Proposals, was “to enhance the interdisciplinary breadth of the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network.”  Obviously, to understand urban areas as ecosystems, the skills, talents, theories, and methodologies of experts in various social sciences would have to be integrated with the familiar work of biological ecologists and the physical scientists they were used to working with.  Urban ecological research would necessarily be interdisciplinary.  Not only the technical expertise of social and economic scientists would be required, but also their experience in dealing with social structures and human institutions would be needed for working in urban systems.  It turned out in Baltimore that we also recognized the need to borrow their “social capital” and trust built up over decades of working with communities, organizations, and governments in the Baltimore region.

Putting all this together resulted in seven explicit goals that an urban LTER would have to satisfy.  Five were required of all LTER sites, and had been in place since 1980:

·        Primary Production: pattern and control of primary production,

·        Population Studies: spatial and temporal distribution of populations selected to represent trophic structure,

·        Movement of Organic Matter: pattern and control of organic matter accumulation in surface layers and sediments,

·        Movement of Inorganic Matter: patterns of inorganic inputs and movements of nutrients through soils, groundwater, and surface waters, and

·        Disturbance: patterns and frequency of disturbance to the research site.

But in addition, urban LTERs would have to deal with:

·        Land Use and Land Cover Change: examine the human impact on land use and land-cover change in urban systems and relate these effects to ecosystem dynamics,

·        Human-Environment Interactions: monitor the effects of human-environmental interactions in urban systems, develop appropriate tools (such as GIS) for data collection and analysis of socio-economic and ecosystem data, and develop integrated approaches to linking human and natural systems in an urban ecosystem environment, and

·        School Systems: integrate research with local K-12 educational systems.

The seven core urban LTER action areas and the BES long-term data or programs that contribute to each one.  The five core research areas identified with the origin of the LTER Network in 1980 are shown in brown, and the additional core activities defined in the 1997 NSF call for urban LTER proposals are shown in blue-grey.

So it turns out that the Urban LTERs, our Baltimore Ecosystem Study and the Central Arizona-Phoenix LTER have seven core areas of accomplishment. These seven core requirements can be considered the charter of the Urban LTERs.  Integration of social and biophysical approaches to understand the feedbacks in urban ecosystems as complex, spatially heterogeneous mosaics, is thus a multidimensional pursuit in satisfying the founding charter.  

Urban Ecology: Stones or Rocks?

Why are there two words for mineral concretions?  And what does that have to do with urban ecology?

I recently visited Newark, NJ to work with BES urban design expert, Brian McGrath.  He lives in an the old industrial neighborhood of “The Ironbound,” and like many such places, there is great dynamism.  Some old buildings are being demolished, restaurants and clubs are being renovated in this place famous for Portuguese food, and the general rust down, fix up of lively urban places is much in evidence.  As we walked to a (strong!) coffee break during an afternoon of writing, I noticed a vacant lot that contained a big, smooth, ovoid boulder next to a yellow backhoe.  The lot sloped gently into the cellar hole of the missing building, and the rock and the backhoe were the only adornments I noticed in the fenced lot.

A Rock in the City

Why did I call it a rock, and not a stone?  This big rock with a grey, smooth surface was a remnant of the last glacial age.  It looked like nothing so much as a huge, water smoothed pebble – the sort of thing you could see on the bottom of a creek.  But this one was about a meter and a half long, and a meter wide.  It looked to be a little flattened, so that it would not roll easily.  Of course this rock was big enough so that it wouldn't roll easily in any event.

My big rock, was in fact a scaled up version of a

The Newark rock. Photo: Victoria Marshall

creek pebble, but the water in which the lonely Ironbound boulder was shaped was the water released by a mile-high mass of ice as it melted.  Such meltwater streams were huge, and they could carry rocks half the size of a first-generation suburban tract house.  Those streams tumbled the big and the small rocks that had been dislodged and trapped as the ice ground across the surface of northern North America some 20,000 years ago.  And this one was a good sized, but not a gigantic representative of glacial grinding followed by years of tumbling down the huge glacially fed precursor of the Passaic River.  The Passaic River is now a pretty respectable stream.  But when the glaciers were melting, it would have been much larger, and been joined to a sibship of other massive streams coursing toward the then distant Atlantic coast.  As the glaciers were exhausted by their own melting, the massive streams shrank and left deposits of mixed, smoothed sediments, pebbles, cobbles, and boulders. 

When I commented on the rock to Brian, he smiled and said that our landscape architect colleague, Victoria Marshall had also commented on the boulder.  Brian's remark went something like “you landscape people notice the same things.” 

Stones in the Country

Then I thought of another architect/ecologist story from some dozen years earlier.  Brian and Victoria were kind enough to include me as an ecological resource person in some of their urban design studios.  On one occasion, we arranged for some of the students to come up to the Cary Institute to work with me and fellow ecologist Mary Cadenasso.  I picked them up at the train station in Poughkeepsie, NY, and drove them the 13 miles on Rte 44 through the Dutchess County suburbs, engulfed agricultural mill towns, and exurban fringe with its regrowing, post-agricultural woods.  We drove down a small hill into the village center of Pleasant Valley, and as we turned the corner heading into town, we were presented with two architectural gems.  One was a two story, Art Deco switching station sitting amid huge power pylons and banks of muscular electrical transformers.  But a bit beyond the buff and black Art Deco treasure was a limestone barn, of much greater age.  The barn was large, had simple lines, just a few windows, a gable roof and the expected huge wooden doors in the side.  

One of the architects exclaimed aloud at the unexpected visual treat.  Now the “landscape” joke here is definitely on me, because I had been driving by that transformer yard for about 12 years before I even noticed the old barn.  Let’s give me a break and say it was because I was the ever cautious driver who always looked at the road.  But in reality, it was that I wasn't tuned into the built in this odd, now suburban site.  I was usually looking at the creek on the other side of the road – was it in flood, or was the water low?  Were there any lanky waterbirds standing by the bank?  Were the big sycamores on the eroding banks still upright?  Were the maple buds on the leafless branches expanding as the days got longer?  That kind of “landscape” ecology stuff.  To claim a little credit, I had actually finally noticed the stone barn a few years before the architecture student exclaimed over an unexpected and complex find.

Art Deco switching station lower left, old stone barn upper center.  Bing.com

Seeing Rocks and Seeing Stones

So there are two contrasts in these stories.  Rocks versus stones, and who sees rocks and who sees stones.  Rocks are generally considered those things out there in, on, and of the ground that are found where the volcanoes, rivers, glaciers, faults, uplift, and erosion left them.  They may have smooth or sharp edges depending on how long and how effectively water and wind have worked them, or whether the work has been dome by freezing and thawing of water in almost imperceptible cracks.

Stones on the other hand are things that have been shaped and arranged by people.  The stone barn was assembled from blocks of limestone quarried from very nearby.  Because many of the early colonial houses in the Hudson Valley are made of limestone, or sometimes roughly worked shale, I should not have been surprised to find an elegant, simple old barn constructed of limestone that could be obtained close by.  But even though limestone tends to fracture in relatively flat planes, there is some work in the quarrying.  And the shale and slate from one of the twisty formations of these rocks in Dutchess County, NY would likely have to undergo some hammer blows to make them fit better in building walls. 

Here's the big difference.  Stones may be found, but more likely worked, and them moved and arranged by people for their purposes.  That’s different from rocks, that just are, though they may be used pretty much as they are found sometimes.  Field walls are more likely an example of “use as found,” of course, since they don’t have to be weather-tight.  So the difference between stones and rocks says something about origin of the mineral conglomeration, the source of the energy shaping them, and whether there is purpose embodied in the shape.

It might be too easy to make a big deal out of an architect seeing buildings – stones; and an ecologist paying attention to other things at the same bend in the road.  Too easy to make a “thing” out of being excited by seeing an unexpected glacial relic a few blocks from the Newark train station.  Does one always have to see rocks OR stones? 

Saxa Loquuntur

Now we are back to urban ecology.  One could say that in the past, when urban ecology as a biological science was just getting started, it was conducted through the filter of seeing rocks in the city.  Looking for those places, processes, and entities that represented the unintentionality of nature motivated a lot of the earliest work by bioecologists in the city.  And it is very important to see this part of urban systems, as Anne Whiston Spirn suggested in her 1984 book, Granite Garden.  Cities work in part because there is natural work going on in and around them.  But her title also tells us that it is proper and necessary to see the built, the designed, the engineered, and the lived in as a part of an expanded view of urban ecology.  One has to see the stones of the city.  

The A. Hoen Lithography and Printing factory.  S. Pickett

But most urbanism in the past has focused only on the stones – the built fabric of cities – and ignored the biological processes that traditional ecology has pointed out to occur even in urban centers.  So it’s not a matter of stones versus rocks, but of a conversation that values both.  The pleasures of the architect joined with the pleasures of the ecologist, and the joys of the social scientist, as well, who help us understand how people live in and make decisions about our gardens of rock and stone.  As the bas reilef shield above the door of the now abandoned A. Hoen & Company lithography and printing shop in East Baltimore tells us, Saxa loquuntur - The stones are speaking to you. (http://www.zigersnead.com/current/blog/post/saxa-loquuntur-stones-and-stories-of-hoen-lithography/09-13-2011/3452/)  So are the rocks.  It’s a language that requires many differently trained ears to hear, and many voices to translate.  That’s today’s urban ecology.

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.)

Just One Book a Year -- That's All We Ask.

BES is a far flung, disciplinarily diverse project.  We do many things to apply centripetal force to a situation that seems naturally to be dissipative.  One centering activity is to identify a “book of the year.”  In the past, we have had two such books.  They were chosen to provide useful and interesting background on Baltimore, in the case of Sherry Olson’s Baltimore: The Building of an American City (1997), and to highlight the contribution of one of our own to urban studies, in the case of Austin Troy’s The Very Hungry City.  This year’s BES Book of the Year has a different purpose.

The edited volume by Samuel Scheiner and Michael WilligThe Theory of Ecology has been chosen to help the BES community use ecological theory better.  This goal emerges from the Mid-Term Review conducted by an external visiting committee in October, 2013.  The critique emerging from that review made clear that as a project, we need to be able to better articulate the theories that we use, to tie them together more effectively, and to link broad theories more clearly to the specific research activities which we pursue.

(2011) on

The first BES Webinar, to be held on Tuesday 4 March,

will briefly present the high points of one of the chapters in this book, and provide the opportunity for us to discuss the insights and relevance of the chapter to the structure and integration of BES research.  The purpose of this session is to learn about the nature and structure of ecological theory.   It will be more useful for BES if we treat this as an opportunity to absorb, rather than attempt to critique, a way to understand and use theory.

The main reading and the background texts all come from Scheiner and Willig’s book.  I hope that members of BES will get their own copies of this book, or will request that their institutional libraries obtain it.  If there are many members of BES at an institution, it might be a good idea to put the book on reserve.  The book is available in paper and electronic versions from “the usual suspects.”  Here are the readings for 4 March:

Main Reading:

Kolasa, J. 2011.  Theory makes ecology evolve.  Chapter 2, pp 21-49, in S.M. Scheiner and M.R. Willig, editors.  The Theory of Ecology.  University of Chicago Press, Chicago.  This chapter puts the hierarchical approach to theory to work, and gives examples of theory as an evolving pursuit throughout the history of ecology.  It clarifies the “jobs” that theory performs in science, and shows the broadest way to conceive of theory and its relationships with data and generalization.  Putting the insights of this chapter to work in BES should help clarify our own theoretical structures and the relationships to specific research activities.

Background Readings:

Scheiner, S.M. and M.R. Willig.  2011.  A general theory of ecology.  Chapter 1, pp 3-18, in S.M. Scheiner and M.R. Willig, editors.  The Theory of Ecology.  University of Chicago Press, Chicago.  This chapter emphasizes the components of theory, the hierarchical structure of theory (general, constitutive, model), and articulates the deepest and most general propositions underwriting the science of ecology.

Collins, J.P. 2011.  Foreword, pp ix-x, in S.M. Scheiner and M.R. Willig, editors.  The Theory of Ecology.  University of Chicago Press, Chicago.   By one of contemporary biology’s most profound thinkers.  A former Director of NSF’s Division of Environmental Biology, and an author of an important paper on contemporary urban ecology in the US at its birth. This introductory overview puts ecological theory in a very broad context.

This may seem like a lot to read.  But BES is a large and complex project.  We only identify one book each year as a focus of learning and discussion among all members of the BES community.  We hope that’s not too much to ask.  

Join the Webinar

Please join us via Go-To-Meeting at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday 4 March to discuss these three selections from our Book of the Year.  Go here at that time to join the meeting: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/882708421  The meeting will be recorded and archived for those who cannot join live. Go To Meeting will load an app to permit you to contact the meeting using your computer mic and speakers (or better, headset).  If you want to join by phone, that option will also be presented.

RSVP

Please RSVP, either for acceptance or regrets to Holly Beyar, BES Project Facilitator at this email: beyarh at caryinstitute dot org.  Important background information for the webinar and its archive will be circulated to those who RSVP either way.

Don’t miss this.

Baltimore Ecosystem Study Activities, Findings, and Contributions for 2013

Urban Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites have a special mission within the National Science Foundation’s portfolio, and among the two dozen LTER sites.  All LTERs are obliged to conduct research that seeks to understand the status and changes of five core ecosystem processes: 1) primary production, 2) the flow of inorganic matter, 3) the flow of organic matter, 4) study of important populations, and 5) natural disturbance.

Of course, urban systems have crucial human and social components, as well as the artifacts and effects of social processes.  Consequently, the two urban LTERs must additionally be concerned with long-term 6) changes in land use and land cover, along with their ecosystem effects, 7) monitor the effects of human-environmental interactions, using integrated approaches to linking human and natural systems in an urban ecosystem environment, and 8) integrate research with local K-12 educational systems. 

Although BES III is motivated by novel theoretical concerns, as enumerated below, we wish to indicate how BES is achieving what may be considered our charter requirements from NSF.  The report for any given 12 month period is restricted by NSF to activities and outcomes for that period only.  So this report is not a cumulative summary of BES contributions.

One important point is that the activities and findings do contribute to our BES III conceptual structure, but the report is not divided to show that.  Those insights will be made available elsewhere.  For the BES III conceptual structure, see http://beslter.org/frame4-page_2.html.

The 2013 Annual Report is divided as 1) Activities, 2) Findings, and 3) Contributions.  New publications are available in on the website, and can be found by sorting by date in the publications browser http://beslter.org/pubs_browser.asp.

Activities in Core Research Areas For Urban LTERs

Primary Production

Production was measured in aquatic microfilm communities.  Tree production is measured every five years in the 195 point random sample of plots used to parameterize the Urban Forest Effects (UFORE) Model.

Flow of Inorganic Matter

Innovative modeling tools were developed for parcel scale stormwater flows.  This includes developing workflows and adaptation of process models for fine resolution, built environment influences on water routing at the parcel and streetscape scale.

The nitrogen budgets for nine, main BES watersheds across the urban-rural gradient were updated to refine estimates of (Inputs - Outputs)/Inputs for each year between 1999 and 2010.  These improvements in the budget will better expose the role of land use, and the influence of climate on N retention.

The stream stage sensing equipment was upgraded at Pond Branch, a small forested reference watershed, in anticipation of the need to improve accuracy in stage readings and continuous discharge in all BES small watersheds.

Flow of Organic Matter

Carbon storage densities for trees, and the total for urban forests were estimated based on new data for 28 cities, including Baltimore.

Population Studies

Mosquito populations were sampled across the growing season and by life stage in city neighborhoods of contrasting socio-economic status, and along the 9 sampling sites of the Gwynns Falls watershed.  Several mosquito species in Baltimore are important human disease vectors, and are sensitive to both aquatic and terrestrial environmental conditions that vary across urban-rural gradients and that are expected to differ based on social features of neighborhoods.

The application of metacommunity theory as an organizing principle for long-term data on terrestrial and community composition and distribution was expanded.  Research tested the hypothesis that urban landscape structure mediates both local and regional controls on species richness.  Assessments of 209 woody plant communities, representing remnant and disturbed sites, included residential, commercial, parks, and vacant parcels.  Plankton community data were collected along with physiochemical information, and a mesocosm experiment was initiated to determine the interaction between nutrient loading and algal management practices.  Sediment coring in urban stormwater ponds was used to reveal the temporal trends in species assembly. 

Monitoring of earthworm populations continued in both rural reference and city park sites.  These species are influential in soil structure and nutrient processing.

Long-term monitoring of breeding bird populations continued, and a second year of winter bird data was added.

Disturbance

BES metacommunity research seeks to go beyond the common lumping of all urban habitats as “disturbed” to refine the understanding of environmental perturbations, stresses, species dispersal and priority effects, and legacies of various kinds of human management, including community gardens and minimally managed vacant lots.

Human Land Cover Change and Ecosystem Effects

Urban-rural transitions are notoriously complex, and so are not well quantified.  A statistical methodology that uses commonly available spatial data in a novel way was developed and applied.

Human-Environment Interactions

The history and geography of zoning was documented in order to understand when and why zoning regulations were passed, and to identify the major drivers in the efforts to segregate land uses and people.

A new method for analyzing the effects of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) in situ was developed.  The effects of PPCPs and illicit drugs on microbial biodiversity and function  along the urban rural gradient in metropolitan Baltimore were documented via field survey and controlled experiment.  The role of illicit drugs in streams is a large knowledge gap.

In order to understand key aspects of the social structure of environmental decision making in the region, analyses of data on the interactions of environmental stewardship organizations in Baltimore was completed.

The relationship of tree cover and identity of the managers of tree cover were determined for neighborhoods based on social and economic differences.  The role of human behavior and neighborhood characteristics on lawn fertilization were assessed.

Integration with K-12 Education

Organizational Connections.  To institutionalize BES educational curricula and support continued greening efforts on school campuses, BES education specialists participated in the Baltimore Public School Green School Network.  BES supported a Research Experience for Teachers fellow in 2012-2013, and with leveraged funding supported a Teacher-In-Residence from Oregon. 

BES Teachers’ Institute.  Participants in the BES 2012 Teachers’ Institute and 2012 RETs participated in a further five, one-day professional development sessions during the 2012-2013 school year.  The 2013 summer BES Teachers’ Institute engaged teachers new to BES in a 7-day workshop that included not only science but math, social science, and art teachers.  The participants in these programs become part of a lasting community supporting science education in urban schools in Baltimore, and connect that community with national resources and support persons.

Student Learning.  A leveraged project (NSF MSP) is allowing us to conduct significant, long-term and cross-site research about how students think and learn along key strands of an environmental literacy learning progression.  Extensive research took place during this past year as part of the work of the Carbon, Water, Biodiversity and Citizenship Strands of the Pathways project.  Students and teachers completed “tests” to describe their thinking about key ideas in these subject areas, and student interviews were carried out to complement the written tests. 

Ecology Teaching.  BES collected rich and deep data during the teaching of one of the instructional units for each teacher, videotaping 4-5 class sessions, interviewing teachers before, during after the unit and at the end of the school year, interviewing and surveying students, and collecting artifacts from students and teachers.  These data, along with information about student and teacher learning from the Pathways environmental science literacy assessment, are helping us describe the connections between professional development, teacher knowledge and practices, and student engagement and learning.

Findings in Core Research Areas For Urban LTERs

Primary Production

Primary production in aquatic microfilms is influenced by the presence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in Baltimore streams.  Fourteen species of trees, of a total of 20 measured, declined in Baltimore over the period 2001-2005.  The cover of all tree species in Baltimore declined by 1.9% over that period.

Flow of Inorganic Matter

Modeling demonstrated that fine scale dynamics and processing for drainage at parcel and streetscape scales is a critical component of the water and nitrogen retention processes in the built environment.

N retention is significant in the city and suburban watersheds, although this is likely to decrease with climate change and further urbanization.  This is in contrast to the common expectation that retention of limiting nutrients in urban watersheds would be low.

Finalization of the 2012 water year stream data allowed the significance of long-term trends extending for at least 10 years to be assessed for the first time in BES.  Different major watersheds across metropolitan Baltimore exhibited contrasting annual mean flow dynamics, with Gwynns Falls being slightly lower than the long-term averages, while the subwatersheds of the Gunpowder Falls had flows ca. 20% greater than average.

Flow of Organic Matter

Carbon storage densities for trees, and total urban forests were estimated based on new data for 28 cities.  Urban whole tree carbon storage densities averaged 7.69 kg C m^-2 of tree cover and sequestration densities averaged 0.28 kg C m^-2 of tree cover per year in Baltimore.  Baltimore carbon storage density averaged 8.76 kg C m^-2 with net sequestration of 0.168 kg C^-2 yr^-2.

Population Studies

The survey of mosquito populations found seventeen (17) species to breed in Baltimore, with only six (6) being found regularly.  The four most abundant species included two vectors of West Nile Virus, Culex pipiens, and C. restuans, and two invasives, Aedes albopictus, and Ae. japonicus. 

Terrestrial and aquatic metacommunity analyses revealed high variation in species turnover across space (i.e., high beta diversity).  Patterns of spatial turnover suggested that human preference for species composition over species richness is the predominant driver of urban beta diversity. 

Diplocardia zicsii, an earthworm species new to science, was described from Baltimore.

Disturbance

The composition of phytoplankton communities in stormwater retention ponds has shifted in response to the disturbance represented by algal management, with an increase in generalist versus strict herbivorous species.  Unmanaged ponds exhibited more variable species assembly dynamics, whereas zooplankton in managed ponds were more influenced by immigration from the regional species pool.  Initial analyses of plant communities in vacant lots demonstrate that legacies of demolition and of remnant gardens influence the beta diversity.

Ongoing soils research has discovered that anthropogenic factors, such as management, appear to overcome natural foil forming processes by increasing pH and nutrient concentrations in the surface 0-5 cm of urban soil profiles.

Human Land Cover Change and Ecosystem Effects

Urban-rural transition zones can be divided into three subzones, depending on land cover, imperious area, multivariate assessments of distance and accessibility variables, and geographically weighted regression coefficients.  A suburban transition is distinct from rural land, and is especially associated with the presence of buried streams.

Human-Environment Interactions

Mosquito population dynamics showed clear interactions with human behavior and associated physical structures.  In June, 82% of containers in the lower socio-economic status neighborhood contained mosquito larvae, compared to only 38% of containers in the higher socio-economic status neighborhoods.  By late July, the frequency fell to 66% in the lower socio-economic status location, but rose to 38% in the higher socio-economic status neighborhood.  The results that larger, more permanent breeding habitats support larger populations of biting adults by mid-summer.  Many refuse containers, such as cups and tires that supported larvae in June were dry by late July.  However, gardens and yard care, which were more common in the higher socio-economic status neighborhood, were more likely to maintain larval habitat.  Of 16 stormwater management structures sampled in 2012, pupal density was positively related to intensity of urban development.

Common drugs found in BES streams have the potential to influence the function and structure of aquatic microbial communities.  Aquatic microbial communities in urban sampling stations were less sensitive to pharmaceuticals and personal care products than rural stations.  Triclosan concentrations in Baltimore streams have the potential to lead to resistant bacteria and can change bacterial species composition.

Social analysis of networks of environmental organizations revealed 607 organizations participating in stewardship activities in the city.  A follow up survey indicated that the stewardship network is mixed sector, but that non-profits dominated, accounting for nearly 80% of the groups.  Baltimore environmental organizations and citizens define stewardship in social rather than ecological terms, with religious, mostly Christian, values often used. 

Indicators of lawn maintenance, such as mulching, pruning, presence of lawn, and presence of large trees, were associated with lower rates of crime, an important refinement beyond previous results based on tree cover alone.  Residential litter correlated positively with crime.  Transportation availability and bike lanes were associated with increased property values, although causality remains to be determined.

Integrate with K-12 Education

BES education research has discovered that some middle school students, and a few more high school students have moderate levels of environmental science literacy, while most hold only rudimentary levels. Teachers tend to be a bit more sophisticated in their understanding but the majority still don’t demonstrate the highest level of understanding as measured by our assessments.  Student and teacher literacy can be improved with hands-on activities that foster active learning and critical building of knowledge upon the base that learners start with. 

Teachers received training in environmental and social science research and teaching techniques  and learned the results of BES education research into student thinking and learning.  The Teachers’ Institute centered around concepts of 1) learning progressions; 2) principle- and evidence-based reasoning; and 3) any place on Earth is an ecosystem.

Contributions

Contributions within Principal Disciplines

The study of beta diversity is one of the first to examine the mechanisms of between-habitat compositional turnover, rather than just the roles of local and of regional diversity in understanding urban biodiversity.

The novel, parcel based hydrological flow models and the associated workflows are applicable to urban systems generally, and fills a methodological gap.

The new methodology for assessing the effects of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in situ is a contribution to the broader understanding of this understudied suite of contaminants in urban streams.  The associated demonstration of the effects on aquatic primary producers alerts researchers to the potential for these widespread contaminants to be important in urbanized watersheds more broadly.

Data collected by the bird monitoring project are count data.  Work with colleagues from the MU Department of Statistics is developing new Bayesian mixed model procedures for estimating count data. 

Contributions to Training

The annual field safety and Baltimore orientation workshop trained BES graduate students, postdocs, undergraduates and Urban Resources Initiative college interns.

Materials on communicating science in various venues, media, and formats are made available to BES undergraduates, graduate students and postdocs (http://besdirector.blogspot.com/2011/04/insights-from-bes-communicating-science.html).  Science writing, writing for the public, communicating with reporters, communication with policy makers, the use of video and photography, and professional presentation strategies are among the topics presented. 

BES research and educational curricula were integrated into Parks & People’s educational and youth career development programs, KidsGrow (elementary grades), Project Blue (middle grades), and BRANCHES (high school grades).  These programs serve the predominantly minority populations of Baltimore City in particular.  KidsGrow reached 220 students in 2013.

A Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) fellow participated in a 6 week intensive research program mentored by a BES scientist.  The fellow is a science teacher at Independence School Local 1 in Baltimore. 

The project continues to provide valuable experience for newer USGS staff in (1) techniques for measurement of streamflow in small watersheds, some of which are in remote areas, (2) comparing stream flow conditions in small watersheds of differing land use, including urban, agricultural, and forested, and (3) evaluating flow conditions along an urban-rural land use gradient at 4 main stem stream gages in the Gwynns Falls watershed.

Cooperation with the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services in our biodiversity research adds an instructional and training outcome through a novel citizen science approach improves the statistical power of our research.

Contributions beyond Science and Engineering

N retention results are relevant to new Watershed Implementation Plans (WIP) put in place to achieve goals set by new Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) regulations.

The statistical assessment of hydrological extremes made possible by the extension of the BES long term stream flow record to 10 years allows them to be included in regional hydrologic analyses and to be useful to regional water policy and management.

The coupled groundwater-surface models linked to BES are the first truly 3-D hydrologic model of this region.  It can be employed to answer questions about water residence times and fluxes on a large regional scale.

BES data on the concentrations of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products as well as illicit drugs and their residues in Baltimore streams has informed policy makers and water quality managers of the importance of a relatively neglected category of contaminants in streams.  In addition, knowledge that these chemicals can influence stream productivity and function may help guide policy decisions.

Collaborative work leveraged NSF LTER and Cyberinformatics funding to develop sustainable software for watershed ecohydrological management that facilitates interaction, through crowd-sourcing, with residents and communities.

The influence of suburban tree cover spatial pattern on ecohydrology and runoff production can be simulated, visualized and used as a management strategy that incorporates residential preferences.  This provides a useful urban design and restoration tool.

Refined methodologies for assessing urban tree carbon storage and sequestration at the state and national level are relevant to climate change policies and attendant management strategies in place in the Baltimore region.

Interactions with the Baltimore City Office of Sustainability have confirmed the relevance of several of our data streams and engagement activities with six of the seven major components of the official sustainability plan.  BES researchers are in frequent communication with the Office of Sustainability concerning specific action targets and monitoring strategies.

Engagement with communities, non-profits, and government agencies has produced several positive outcomes:

•          Greening of public school campuses.

•          Integration with the City Mayor’s Office to transform vacant City-owned properties into community managed green space; supported the Baltimore Community Green Space land trust.

•          Provided technical and scientific information to community gardeners and other greeners through the Community Greening Resource Network.

•          Support for the Urban Waters Federal Partnership by implementing several Growing Green projects; shared data on community managed green spaces with Baltimore Indicators Alliance who developed an interactive online map for community use.

BES continues to explore linkages between science and art both as a stimulus to creativity in the sciences and as a medium of communication with non scientists.  The 2013 BES Artist-In-Residence was Patterson Clark, who in addition to being a graphic artist, writes an environmental blog for the Washington Post.  He prepared a graphical interface, ultimately to be installed on the BES website, as an engaging portal to BES research and education for the general public.

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.