NASA Biodiversity Research

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Joint Workshop on NASA Biodiversity, Terrestrial
Ecology, and Related Applied Sciences
NASA Biodiversity Research Ecological
Forecasting Answering the New Dismal Science
Woody Turner University of Maryland Inn and
Conference Center August 21, 2006
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Workshop Goals

• Where is biodiversity science going over the next
  decade or so what is NASAs role?
• How can we transition research activities to
  operations and decision support through the
  Ecological Forecasting and other programs?

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Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) EconomicsDismal
Science?
Source Wikipedia

• 1798, An Essay on the Principle of Population
• Unchecked populations increase geometrically but
  food supplies increase arithmetically
• Predicted that population would outstrip food
  supply in mid 19th Century
• Big influence on Darwin and Wallace - Natural
  Selection
• Danger in extrapolating existing trends into
  future
• Economic growth continues to pull millions from
  poverty
• Yet, at what cost?

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Conservation Biology The New Dismal Science?

• Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Vol. 1
• Extinction rate 100x background rate
• 12 to 52 of species in well-studied taxa
  threatened with extinction under Red List
• We are the cause
• Climate change potentially dominant driver
• Conservation Biology 20th Anniversary
• nature is still losing badly.

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Definition of Biodiversity from GBA (1995) is
the total diversity and variability of living
things and of the systems of which they are a
part- includes genetic, organismal, and
ecological components Main Message Biodiversity
science needs NASA observations and models to
understand patterns and processes at landscape to
global scales.
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Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems Roadmap
Integrated global analyses
Human-Ecosystems-Climate Interactions (Model-Data
Fusion, Assimilation) Global Air-Sea Flux
Sub-regional sources/sinks

T
Funded
High-Resolution Atmospheric CO2
Unfunded
Process controls errors in sink reduced
Southern Ocean Carbon Program, Air-Sea
CO2 Flux
Partnership
Models w/improved ecosystem functions
T Technology development
Physiology Functional Types
T
Reduced flux uncertainties coastal carbon
dynamics
Coastal Carbon
Field Campaign
Reduced flux uncertainties global carbon
dynamics
Global Ocean Carbon / Particle Abundance
Common Denominator Ecosystem Function
Goals Global productivity and land cover change
at fine resolution biomass and carbon fluxes
quantified useful ecological forecasts and
improved climate change projections
Vegetation 3-D Structure, Biomass, Disturbance
T
Terrestrial carbon stocks species habitat
characterized
CH4 sources characterized and quantified
Global CH4 Wetlands, Flooding Permafrost
Knowledge Base
Regional carbon sources/sinks quantified for
planet
Global Atmospheric CO2 (OCO)
N. American Carbon Program
N. Americas carbon budget quantified
Effects of tropical deforestation quantified
uncertainties in tropical carbon source reduced
Land Use Change in Amazonia
2002 Global productivity and land cover
resolution coarse Large uncertainties in
biomass, fluxes, disturbance, and coastal events
Models Computing Capacity
Process Understanding
Case Studies
Improvements
P
Land Cover (Landsat)
LDCM
Land Cover (OLI)
Systematic Observations
Ocean Color (SeaWiFS, MODIS)
Ocean/Land (VIIRS/NPP)
Ocean/Land (VIIRS/NPOESS)
Vegetation (AVHRR, MODIS)
Vegetation, Fire (AVHRR, MODIS)
IPCC
IPCC
2010
2012
2014
2015
2008
2002
2004
2006
Global C Cycle
Global C Cycle
NA Carbon
NA Carbon
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Why NASA Needs Biodiversity
ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION
BIOGEOCHEMISTRY
BIODIVERSITY Terra Incognita
ECOSYSTEM STRUCTURE
Biodiversity mediates ecosystem functioning,
including the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, and
other elements, as well as environmental response
to disturbances.
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You Cant Follow the Game of Ecosystems without a
Scorecard
(Source http//courses.cm.utexas.edu/emarcotte/ch
339k/fall2005/Lecture1/TreeOfLife.jpg) Biodiversi
ty constitutes the players in the game of life.
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(No Transcript)
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Visual differences in benthic particulate matter
after removing P. mariae (right) compared with
the intact fish assemblage (left).
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Some of the Tools
Reconciliation of the patterns in biodiversity
that are observed at different scales may provide
significant insights into their determinants.
Indeed, it is increasingly apparent that
knowledge of the roles of pattern and process at
different scales is at the very heart of an
understanding of global variation in
biodiversity. Kevin J. Gaston in Nature
405220-227 (2000)
Source http//www.delmarvalite.org/photos/2003/10
/radar10012003.gif
Source Dan Costa UCSC/TOPP (TOPP web site)
(CREDIT MARTIN WIKELSKI/PRINCETON UNIVERSITY,
Science 313 780)
Source http//www.spectsoft.com/wimages/MBARI-ROV
.jpg
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But There Are Still More Tools We Can No Longer
Ignore Molecular Biology!
Helicobacterium pylorii Genome from http//biocrs
.biomed.brown.edu/Books/Chapters/Ch2038/Pylori-Ge
nome.gif
Graphic compiled from various sources by Tim
Newman and on Web at http//www.snprc.org/baboon
/faq/africa.html
WHY? Because molecular techniques will (1) lead
us directly to the processes driving ecosystem
functioning (2) allow us to capture ecosystem
biodiversity change (i.e., evolution) in action
(3), through phylogeny, they are our best
window into history and historical effects!
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Models Unite Observations of Pattern and Link
Them to Processes
Little Rock Lake in Wisconsin produced by Neo D.
Martinez of San Francisco State University,
Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies
Models of trophic webs are a key tool in that
they not only link the ecological players but
also connect physical and biological realms
Follow the Energy!
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Ecological Forecasting
using observations and models to predict the
impacts of environmental change, whether natural
or anthropogenic, on the ecosystems that sustain
us. One example (or all we need to do) is
GCM ?
Biogeochemical Cycling Model ?
Regional CM (1 km grid) ?
Trophic Model ?
PHVA Model
Ecophysiological Model ?
Result Impact of climate variability and change
on species of concern (be they TE species,
invasives, pathogens, whatever)!
Is this foolish? Naïve? Overly simplistic?
Perhaps. Linking models, much less coupling
them, is not trivial!
Except many of you are already doing pieces of
this!
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One Way Forward

• Mind the gaps! Build bridges!
• Target your work at the gaps between those
  different modeling approaches to make the most
  progress (e.g., Behrenfelds focus on the C
  growth rate term as a bridge between
  biogeochemical physiological approaches)
• Example of another marine challenge we are
  linking regional climate to biogeochemical carbon
  models (a la JPL/Chao-UME/Chai) for primary
  producers (phytoplankton) however linking this
  to the models of changes in zooplankton, and
  thereby getting to the next step on the trophic
  web, is a major hurdleultimate goal to go from
  climate to large fish
• What can we do here?
• No one should leave this workshop without making
  an interdisciplinary connection!
  Seriously!

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Some Key Science Questions

• How does biodiversity relate to the functioning
  of ecosystems?
• What are the effects of spatial scale on patterns
  of biodiversity?
• How do climate variability and change affect the
  abundance and distribution of organisms?
• How do ecosystems change in response to
  anthropogenic disturbances and how does
  biodiversity mediate these changes?
• How does the level of energy in an ecosystem
  affect its biodiversity?
• What is the role of ecosystem physical structure
  in promoting and maintaining biodiversity?
• Are the organisms in communities fungible, e.g.
  how stable are trophic webs at retaining their
  function?
• What are the hottest of the hot spots for
  retaining maximum species diversity, i.e. is
  there taxonomic covariance in species richness
  and abundance and, if so, where is it?
• What are the best RS proxies for ecosystem
  diversity and ecosystem health (e.g., NDVI, NPP,
  soil moisture, SST/SSH location of fronts,
  vegetation structural complexity, rates of
  disturbance, rates of upwelling, etc.)? And what
  scales of sensing are necessary?
• Can we catch evolution in action by first
  correlating environmental changes at
  landscape/broader scales with genomic/proteomic
  changes?
• What is the role of history in establishing local
  and regional biodiversity?

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Next Step 2010?
Fig. 2. Maps of the nine global biodiversity
conservation priority templates CE, crisis
ecoregions (21) BH, biodiversity hot spots
(11), updated by (39) EBA, endemic bird areas
(15) CPD, centers of plant diversity (12) MC,
megadiversity countries (13) G200, global 200
ecoregions (16), updated by (54) HBWA,
high-biodiversity wilderness areas (14) FF,
frontier forests (19) LW, last of the wild (20).
Brooks, T. et al. in Science (2006) 31358
61
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Dismal Science?

• Norse and Carlton (Conservation Biology
  171475-1476) used googlefight.com in August 2003
  to determine how many WWW sites mentioned
  biodiversity.
• Biodiversity received 3,100,000 mentions
• Molecular Biology 1,550,000 mentions
• Climate Change 1,460,000 mentions
• Relativity 917,000 mentions
• Oceanography 624,000 mentions
• The Beatles 2,800,000 mentions
• George W. Bush 2,580,000 mentions
• Tiger Woods 664,000 mentions
• Humans are very good at addressing problems we
  put our minds to!