Spectral Fingerprints Predict Functional Chemistry of Native Plants Across Sagebrush-Steppe Landscapes

Landscapes are changing and under threat from anthropogenic activities, decreasing land cover, contaminated air and water quality, and climate change. These changes impact native communities and their functions at all spatial scales. A major functional trait being affected across these communities is nitrogen. Nitrogen supports plant nutrient cycling and growth, serves as an indicator for crude protein and productivity, and offers quality forage for wild and domestic herbivores. We need better ways to monitor nitrogen across space and time. Current monitoring is elaborate, time-consuming, and expensive. We propose drawing from agricultural methodologies to incorporate near-infrared spectroscopy as a technique in detecting and monitoring nitrogen concentrations across a threatened shrub-steppe ecosystem. We are currently developing calibration equations for nitrogen in sagebrush across four species (Artemisia tridentata wyomingensis, A. tripartita, A. arbuscula, A. nova), three study sites and two seasons. Preliminary results suggest that nitrogen can be accurately predicted across all sites, species, and seasons, explaining 75-90% of the variation in nitrogen. These results indicate that near infrared spectroscopy offers a rapid, noninvasive diagnostic tool for assessing nitrogen in wild systems. This advancing technology is important because it economizes the collection of ecological data in rapidly changing landscapes and provides land managers and researchers with valuable information about the health and sustainability of their lands

Remotely-Sensing Chemical Diversity and Function of Native Plants Across Sagebrush-Steppe Landscapes

Plant chemical diversity provides ecosystem services by supporting wildlife diversity and offering sources for novel medicines. Current mapping of phytochemicals can be expensive, time-intensive and provides only a snapshot of available diversity. To overcome this, I will use handheld and airborne instruments collecting near infrared spectra and hyperspectral imagery to remotely sense chemical diversity within plants and ecosystems. I hypothesize that greater plant chemical diversity will be correlated with greater habitat use by wildlife and greater bioactivity of plant extracts. This research provides a powerful tool to map chemical diversity, target wildlife conservation and direct the discovery of novel medicines

Avalanche terrain modeling in Glacier National Park, Canada

Bibliography: p. 158-170Some pages are in colour

Applying geographic information systems (GIS) to protected areas management in the Milk River natural area and the Kennedy Coulee Ecological Reserve, Alberta, Canada

Bibliography: p. 107-115

A Procedural Modeling Approach for Ecosystem Services and Geodesign Visualization in Old Town Pocatello, Idaho

City population has been growing rapidly worldwide due to urban expansion, which can bring negative impacts on local ecosystem services (ES). Efficient tools for urban design and visualization are essential for city planners and stakeholders to better understand the valuation impact of plans for future sustainable development. Current urban design methods are mainly based on a 2D perspective and lack vertical visualization. Although conventional 3D modeling was introduced to address these limitations, it still has some challenges, such as requiring powerful computing resources and specialized training. Procedural 3D modeling is a grammar-based set of rules that can effectively generate 3D models and enhance spatial visualization when compared with conventional 2D or 3D methods. This paper describes a framework for developing a geodesign tool in Old Town Pocatello, Idaho, USA using procedural modeling to improve planning and visualization for urban design, including (1) Geospatial data preparation in ArcGIS, (2) 3D cityscape model generation in CityEngine, and (3) interactive visualization applications for multiple platforms developed with the Unity game engine. Pocatello is a mid-sized city in southeast Idaho that faces several challenges towards integrating ecosystem services in urban design. As a case study in ecosystem service modelling, we proposed a green scenario for Old Town to demonstrate a tool where permeable surfaces were increased from 37% to 45% to help mitigate urban land surface temperature and improve stormwater management. This geodesign tool offers city planners and stakeholders an opportunity to visualize and analyze block-level scenarios in real time. The interactive applications can encourage public participation in the design process. More ES measurements can be implemented into this tool in the future. The techniques of 3D procedural modeling and ES modeling in this study are also applicable to other small to mid-sized cities worldwide

LiDAR Odometry and Mapping for Terrain Analysis from Drones

Capturing accurate and highly-detailed 3D maps of terrain is a powerful tool for science. This can be accomplished using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) equipped with a Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) sensor. The resulting sensor data takes the form of point clouds with dense regions appearing along visible surfaces encountered. Existing integrated solutions allow for a UAV to follow a flight plan and capture raw point cloud data. The software to manage these solutions and run analyses varies widely in functionality and availability, however, and finding existing software to match the needs of a given research effort can be challenging. This project aims to develop such software for use in research at Idaho State University. LiDAR Odometry And Mapping (LOAM) is an advanced variation of a Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) algorithm. Using LOAM, the UAV will return from its flights with data onboard having already been assembled into a 3D map of the environment as the the data was gathered. The capability to quickly and reliably capture these maps will facilitate the improvement of many ecosystem services

Teaching evaluations and reflective practice: Strategies for improving teaching skills in adventure education

There is a shortage of evidence-based research on evaluation of teaching skills of adventure educators. Although program and instructor assessments are regularly used, there is limited documentation as to the methods employed to design them. Incomplete theoretical conceptions about the role of the instructor and how students learn may account for the lack of research on instructional evaluation in adventure education. The authors suggest that adventure education assessments put more focus on evaluation of teaching strategies by incorporating theories of reflective practice. The goal is to improve outdoor pedagogy using a mutually supportive debriefing format. The authors provide a summary of three themes (evaluation methods and opportunities for individual and shared debriefing as reflective practice, the role of feedback in student learning, and adaptive expertise), based on recent research, which can contribute to a future model of reflective practice for adventure education

Drone Imaging for the Future, the Better Option for Local Scientific Advancement

Unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs) can capture imagery of vegetation across landscapes. Imagery can then be processed for ecological insights using two programs. The first program is Agisoft Metashape where images are loaded in from the UAV flight and stitched together to create a 3D point cloud, orthomosaic picture, and a digital surface model (DSM). The other program is QGIS where I load in the products from Agisoft and manipulate them to put into maps and view the data collected. Currently, we are focused on the imagery map and DSM to differentiate the spatial layout of sagebrush at a site with landscape heterogeneity in topography and genetic diversity of sagebrush. Sites 1 and 4 are compared because they are at opposite ends of an elevation and precipitation gradient. Site 1 is a higher elevation averaging 1843 meters, lower overall temperatures, more annual precipitation, and primarily consists of mountain sage. These qualities allow for a lusher view, larger trees, and the sagebrush is less abundant fighting for space among the other species that take hold. Site 4 has a lower elevation averaging 1622 meters, higher temperatures, less yearly precipitation, and primarily consists of Wyoming big sage. Sagebrush can grow more efficiently in a wider space without the tall trees which compete for sunlight, water, and nutrients. Now that we have these data, more drone flights will be done at varying times of year to track the vegetation over time and later compare the growth and survival rates of sagebrush. Sites like Castle Rock with high genetic diversity can function as living laboratories for understanding biodiversity. UAVs present an opportunity to study biodiverse patterns at scales that match the extent of biophysical variation, including topography

Drone Imagery Enables Fine-Scale Detection of Sagebrush Dieback During a Summer Heatwave

Sagebrush species are an essential part of the western desert ecosystem and influence local recreation and employment. These shrubs help prevent erosion, capture water, sustain wild animal populations, and more. Climate change imposes a significant threat to these populations as we see an increasing number of wildfires, less precipitation, and more high heat summer days. This project focuses on the latter issue by comparing imagery taken at Castle Rocks State Park, in southern Idaho, over the summer of 2021 during an unprecedented heatwave. We used drones to gather aerial imagery in June and September, and then I stitched together the multiple overlapping images to create one large image with high resolution. By outlining individual shrubs, I extracted the green band of the color images and calculated the average Green Leaf Index (GLI) values as an indicator of greenness for each shrub. Greenness directly corresponds to the photosynthetic activity and health of a plant. After comparing the images from June and September, I found that 72% lost values, and of these shrubs, there was an average loss of 10.8%. The other 28% of shrubs gained an average of 5%. This location is one site out of four along an elevation gradient with several sagebrush subspecies. The next step is to find the change of GLI at all four Castle Rocks sites from June and September to get a broader range of data analysis over the 2021 heatwave. These methods allow us to identify resilient shrubs that have retained their greenness during this heatwave, and we can target those shrubs to collect seeds for restoration efforts. The advantage of drone data is to create a map that spans hundreds or thousands of individual shrubs, which is more data than we could collect on the ground. This research brings vital information to the conversation of where and how to allocate tight budget funds to conserve the sagebrush steppe that so many of us depend on. It also shows the impact one hot and dry summer can have on this slow-growing plant

Online rainfall atlas of Hawai\u27i

The Rainfall Atlas of Hawai\u27i is a set of digital maps of the spatial patterns of 1978-2007 mean monthly and annual rainfall for the major Hawaiian Islands. For every map of mean rainfall, a corresponding map of uncertainty is also provided. Access to the rainfall maps, data, and related information is available via the Rainfall Atlas of Hawai\u27i website. The monthly rainfall database compiled for the new Rainfall Atlas of Hawai\u27i includes 1,067 stations, with 517,017 station-months of data over the period 1874-2007. For the purposes of the Rainfall Atlas, with a base period of 1978�2007, and ongoing analysis of temporal rainfall trends, gap filling was done for as many stations as possible for the period 1920�2007. Hawai\u27i\u27s rainfall pattern is spectacularly diverse Annual means range from 204 mm near the summit of Mauna Kea to 10,271 mm near Big Bog on the windward slope of Haleakala, Maui. This pattern is explained by the main controls on Hawai\u27i\u27s rainfall. The maps comprising the new Rainfall Atlas of Hawai\u27i give an up-to-date picture of normal rainfall amounts and patterns