Fostering social-ecological resilience in the Upper Klamath Basin : The National Riparian Service Team's Creeks and Communities strategy and an emerging model for government in adaptive co-management

Social-ecological resilience theory is part of a new paradigm for understanding and managing complex coupled human-ecological systems. The theory aims to inform explorations of a system’s ability to withstand disturbance while maintaining its critical functions. Adaptive co-management has been proposed as a governance mechanism that can enhance resiliency by combining the shared learning components of adaptive management with collaborative and community-based approaches to natural resource management. This new paradigm poses a challenge for government agencies charged with overseeing the nation’s natural resources, however, since many still embrace a more traditional centralized, science-based decision making approach. The National Riparian Service Team (NRST or Team), an interagency partnership between the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, is an example of a federal agency that is experimenting with this new paradigm. This study draws on concepts associated with resiliency and adaptive co-management as a basis for evaluating one aspect of the NRST’s Creeks & Communities Strategy (Strategy), which was designed to address both the technical and social aspects of riparian management across ownership boundaries using a place-based approach to problem solving. Using the Upper Klamath Basin as a case study, we found the NRST to be an effective catalyst for adaptive co-management, at least in part because of the timing of its intervention, which occurred during what we characterize as a phase of reorganization following the 2001 collapse of the social-ecological system. Two major components of the Team’s approach are highlighted for their role in promoting adaptive co-management and enhancing the resilience of the Upper Klamath Basin social-ecological system: (1) the concept at the core of the NRST’s approach to riparian health assessment, Proper Functioning Condition (PFC), which both provides a qualitative measure of resilient capacity and promotes social learning and joint-fact finding; and (2) the Team’s emphasis on collaboration and cross-scale communication, which builds social capital and enhances community capacity to garner resources from other scales. Finally, we suggest that while the NRST exemplifies an effective and important new role for government actors in ecosystem management, there are a number of barriers currently preventing this model from being widely adopted in other government agencies

Land Suitability Analysis: Wallowa County

Final report for GEO 553.The Wallowa County Land Suitability Analysis (LSA) and Technical Manual in this document utilize Geographic Information System (GIS) tools for evaluating the relative suitability of land for development in Wallowa County, Oregon. It was developed as part of Geosciences 453/553 Resource Evaluation Methods, a Service Learning class offered at Oregon State University. The project was intended to contribute to two synchronistic goals, providing “real world” applications of the concepts of land-use planning to the students in the class while also providing Wallowa County with tools for furthering county planning efforts

Spectral Sagebrush

Big Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentate) is a keystone species that dominates much of the semi-arid climate ecosystems of the western United States. Currently, three subspecies are widely accepted, which occupy distinct ecological niches and differ genetically and chemically. Mountain Big Sagebrush (A. t. vaseyana) prefers more moisture and is bound to higher elevation. It produces a large amount of coumarins, for herbivory and UV-protection, resulting in higher overall UV fluorescence. Basin Big Sagebrush (A. t. tridentata) prefers deep and well drained soils and exhibits no UV fluorescence, while Wyoming Big Sagebrush (A. t. wyomingensis) prefers, dry, rocky cold deserts and high elevation plateaus and exhibits varying UV fluorescence. Hybrids between subspecies have been reported in transition zones where multiple subspecies co-occur. Here, we sampled a transect between previously identified and genetically confirmed subspecies to test the hypothesis that (i) distinct subspecies will exhibit distinct spectral profiles and UV-fluorescence, while potential hybrids will have varying spectral profiles and intergrading UV-fluorescence. We also predict that (ii) we will detect variation in absorbance and fluorescence along the transect, but not in the distinct ecological niches. To test these hypotheses, aqueous leaf extracts were analyzed for fluorescence intensity and spectral absorbance. A random forest (RF) algorithm was trained with genetically confirmed absorbance and fluorescence data, which then allowed the validation of the transect samples. The RF revealed that a combination of both, absorbance and fluorescence, can be used to differentiate between subspecies. Additionally, absorbance at specific wavelengths (345, 350, 355,360) as well as fluorescence intensity were identified to be the most important variables for subspecies classification. While subspecies vaseyana was well classified by the RF, the absorbance difference between wyomingensis and tridentate was found to be small, which led to ambiguous results. Similarly, genetic evidence for hybridization is still lacking and more confirmed hybrid individuals are required to improve classification using spectrophotometry and RF

Diurnal variation of clock genes expression and other sleep-wake rhythm biomarkers among acute ischemic stroke patients.

There is accumulating evidence about sleep-wake rhythm disturbances as potential modifiable risk factors of both incident and recurrent stroke and less favorable outcomes after stroke. To our best knowledge this is the first study designed to investigate clock genes expression profiles in ischemic stroke patients and their relations to other biological and behavioral sleep-wake rhythm biomarkers, sleep structural and clinical stroke features. Altogether, 27 ischemic stroke patients (20 males) with the median age of 56 years and 25 gender and age matched controls were investigated with neurological and objective examination, scales, polysomnography, actigraphy and 24-h blood sampling for melatonin and clock genes profiles. Median melatonin plasma concentrations at four time points at 7, 11 p.m., 3 a.m. and 12 p.m. did not differ significantly between patients and controls, only early morning melatonin concentration at 7 a.m. was significantly lower and cortisol plasma concentration - significantly higher among stroke patients. All four clock genes (ARNTL (BMAL1), NR1D1 (Rev-erbα/β), PER1, and PER3) showed significant time-of-day variation in both patients' and controls' groups, except expression of NR1D1 (Rev-erbα/β) at 7 a.m. and PER1 at 12 p.m. differed significantly. In conclusion, acute ischemic stroke patients tended to preserve most of diurnal variation of sleep-wake rhythm molecular patterns. Nevertheless, early morning time point showing higher cortisol and lower melatonin concentrations and lower NR1D1 (Rev-erbα/β) expression, as well as lower PER1 midday expression reflect specific circadian desynchrony features in different loops of the molecular circadian clock system