[PCA] "Assessing Botanical Capacity..."

Tue Mar 8 14:13:25 CST 2011

Hello all,

Firstly, many thanks to Ruth for prompting comments on the BCAP report.  The report is indeed alarming, but makes some very useful, specific recommendations.  The Ecological Society of America (ESA) Office of Science Programs is working on several projects that relate to this report and the recommendations put forth, so I'd like to mention them briefly.

ESA Panel on Vegetation Classification:

The mission of the ESA Panel on Vegetation Classification is to develop the standards for a national vegetation classification system, including standards for plot-based survey methods and databases, and a dynamic approach to revising the classification based on peer-review.  The Panel maintains a Peer Review Board for the U.S. National Vegetation Classification (NVC) and works in collaboration with the Vegetation Subcommittee of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), NatureServe, and other agencies and organizations.

The Panel is also currently making plans for workshops and other training and outreach activities to ensure federal and state agencies, along with heritage programs, know about and are able to use the NVC.  These activities will be targeted at a variety of audiences, including mid-level managers and field staff.  By making more agencies aware of the NVC and able to effectively use the classification, we hope that the botanical capacity of many federal agencies will be enhanced.

Also, ESA and the Panel see vegetation classification as a vital resource inventory tool with potential monitoring applications.  Given the major processes and stressor agents already bringing about significant changes in vegetation, including species invasions, climate change, atmospheric pollution, and large-scale land-use change, a full understanding is needed of current vegetation change processes and the forecasting tools now becoming available.

In order to apply the current classification, as opposed to simply updating it periodically, we need methods to predict change temporally and spatially, as well as methods to assess how such changes alter ecosystem services and how much they shift successional pathways.  Furthermore, resource managers would benefit from new tools in vegetation science. These need to be developed for effective classification of plant communities, resource inventory, and risk assessment, as well as for monitoring and management of large-scale resource systems. There is much research being done at universities and land management agencies about vegetation adaptations to environmental fluctuations, but much of this research is reactive and does not attempt to address change in a predictive way.

To this end, the ESA Panel on Vegetation Classification is proposing a workshop on "Promoting a Science of Vegetation Change and Classification" to assess the need and feasibility of proactive analysis of vegetation change problems before they become irreparable. This workshop would outline a national plan of action by balancing diverse needs and tools for a new agenda in vegetation science that addresses research needs on vegetation change in the face of new, long-term stressors. At the same time the workshop would be framed by land management problems and the need for training in applying the NVC for natural resource management.

Some websites that may be of interest are listed below:

ESA Panel Website: http://www.esa.org/vegweb/

NVC Website: http://usnvc.org/

Strategies for Sustainability of Biological Infrastructure:

Scientific infrastructure, such as herbaria, are vital to botanical capacity.  In recognition of the importance of such resources, and in light of the difficulty in funding biological infrastructure generally, ESA hosted a workshop on Strategies for Sustainability of Biological Infrastructure, in partnership with the Meridian Institute and sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) . The November 2010 workshop brought together managers of various biological research infrastructure projects, including databases, field stations, and living stocks collections. The workshop identified important challenges to keeping long-term biological infrastructure projects operational, investigated different sustainability models, and developed recommendations for future collaboration. A full workshop report will be available here (likely late March/early April): http://www.esa.org/science_resources/resources/ssbiological.php

I hope this helps to outline some projects that ESA is working on to help address this critical issue.  For more information on either of these projects, or for details on the proposed workshop on Promoting a Science of Vegetation Change and Classification, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Jill Petraglia Parsons
jill at esa.org<mailto:jill at esa.org>
Science Programs Manager
Ecological Society of America
1990 M Street, NW
Suite 700
Washington DC  20036
202.833.8773

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