Integration of NASA technology and wildlife ecology for use by the National Park Service Systems Int

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Integration of NASA technology and wildlife
ecologyfor use by the National Park
Service(Systems Integration and Visualization of
Yellowstone)Fred Watson1, Bob Garrott2,
PJ White3, Susan Alexander1,Rick Wallen3,
Wendi Newman1, Thor Anderson1, Tom Thein1, Jon
Detka1,Claire Gower2, Jason Bruggeman2, Matt
Becker2, Sally Plumb3, Chris Geremia31Californ
ia State University Monterey Bay, 2Montana State
University Bozeman, 3Yellowstone National Park,
Principal Investigators, Formerly Presented at
NASA Biodiversity and Ecological Forecasting Team
MeetingMay 2nd 2008, University of Maryland,
College Park
Funding NASA NCC2-1186 NCC13-03009,NSF DEB
0074444 DEB-0413570, and NPS
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Crew
Staff postgrads
PIs
National Parks Service
Under-grads
Volunteers
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Forest cover survey
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Landsat land cover mapping
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Meadow phenology survey
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MODIS phenology
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Wind data collection
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Wind field model
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Geothermal perimeter survey
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Geothermal heat flux map
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Snowpack coring
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National Parks Servicebison monitoring
management activities
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Bison movement
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More coring
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...more coring
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...more coring
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...more coring
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Key bison areas near the Park boundary
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Snowpack nowcasting
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How is the nowcasting used?

• The products that you sent a couple of weeks ago
  were fantastic and just what we needed to convey
  how the snowpack conditions this year compare to
  the 25 year range of variability. Thank you very
  much for those model runs!!! We used the
  information in the attached brief.
• ...

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Bison distributionRoad grooming doesnt
strongly influence bison travel(Bruggeman et
al.)
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How are the publications used?

• ...development of several new approaches to
  understand the causes, timing, and routes of
  migratory movements by bison (Bison bison) that,
  in turn, have been applied to management
  decisions regarding boundary control measures and
  the potential for brucellosis transmission to
  cattle (Bjornlie and Garrott 2001, Ferrari and
  Garrott 2002, Coughenour 2005, Gates et al. 2005,
  Gogan et al. 2005, Borkowski et al. 2006,
  Bruggeman et al. 2006, 2007 Fuller et al. 2007a,
  Olexa and Gogan 2007, Chapters 26-28). These
  studies also provide the best available
  scientific information from which adjudicators,
  park managers, and stakeholders can infer the
  potential effects of winter recreation and road
  grooming on bison and other wildlife. White et
  al. (In Garrott et al., In press.)

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Journal papers
Book chapters
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Broad, Robust, Efficient But potentially more
difficult to identify linkages between specific
management environments and data products (?)
This project
More focused, decisions realized within project
timeframe But difficult to scale up
generalize Therefore costly
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Key points

• In our experience at Yellowstone
• A bottom-up approach leads to realized
  outcomesin terms of National Park decision
  making
• The bottom-up approach takes a great deal of
  time, resources, and teamwork
• It must rest on published foundations
• The dissociation of time scales for funding,
  collaboration, publication, and decision making
  heightens the challenge
• In the case of Yellowstone bison
• Forecasting ecological response requires careful
  attention to spatio-temporal pattern
• This requires
• spatio-temporal wildlife data,
• spatio-temporal landscape models,
• and analytical methods for relating them to each
  other.
• Can this approach be scaled for better efficiency?

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