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I've had a few questions about citation style for the NSO project. I won't be grading based on whether your references follow the University of Chicago Style Manual. The purpose of the Literature Cited section is to make it easy to tell what sources you have depended on. As long as I can tell that easily, that's a. All I care about.
Having said that, referring several people have asked specifically about how to refer to the draft recovery plan and the critiques. Just so it's easy for me to keep things straight, I suggest the following format.1
USFWS. 2007a. Species profile: northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina). http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=B08B2
USFWS. 2007b. Draft recovery plan for the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina). Portland, OR.
Reviewer #1. 2007. SCB/AOU anonymous review.
Reviewer #2. 2007. SCB/AOU anonymous review.
Reviewer #3. 2007. SCB/AOU anonymous review.
Reviewer #4. 2007. SCB/AOU anonymous review.
Dugger, K. 2007. Review of draft NSO recovery plan.
Franklin, A. 2007. Review of draft NSO recovery plan.
Olson, G. 2007. Review of draft NSO recovery plan.
Remember: Just because I'm listing all of these references here doesn't mean you need to include all of them in your report. In fact, even though I hope you read them all, your project will probably be stronger if you focus on only one item on which the recovery plan is either especially strong or especially weak and refer only to those documents above and other relevant literature that are directly pertinent to the focus of your critique.
1If you've already used a different format, don't worry about it. Just make sure it will be clear what you're referring to.
2Use a similar format if you refer to other web resources. Leave the “a” and “b” off if you don't refer to the species profile page.
I've posted a few notes and some suggested questions for discussion on the black sea turtle case study for next Monday. Please remember that my questions are intended to get the ball rolling. I'd be delighted if you came with others that you'd like to discuss.
I'd also like to mention that I really enjoyed the discussion during our last case study. You set a high bar for yourselves. I'm looking forward to Monday's discussion too.
I just received an e-mail containing the following question about Project #1
The NSO draft uses the term "forest-capable lands" a couple of times throughout the paper. I searched both the document and the internet for a definition but could not find one. Does this simply mean land that has the potential to become a forest by either succession or human planting?
As far as I am aware “forest-capable lands” simply refers to lands that are capable of sustaining forest, whether the trees found there derive from seed dispersed without human intervention or are the result of specific outplanting efforts.
I received an e-mail this morning from the Union of Concerned Scientists about a letter they have prepared as c omment on the draft recovery plan for the northern spotted owl. Since you're all (or soon will be) experts on NSO recovery, I thought you might be interested in what they have to say. Click below to read the full entry.
The northern spotted owl, an important indicator of overall forest health, is one of the most intensively studied endangered birds in the world. Unfortunately, according to multiple scientific peer reviews recently conducted by owl experts and several of the nation's leading scientific societies, including the Society for Conservation Biology and the American Ornithologist's Union, much of this science was ignored in the draft recovery plan for the northern spotted owl published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Even more disturbing, an additional recovery option was added to the draft recovery plan by a highly atypical
political appointee-based process as documented in a May 9, 2007 hearing in Congress on the Endangered Species Act.
** Your Chance to Weigh In
The National Center for Conservation Science and Policy (NCCSP) is organizing a letter to Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne from scientists with expertise in ecology,wildlife, endangered species, and forests. The letter expresses scientists' concerns about this draft recovery plan for the northern spotted owl and the widespread effects it would have on Pacific Northwest old-growth forests. The letter also urges Secretary of the Interior Kempthorne to commission a team of scientists to redraft the recovery plan and place related forest management policies on hold until a new draft is proposed.
As a scientist with experience related to biodiversity, your expertise and credentials could be helpful in convincing the Interior Department of the Interior to correct its flawed proposal.
Read the letter:
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/restoring/spotted-owl-sign-on-letter.html
Review full background information:
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/restoring/northern-spotted-owl-letter.html
**** To add your name to this letter, please email your
name, area of expertise, highest degree obtained, and any institutional affiliation you have to NCCSP Executive Science and Policy Director Dominick DellaSala:dominick@nccsp.org
Dr. DellaSala is also willing to answer any questions you may have.
FWS policy states recovery plans must be based on the best available science. Not only was this draft recovery plan for the northern spotted owl found to be unreliable by scientific peer review, but the science involved may have been tampered with by high-ranking administration officials. In addition, the plan is a key decision document that could determine the fate of millions of acres of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. I hope you will consider signing on to this letter.
Thank you for your commitment to scientific integrity in
federal government science.
Sincerely,
Dr. Francesca Grifo
Senior Scientist & Director
Scientific Integrity Program
Union of Concerned Scientists
Notes for the next two lectures are now posted on the web site. I've also (tentatively) decided to change organisms for the next case study – a week from Monday. I think we'll talk about the black sea turtle rather than Preble's meadow jumping mouse.
Project #1 is posted. You'll find a link to the assignment and associated resources on the detail page for Wednesday's lecture.
Last week I referred to a paper showing a correlation between the size of endangered species populations when listed and the goals set for them. When I wasn't able to relocate it, I asked Chris Elphick for help. Embarassingly, it turns out he was the first author:
Elphick, C. S., J. M. Reed, and J. M. Bonta. 2001. Correlates of population recovery goals in birds. Conservation Biology 15:1285-1291 (JStor)
I posted the PVA notes – finally. Sorry for not getting them up sooner, but last week was pretty hectic. I'll try to get the notes for Wednesday posted by tomorrow night.
Field Experience and Research Opportunities for Students at University of Connecticut
The conservation group Operation Wallacea is currently looking for university students to assist in biodiversity assessment and conservation management projects in Indonesia, Honduras, Peru, South Africa, Mozambique and Egypt. Operation Wallacea employ university academics from the US, UK and Canada to conduct research on the population dynamics and behavioral ecology of a range of herpetofauna, bird, bat, primate, mammal, fish, and invertebrate species in remote forest and marine habitats in the tropics. The information produced from this research is then used to form a conservation management strategy for the area to obtain money from large funding organizations such as the World Bank and GEF to set up sustainable conservation management projects. These projects provide local communities with the education, training, and alternative sources of income they need to work themselves out of poverty and conserve their environment.
University students who join these projects therefore have a unique opportunity to participate in real scientific research projects and work alongside an experienced team of academics. During the expedition, students learn a range of skills relating to biodiversity monitoring techniques, conservation management, bush/jungle survival and PADI dive training. It is also possible for students to collect data for a senior or masters level thesis under the supervision or our academic team.
Dr. Kathy Slater of Operation Wallacea will be giving a presentation at 5pm on Wednesday 19 September in Torrey Life Sciences (TLS 301).
If you are interested in joining one or our expeditions or are thinking of pursuing a career in ecology, biology, oceanography, or conservation management and would like to find out more about research opportunities with Operation Wallacea then please come along to the presentation. If you can't make it to the meeting, but are interested in finding out more about our expeditions then please take a look at our website at www.opwall.com or contact the Operation Wallacea US office on 973 940 2040 and they can talk through the various projects with you.
I've posted a brief summary on the conservation history of the black-footed ferret along with a few questions to provoke discussion. I do not plan to lecture on Wednesday. Instead, I'd like to explore as many issues concerning the conservation history of the black-footed ferret as we can.
For this to be a useful exercise, you'll need to read the papers associated with the lecture and think about the questions before lecture on Wednesday.
I hope that the discussion will not be limited to the questions I've posed. I hope that your reading and reflection will cause some others to occur to you. If you have specific questions you'd like to address, please write them out and bring them with you on Wednesday. Better yet. Send them to me ahead of time, and I'll collect all of them into a single place.
If you're looking for things to do on the Friday before Thanksgiving, The Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science is devoting an afternoon to the topic “Thoreau and environmentalism.” I don't think I'll be able to make it, but the program looks interesting:
Karbank Symposium in Environmental Philosophy
Thoreau and Environmentalism
Friday, November 16 , 2007, 1:00 p.m. - 5 p.m.
The Castle, 225 Bay State Road
Moderator: Charles Capper (Boston University)
Richard Primack (Boston University)
Thoreau as a Climate Change Scientist
Max Oelschlaeger (Norther Arizona University)
Thoreau's Anticipations of Human Agency in Ecological Context
William Rossi (University of Oregon)
Thoreauvian Science and the Environmental Subject
Alfred I. Tauber (Boston University)
Thoreau's Pantheism and the Birth of American Environmentalism
We touched on a few of the questions surrounding captive breeding of endangered species on Wednesday. We'll discuss them more thoroughly when we talk about the black-footed ferret next Wednesday, but there are two articles in yesterday's Nature that you may want to take a look at in the meantime:
I've added links to three papers that debate the definition of “distinct population segments” in vertebrates to the detail page for today's lecture. We'll revisit some of these issues in a couple of weeks when we talk about systematics and conservation genetics.
Tanner Steeves also pointed out that the FY 2004 expenditure report on the ESA is available at http://www.fws.gov/endangered/expenditures/reports/FWS%20Endangered%20Species%202004%20Expenditures%20Report.pdf. It's a large file and it takes quite a while to load. A few interesting facts:
I got hold of the paper I couldn't read yesterday, and I've decided the notes are fine as they stand. We'll defer discussion of Ringsby et al. until we get to population viability analysis next week.
I've posted a first draft of the demography notes for next Monday. They're in draft form, because there's a paper I wanted to look at (the Ringsby et al. in the Suggested Readings) that I can't get to from off campus (even through the VPN). I don't expect the notes to change much, but I'd like to incorporate some of the insights from that paper before I call the notes done for this year. I'll let you know when they're finished for good.
I neglected to mention a very recent paper that provides the best available estimates on human appropriation of net primary productivity.
Haberl, H., et al. 2007. Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production in earth's terrestrial ecosystems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104:12942-12947. (link)
Here's the abstract:
Human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP), the aggregate impact of land use on biomass available each year in ecosystems, is a prominent measure of the human domination of the biosphere. We present a comprehensive assessment of global HANPP based on vegetation modeling, agricultural and forestry statistics, and geographical information systems data on land use, land cover, and soil degradation that localizes human impact on ecosystems. We found an aggregate global HANPP value of 15.6 Pg C/yr or 23.8% of potential net primary productivity, of which 53% was contributed by harvest, 40% by land-use-induced productivity changes, and 7% by human-induced fires. This is a remarkable impact on the biosphere caused by just one species. We present maps quantifying human-induced changes in trophic energy flows in ecosystems that illustrate spatial patterns in the human domination of ecosystems, thus emphasizing land use as a pervasive factor of global importance. Land use transforms earth's terrestrial surface, resulting in changes in biogeochemical cycles and in the ability of ecosystems to deliver services critical to human well being. The results suggest that large-scale schemes to substitute biomass for fossil fuels should be viewed cautiously because massive additional pressures on ecosystems might result from increased biomass harvest.
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