My big takeaway from reporting this story is that it's not JUST about the Forest Service.
The closure of these stations threatens to upend a delicate system of mutually beneficial collaboration and resource sharing, and the impacts will ripple out far beyond the Forest Service itself.
Pipeline for integrating lidar data with structured demographic models for ecological inference. (a) Forest populations are surveyed at appropriate time intervals with a lidar scanner to produce high-resolution 3D point clouds. Point clouds are processed into canopy height models (CHMs) and digital terrain models (DTMs). (b) Individual tree segmentation is performed using a CHM-based algorithm (e.g. Dalponte & Coomes, 2016). (c) Relevant environmental variables are derived. For example, TWI is an indicator of soil moisture accumulation (Kopecký et al., 2021) and is calculated from the DTM. Local competition is inferred from the canopy density surrounding each tree, using the CHM. (d) Trees are matched across time points using a crown-matching algorithm (Battison et al., 2024; Olsoy et al., 2024), before measuring changes in size and classifying mortalities. (e) Continuous traits (e.g. height and crown area) are evaluated for their ability to predict survival and growth across the life cycle. (f) Selected traits and environmental parameters are used to model the vital rates using regressions. (g) The integral projection model (IPM) is constructed based on the selected vital rate models and key life history traits (e.g. mean life expectancy, longevity, generation time) are calculated. (h) Finally, IPM outputs are analysed to test ecological hypotheses.
The first paper from my PhD is now out in the world 🌲📖 Modelling forest dynamics using IPMs and repeat lidar doi.org/10.1002/rse2...
Wolf coordinator job with ODFW in Salem, OR #altac #wildlife oregon.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/SOR_Ex...
reverse-engineering a wine blend.
🍷 new preprint on reverse-engineering a wine blend! feedback wanted.
❓given a wine blend and samples of each pure-varietal wine that went into it, can we infer the unknown make-up of the blend based on chemical fingerprints?
(~ a tutorial on total least squares.)
🔗 chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10....
Yeah, but there are differently approaches. Often we'll predict a dominant tree for each pixel (20m) and then aggregate pixels for stand-level composition, which isn't quite the same. Here's an example: www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13...
I want to use this to predict tree species composition from a pixel from remote sensing imagery
A bit more about monarchs and the border wall planned to run through the National Butterfly Center
Characterizing Precariously Balanced Rocks (PBRs) in the Eastern United States for Estimating Maximum Past Earthquake Ground Motions #BSSA ⚒️
Scientists gently pushed precariously balanced rocks in the Blue Ridge and measured the motions with seismometers.
buff.ly/7oHMwaD
Yeah, I have a work wife now
Good afternoon! All day today my colleagues and I will be on STRIKE. You can help us send a message! Please do not visit ProPublica's website and tell management to give us a fair contract so we can get back to work: actionnetwork.org/petitions/te...
April-emerging Bombus queens id guide showing color patterns on bees for identification. Species included are Bombus impatiens, ternarius, bimac, perplexus, fervidus, vagans, affinis, fraternus, terricola
May emerging Bombus Queens from "Bees of Eastern North America" showing id patterns for Bombus griseocolis, rufocinctus, auricomus, borealis, pensylvanicus, sandersoni, and frigidus
Are you also gearing up for Bombus queen season? The ladies are already flying around Chicagoland, so I collaged together the queen IDs from Colla, Richardson, & Williams for quick reference.
See the full pdf here on @xercessociety.bsky.social :
www.xerces.org/sites/defaul...
I wrote today about a big study on replication--and why it's so hard to know if a study will hold up or not. Gift link: nyti.ms/4sNu3MF
Introducing the @heatmap.news and @mit.edu Electricity Hub, our new zip code-level look at what exactly you’re paying for on your electricity bill and how it stacks up against … anyone or everyone else: electricity.heatmap.news
ask the BLM how that went in 2020 when Trump 1.0 moved HQ to Grand Junction, CO
spoiler: 87% of HQ staff chose to leave the agency rather than move
New paper led by @jameslamping.bsky.social mapping #old-growth forests in SE #Alaska and SW B.C.
Take home messages:
We’re missing a global indicator to track insects. By analyzing thousands of butterfly populations, we highlight both promising signals and key challenges—showing why these taxa are strong candidates for building a Global Index to support conservation. conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Worked well, but remember, I am a professional who pootered 10000s of beetles during a postdoc
*the true pooter design from Dr. Poos is the 2-tube design, single tube like this was invented earlier. Thanks to Simon Leather for the history simonleather.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/e...
Tube connected to tapered plastic vial next to box showing parent sucking snot from a baby nose
I got a pooter* for baby snot #entomology
Providence's partner is still denying every basic health insurance claim. This has been so bad.
This is the updated, more streamlined petition link. Please use this one instead: actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...
New paper alert! Alexandra Vanderzee found that AnyDorsal can effectively identify Risso's dolphins. This is a fun result because a) AnyDorsal wasn't trained on Risso's and b) it shows AnyDorsal can balance scars dorsal notches as separate ID information
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
march to admin building at PSU
another march photo
shot of SEIU 503-089 members from behind standing in front of rally speaker at admin building
We joined SEIU 503-089 in unity for a good contact for PSU Higher Ed workers! JWJ supports the members who make PSU work! 💜✊🏽
The assignment was both simple and daunting: write about the past, present and future of timber in Oregon.
We traveled from pioneer days —> boom times —> rise of environmentalism —> rise of wildfires —> Trump admin plans to boost logging —> mass timber revolution? tinyurl.com/ykxwhdun
New study on temporal interaction turnover using a unique dataset 🦋🪷
Communities adapt to climate fluctuations through rewiring. But over the long term, as species are lost, rewiring declines—reducing the capacity of communities to buffer environmental change
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
New #OA paper from the @glitrs.bsky.social project asking, how well does the Global #Biodiversity Framework address insect declines? Turns out the targets could well deliver for insects, but the indicators won't tell us whether or not they have! doi.org/10.1111/con4...
A graphic reads “92% of participating ProPublica Guild members voted YES to authorize our bargaining committee to call for a strike.” The “92%” is very large. A ProPublica Guild logo is under the text.
1/ Today, we overwhelmingly voted to authorize a STRIKE as we fight for a fair contract with @propublica.org.
Graphical abstract for the article
Happy to share my very first article dragonflies !
We investigate how dragonflies traits are linked with their vulnerability in Europe. Our main conclusions: habitat, life cycle length and temperature preferences are the main traits linked with vulnerability.
authors.elsevier.com/a/1mnPQ1R%7E...
Nice summary of long distance insect migration in the Guardian today with fancy graphics www.theguardian.com/environment/...
PRISM solar irradiance time series data are now available. Great news for many fields of inquiry. www.prism.oregonstate.edu/notices/noti...
