Summer field techs

We are seeking up to two 2-month summer field technicians (with funding beginning mid-June 2013) to assist in research related to American pikas, alpine ecosystems, and landscape climatology.  The technicians will work in a team to travel to remote locations in Nevada and Oregon to retrieve, replace, and re-deploy microclimatic sensors and record observations of field conditions.   Applications preferred by Friday 31 May but if you missed that, send it in anyway!

For more detailed info, see below:

Field research/technician opportunity

We are seeking up to two 2-month summer field technicians (with funding beginning mid-June 2013) to assist in research related to American pikas, alpine ecosystems, and landscape climatology.  The technicians will work in a team to travel to remote locations in Nevada and Oregon to retrieve, replace, and re-deploy microclimatic sensors and record observations of field conditions.  Although breathtakingly scenic, accessing these locations is physically demanding, often requiring sustained hiking in remote, rocky, high-elevation locations.  Work will involve driving in a 4WD vehicle for up to tens of miles on unmarked dirt roads per day and then day-hiking or backpacking (often without a marked trail) to locations 1-12 miles from the vehicle, and arriving at exact sensor locations, which can be up to 900 m in elevation above the vehicle.  Equipment and instruction in field techniques and safety practices will be provided.  The technicians will be based in the Laboratory for Conservation Biogeography at the University of Nevada, Reno, and work with Erik Beever (U.S. Geological Survey) and other collaborators. There may be opportunities to continue involvement with this and related research.

 

Please see qualifications below and, if interested, provide 1) a resume, 2) a cover letter addressing these qualifications and your ‘fit’ to the position, and 3) contact information for three or more individuals who can verify your qualifications.  Please send the materials (subject: “UNR field tech”) or any questions to Thomas Albright ( talbright [at] unr.edu; 775-784-6673).  Materials will be continuously accepted, but responses are encouraged by 31 May 2013.

 

Requirements:

–       Ability to hike on rockslides with a medium to moderately heavy backpack in rugged, high-elevation areas.

–       Familiar with navigation by maps, compass, and GPS

–       Comfortable working and camping in remote backcountry locations; solid decision-making in these contexts

–       Critical-thinking skills, attention to detail, and positive attitude

–       Valid U.S. driver’s license with good driving record.

 

Desirable qualifications:

–       Experience in collection of field data and identification of Great Basin plant species

–       Interest in ecology, wildlife, climate, physical geography, and scientific research

–       GIS, remote sensing, and statistics for applicants interested in research

 

 

Giancarlo awarded NASA Space Grant Fellowship!

Congratulations to Geography/LCB Ph.D. student, Giancarlo Sadoti for being awarded a Spring 2013 research fellowship from the Nevada NASA Space Grant Consortium.  Giancarlo’s proposal focused on the complementary application of data from ground-based weather stations and thermal remote sensing to modeling the responses of breeding birds to temperatures encountered during and prior to egg-laying. Giancarlo proposed the use of a diverse set of historic and modern bird datasets collected by naturalists, biologists, and citizen scientists in these models.  Giancarlo hopes his research can help managers and conservationists better prepare for the ways birds will response to the increased frequency and severity of anomalous temperatures expected under climate change.

Welcome Denis Mutiibwa — new LCB postdoc

I’m very pleased to welcome Denis Mutiibwa, who is starting as a postdoc this January.

Chief among the projects Denis will be working on is a new NASA-funded activity characterizing thermal stress in birds in the Southwest using remote sensing data, instrumental observations, and modeling.

Originally from Kampala, Uganda, Denis earned a Ph.D, major Engineering, Masters in Statistics and Biological Systems Engineering from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Bachelor’s degree from Alexandria University-Egypt.

His general research interests include:

• Assessing the impacts and trends of climate change on ecosystems and hydrological processes.
• Detection of anthropogenic signals on climate change.
• Determining the impact of Land Use/Land Cover changes on Climate Change.
• Remote sensing-based partitioning and estimation of surface energy fluxes and crop coefficients.
• Time Series and Spatial analysis of climate and hydrological data.

And outside of research, Denis likes playing guitars, playing soccer, and supporting the Huskers!

We’ll see if we can make him a Wolf Pack fan as well.

A grad student’s perspective on a trip to Xinjiang, China

[by Giancarlo Sadoti]

Tom and I recently returned from a week-long trip to Urumqi in the Xinjiang Province of China where we attended the International Symposium on Invasive Plants and Global Change. The meeting was organized by the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Lab of Biogeography and Bioresource in Arid Lands, the Xinjiang Agricultural Institute, and the University of Nevada, Reno. Attendees were supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the United Nations Development Programme. UNR graduate students were also supported by the Graduate Student Association.

The meeting featured international collaborations and independent research on plant invasions from the U.S., China, Australia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. U.S. researchers came from UNLV, BSU, BYU, USGS, USDA, Rutgers, NCSU, and NAU. A number of U.S.-China collaborations were strengthened or born during the meeting and promise to result in research helpful to resource management in both countries.  Both Tom and I presented research related to cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum), an annual grass particularly invasive in the Great Basin of North America. The meeting schedule allowed interested participants to attend two days of field trips into the Junggar Basin desert east of Urumqi and into the forested foothills of the Tien Shan mountains south of Urumqi.  These trips let us poke around looking at plants – some native to Asia but invasive in North America – and a number of birds new to most of us from the U.S.

This was my first trip to China and Tom’s fifth (and his third to Xinjiang). Urumqi is the most inland city in the world. For a sense of its remoteness, it took us an additional four-hour flight from Beijing across massive deserts to reach Urumqi (on top of the 12-hour flight from San Francisco). While residents of many Chinese cities have seen Americans for decades (or longer), Urumqi is still remote enough that our party got plenty of stares when out in public. Despite the dominant Han culture, Urumqi is still a crossroads for a diverse group of central Asian cultural groups, making for great people-watching and a diverse cuisine. Both in and outside Urumqi, I was struck by the pace of development. An increase in income and population has led to a boom in building construction and traffic in the city, while the demand for energy has led to development of huge surface coal mines and the construction of new coal-fired power plants. It will be interesting to see how Xinjiang attempts to responsibly develop its future, much as it will be here in the U.S.

 

Seeking Postdoctoral Collaborator: Remote sensing, surface temperature modeling, and climate change ecology

I anticipate hiring a postdoctoral collaborator on NASA-funded research investigating temperature regimes, climate change, and ecological consequences in complex terrain using remote sensing, sensor networks, geospatial modeling, and climate modeling. Start date could be as early as this Fall or as late as January 2013.

Please the LCB opportunities page for more information: http://wolfweb.unr.edu/~talbright/LCB/opportunities.html

Albright selected for NASA New Investigator award

Tom recently learned that his proposal was selected for a NASA New Investigator in Earth Sciences award.  This program is a highly competitive bi-annual grant opportunity for early career researchers in the earth sciences and provides three years of funding for research and education.  The project is entitled, “Desert Birds in a Warming World: Characterizing thermal stress with daily Earth observation data in complex terrain”.   The work will also involve educational co-investigator Jacque Ewing-Taylor (UNR/Raggio Research Center for STEM Education) and collaborators John Mejia (Desert Research Institute), Markus Neteler (Fundazione Edmund Mach), Anna Pidgeon (UW-Madison), and Blair Wolf (U. New Mexico).

LCB renovation complete!

After two years of waiting, planning, cleaning, waiting, contracting, etc… we’re all very happy that the renovation of the Mackay Science 209 home of LCB is complete.    We’ve got about 750 square feet for computer work stations, assembling gear, having lab meetings, brainstorming, etc.

Thanks to the all those who helped support and carry out this work.

LCB at the US Landscape Ecology Meeting, Rhode Island 9-11 April

Tom and Dave are headed to the US-IALE meeting in Newport Rhode Island next week.

Tom organized a symposium he’s very excited about: ” Environmental sensors and loggers: New approaches to characterizing heterogeneity and applications in landscape ecology”.  This will be Monday  9 April from 1:15-5:00 PM

Dave is presenting a talk in this symposium entitled ” Topographic Influences on Near-Surface Temperature Regimes in Complex Terrain, San Francisco Peaks, Arizona”.

Tom is also presenting a talk on Wednesday entitled “Hot extremes: Characterizing a key driver of ecological change” in Erika Smithwick’s symposium on landscape resiliance and disturbance dynamics.

US-IALE is always a great meeting.  Looking forward to seeing friends and colleagues both old and new!  http://www.usiale.org/newport2012/

LCB, G-Lab, and Geography club volunteer night

Members of UNR/Geography’s Laboratory for Conservation Biogeography (LCB), Geospatial Lab (G-Lab), and the UNR Geography club joined forces tonight to help prepare and serve a winter dinner to some of Reno’s homeless folks.   Cheesy tomato soup got it started and hot chocolate was the finishing treat for the evening for about 75 people.

We did this through a really great non-profit called We Care Volunteers.  They coordinate dinner service about 4 nights a week at a location by 4th and Record streets.    We Care makes it really easy for individuals and groups to contribute a little bit or as much as they can.  We hope to get some more UNR groups to take part in one of their dinner services in the future.    Please consider contributing your time, money, or cooking to this group.  For more info, see the We Care web page ( http://www.wecarevolunteers.org/ ) or Facebook page (www.facebook.com/wecarevolunteers ).

It was easy, fun, and much appreciated.  Thanks to the dozen or so folks who contributed during the dinner service or behind the scenes by purchasing food, supplies, and planning. And thanks to Amber from We Care for running the show.

Geography Department volunteers at We Care dinner service

Preliminary announcement: International Symposium on Invasive Plants and Global Change

The ecology and management of invasive plants is of world-wide concern. Much research and speculation has focused on which abiotic and biotic factors promote plant invasions, including biotic factors that affect population dynamics, weather variability and climate change, and land use/disturbance regimes. The goals of this International Symposium are to: (1) assess mechanisms of plant invasions; (2) evaluate how potential global changes may influence these mechanisms and alter plant invasions; and (3) project how plant invasions may be managed as global changes occur. To achieve these goals, a distinguished group of international scientists will explore these issues through presentations and discussions. Because arid ecosystems are especially susceptible to plant invasions and global changes due to low resilience and extreme sensitivity to environmental changes, this International Symposium places special emphasis on plant invasions in dry regions of the world.

 

Topics:

1. Mechanisms of plant invasions – understanding the “why” of plant invasions – including: intra- and interspecific interactions, population dynamics, evolutionary processes, plant-soil-microbial feedbacks, trophic interactions, environmental variability, and human activities

2. Global changes and invasion processes – what the future holds and how will these changes influence underlying mechanisms of invasion – including: changing climate (temperature and precipitation), changing atmospheric CO₂, and changing land use and disturbance

3. Managing plant invasions in a changing world – putting it all together – including: conceptual understanding to frame strategies and policies, and predicting plant invasions with numerical models

 

Venue and Local Hosts

Symposium will occur in Urumqi, which is the capital city of Xinjiang Province, China.  Xinjiang Institute of Ecology & Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences is the local host.

 

Preliminary Schedule:

June 13 (Wednesday), Registration

June 14 (Thursday), Symposium

June 15 (Friday), Symposium

June 16 & 17 (Weekend), Field trip to Junggar Basin

Important Dates:

Before March 31, 2012           Submit registration form

Before May 31, 2012                         Submit abstract

 

For more information, contact in USA: Bob Nowak – Email: nowak@cabnr.unr.edu

To receive further announcements about this Symposium, contact Zhang Daoyuan – Email: zhangdy@ms.xjb.ac.cn

For updated information, registration form, and further details, visit www.egi.cas.cn/2012