[HubbardBrook] COS minutes 4/7/15

[Ruth D Yanai]

Hubbard Brook Committee of Scientists Meeting
Tuesday April 7, 2015
Business items

A. Facilities (Geoff Wilson)
HBRF is planning to install a solar array at PVF.  Due to NH’s new group-net metering law it can be sized large enough to cover the Hamlets electricity as well.  Due to other legislative reasons, this can be done through a 3rd party investor with no money down, then purchased at a later date (after 5 years) for approximately 40% of its initial installed cost.
HBRF will save $10,000/yr.  45,000 Kw-hours; footprint 25% of field.

LTER related:
Tim has rented garage space at PVF for around $1,800/year, and has been able to do this largely through LTER money.  HBRF is concerned that when the LTER leadership is transferred, we will lose this income stream.  If anything, it would be beneficial to increase general facilities support in the new LTER, but we certainly can’t afford to lose any.

         Gary -- other places where LTER supports HBRF? Some internet support.
         Rents went up 20% this year at Hamlet.

NSF put out a request for proposals for field stations and marine labs
These proposals are due in December and it might be worth submitting a planning grant to think through the future archive needs and to reconcile the results from the last planning proposal, which resulted in the Facilities Master Plan, with the current situation (which includes the purchase of the Hamlets).  This process might position us well for a full proposal to help deal with the archives and other site needs.  A full grant has a maximum budget of $350K.

We will need more archive space.  We could request a planning grant that includes a round-table discussion on ecological archiving.  We had a master plan about 15 years ago, which we haven’t followed (does someone have this NSF proposal?); we would need to acknowledge that.  That was before Mirror Lake, so now we are on a different trajectory.

B. HBRF (David Sleeper)
Programming at HBRF includes 14-16 programs, including
Science-links; Forest science dialog; education program; water visualization;
Need to set priorities. Pam T is on the HBRF board and head of programming committee.
HBRF -- do broader impacts. Working closely with Nick and birds on the Science Links project. Difficult to find $$$ for post-doc support.
Forest Science Dialog ($260K) will hold second round table on climate change
Sarah Garlick on maternity leave.  HBRF included more and more with the grants. HBRF does the broader impact section. Working with RET teachers; working with Gary on Nitrogen project.

Strategic plan for NSRC led by David Sleeper.
Program is under siege at the Northern Research Station and at USFS. Better, smarter, more relevant and more efficient. Will be major decisions regarding NSRC.
Level and declining funding causing stress. Not enough administrative money to support themes. Few projects get supported. Other states in NRS that want access to money. Why don't the other states get $2.5M per year. Started as an earmark for NH and VT, expanded to NY and Maine.
Lindsey -- started as earmark now part of the core NRS budget. Funded entirely by the Forest Service. Complete funding structure has changed.

C. FUTURE COS meetings  (Ruth Yanai)
July meeting -- proposal writing. Plan on an hour or so.
Brainstorm ideas for future meetings:
--W1, Driscoll, Groffman (oops, we did this already?)
--W2, invite Reiners, Likens said maybe.  50th anniversary!
--synthesis and integration, modeling and prediction, or “advanced analytical techniques” – Groffman, Driscoll, Aber, Richardson, Battles, Goodale, Yanai, Rastetter.
Last time data-model fusion was not well attended
Diagram the nitrogen model
Coherent conceptual model that gives scope of project but also want to know if we use are clever new analytical techniques, uncertainty, and prediction.
Do we have a plan for addressing this in the proposal?
Bird analytics -- temporal and spatial prediction (SEM and hierarchical Bayesian analysis)
How do we model the landscape with hydropedology
--Multiple limitation study
--Soil freezing
--Aluminum
--H+ budget
--Resilience
--relating to new programs at NSF (get the list from Peter)  NEON, nexus, macrosystems
--Precipitation increase.  “Building an ark.”  More water, more dilute chemistry.  ET, WUE
--Biodiversity, Matt Ayers, Windsor Lowe

D.  All Scientists Meeting (Ruth Yanai)
http://asm2015.lternet.edu
There will be support for 7 graduate students from each site from the Network Office.
PIs attending include Rustad, Goodale, Campbell, Battles, Christenson, Lovett, Yanai.
Propose workshops online, pick a time and place, from now until July.  Then other people will propose workshops in the remaining rooms and time slots.  Book early and often!
Rustad and Campbell: sensor network
Yanai and Campbell: uncertainty
Abstract submission is also open.
Tell Mary Martin if you don’t have an LTER ID.
We need a site-level poster.  How about the greatest hits!

D. ANNUAL MEETING
Pam Templer sent around the results of the survey about changes to the format of the Annual Cooperators Meeting, with the following message.

In January, we sent out a survey about our Annual Cooperator’s Meeting at Hubbard Brook. The concern had been raised that the meeting is often packed with science talks and committee meetings, leaving little time for discussion or informal scientific interaction. Several alternate strategies for the meeting had been proposed and we sent out a survey to get input from the COS and student community about potential changes. Please find the results of that survey attached.

There will be a small amount of time at tomorrow’s COS meeting to discuss the format of this summer’s Annual Cooperator’s Meeting. We will continue the discussion after the COS meeting and welcome everyone’s input. One idea for changing the Annual Meeting was to increase the length of the meeting by one day. Because the Board of Trustees Meeting for this July was scheduled long ago, it would be challenging to change it for this summer. We therefore propose that for 2015 we keep the length of the meeting the same and try the format below for this year. We can consider a longer meeting for 2016.

Based on the results of the survey and the need to maintain the length of the meeting this year, we suggest the following format for this summer’s annual meeting:
·         Leave the total length of the meeting the same
·         Add time at the end of each session for some discussion
·         Change the format so that people can choose between giving 2, 4, 6 or 8 minute talks
·         Add a new poster session

We welcome input via email and/or at tomorrow’s COS meeting.

All the best,

Pam Templer, John Battles, Nat Cleavitt, Peter Groffman, Gary Lovett, Rebecca Sanders-DeMott, and Ruth Yanai

Discussion
Four lengths for talks is too many, let’s only offer 5 or 10 minute slots (Fahey)
When and where will the poster session will go?
We need to identify who will organize (1) lunch and money, (2) barbeque and barn dance, and (3) science program.  Tim is willing to continue with the science program.  David Sleeper will get back to us with a plan.

E.  Use of the email lists
It’s not moderated unless it gets stuck (if you send from a different address than the one the list has for you).  If this happens, Mary can change the address you are subscribed with.
Send your publications to the HB list:  HubbardBrook at lists.sr.unh.edu
Use the COS list only when calling for a vote.  HubbardBrookCOS at lists.sr.unh.edu

F.  ICE STORM INVITE
$1.4M from NSF.  Charley, Lindsey, John, Peter, Paul, and Mary.
Catherine Heyho?  Predict previous ice storms, future conditions for ice storms.
1998 ice storm, USFS set up 36 plots across the WMNF, will follow up and publish.
Ice storm experiment.  10 plots,  4 treatments: 1 year or 2, thickness of ice.
PnET-BGC
Broader impacts: universal design for learning, sensors to bring the experiment into classrooms.  Round table hosted by HBRF.  Video slated to go viral on youtube.
Please contact Lindsey if you have ideas and want to participate.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Ruth Yanai with contributions from John Battles, Geoff Wilson, and others.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.sr.unh.edu/pipermail/hubbardbrook/attachments/20150507/0a5ade85/attachment.html