[HubbardBrookCOS] Hubbard Brook SCC and COS Meeting Notes

Templer, Pamela H ptempler at bu.edu
Thu Jul 21 15:21:32 EDT 2016


Dear Hubbard Brook Colleagues,

We've included below the minutes from the last SCC and COS business meetings held on July 14 and 15, 2016, respectively. The dates of the next two COS meetings are below. Please note the change of date for the fall COS meeting.

Wednesday, September 28th October 11, 2016 @ Cary Institute
January 3-4, 2017 @ Cary Institute

All the best,

Pam Templer and John Battles
SCC Co-Chairs


Scientific Coordinating Committee (SCC) Meeting at Hubbard Brook - July 14, 2016
In attendance: Ivan Fernandez, Lynn Christenson, John Campbell, Melany Fisk, Anthea Lavallee, Pam Templer, John Battles, Peter Groffman (as LTER PI, for Gary Lovett), and Lindsey Rustad (invited)

1. Frequency of SCC meetings

*         We voted unanimously in favor of moving from quarterly to monthly SCC meetings. We will retain the in-person meetings during the quarterly COS meetings and the remaining eight meetings will be through phone or online.

*         The greater frequency of meetings will permit improved communication, keeping up to date with potential issues that need resolving, and for planning ahead.

2. New date for Fall 2016 Committee of Scientists Meeting

*         We moved the Fall 2016 meeting from October 11 (since it is Yom Kippur) to Wednesday, September 28th at the Cary Institute.

*         This meeting will include a discussion about visioning for the Forest Service and a science topic to be determined.


3. US Forest Service

*         Lindsey Rustad shared updates about the US Forest Service and the need to evaluate goals and progress at Hubbard Brook.

4. LTER proposal process SUCCESS

*         We discussed the transition from two former Principal investigators (Tim Fahey and Charley Driscoll) to our two current principal investigators (Gary Lovett and Peter Groffman).

*         The successful NSF LTER proposal (to begin 2017) will be discussed at the January 2017 COS meeting. We will open the discussion to gather feedback from the 2016 proposal submission process and input for the 2022 proposal submission process.

5. Grad Student Representative for Hubbard Brook

*         Our current graduate student representative, Rebecca Sanders-DeMott, will graduate with her Ph.D. in fall 2016. We are looking to replace her with a new graduate student representative and will put out a call for nominations soon.

*         Rebecca is currently writing a list of her responsibilities that we will share during the nomination process.

Committee of Scientists (COS) Business Meeting at Hubbard Brook - July 15, 2016
Pam Templer: Next COS Meeting: Wednesday, September 28th

*         Half will be a scientific topic; half about the Forest Service strategic visioning for monitoring and operations

*         We will start monthly meetings of the SCC so please contact us if you have any issues, concerns, or questions you want us to discuss

Anthea Lavallee: HBRF

*         Gave updates about the HBRF, facilities management, rentals and event planning

*         HBRF is looking to hire a new facilities manager or perhaps a property management company

*         Anthea seeks input on how the Cooperator's Meeting went: HBRF provides logistical support for the meeting

Linda Pardo: Archives

*         Linda updated the group about the status of the archives: 25,000 samples have been organized, but only 2,000 have been bar coded.

*         The archive committee continues to assess current and future needs of the Hubbard Brook community in balance with amount space and labor to store and bar code samples

Linda Pardo: Long-tern monitoring of foliage

*         Linda discussed the need for synthesis of historical foliar data and planning for long-term monitoring of foliage

*         We could link the foliar sampling to remotely sensed data

*         Current plan:

o   pull together historical foliar data (WW6 by tree climbing by Ian; W1 via shotgun; understory by Natalie; samples from Rakesh; foliar data collected by Chris Eager) and present at a COS meeting

o   sample extensively (spatially) throughout Hubbard Brook in summer 2017

o   Use 2016 data to plan ahead for possible long-term monitoring from subset of sites in 2018

*         Factors that affect foliar nutrients: moisture, site nutrients, soil type, deposition, climate

Mary Martin: Information Management

*         Hubbard Brook and Hubbard Brook Research Foundation websites to be merged. Please let Mary Martin know if there is content or functionality on the current Hubbard Brook websites that you think should be retained in the merged website.

*         Listservs: reminder that the Hubbard Brook COS listserv is for the voting body only; the general Hubbard Brook listserv goes to all people affiliated with Hubbard Brook

*         DOIs for datasets posted to LTER website: before citing datasets from Hubbard Brook, contact Mary Martin so she can share status of each dataset.

*         NSF reviewers will start to assess whether our datasets are cited in our publications using DOIs.  Many publishers are requiring citable data packages in their manuscripts; contact Mary Martin if you want help with this. She needs time to prepare these so give her as much notice as possible.

Lindsey Rustad: Adaptive Silviculture Experiment

*         It has moved to the Dartmouth Tract, the large experiment will not be at Hubbard Brook; there is possibility of doing complementary experiment in watersheds 7 and 8 at Hubbard Brook

Lindsey Rustad: US Forest Service Updates

*         There has been significant loss of permanent and seasonal staff (2 FTEs and 2 seasonal field technicians); all of the USFS work at Hubbard Brook requires 8.6 FTE's, but currently there are only 4.7

*         There has been mission creep: more monitoring, data to curate, archives to manage, cooperators, administrative duties, use of facilities, safety issues

*         Aging facilities and infrastructure: weirs, gage houses, culverts, barns, windows

*         USFS has been giving great resources, but staff is feeling negative effects of smaller staff

*         Conclusion: can't continue with Business as Usual, ways forward:

o   Increase efficiency

o   Increase resources: working with FS, work with PIs who have offered undergraduate interns and potential other resources to assist Hubbard Brook FS staff

o   Decrease workload: difficult decisions on what tasks to reduce or remove

*         Lindsey invites input from the COS: will be on the agenda for September 2016 meeting

Mark Green: REU Proposal

*         Site REU was funded in the past; not renewed in 2015 due to financial reasons

*         Contact Mark if you have any thoughts about submitting a new site REU proposal

*         Question to consider: Should Hubbard Brook submit another site REU proposal in August 2016?

o   Cost of Site REU program: cost of Hubbard Brook coordinator not completely covered by NSF (this was Geoff Wilson in the past); successful proposals had 90% of budget going to student cost

o   Anthea: committed to fundraise to meet goal to support program manager of REU program, but we should consider whether a site REU program is worth it

o   Benefit of site REU program: great students, they learn a lot; are PI's willing to put in time to mentor REU students?

Rebecca Sanders-DeMott: Today's field trip

*         Rebecca provided details about today's COS meeting in the field, visiting seven field sites around Hubbard Brook.



---------------------------------------------------------
Pamela Templer, PhD
Associate Professor of Biology
Director, PhD Program in Biogeoscience

Boston University
Boston, MA 02215
5 Cummington Mall
Phone 617-353-6978
http://people.bu.edu/ptempler/
http://www.bu.edu/bio-geo/


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