Travel for biodiversity transect survey 340 miles from the lab is budgeted, requiring rental vehicles or maintenance and fuel for personal vehicles. Two trips to a fairly remote location are required, but lodging has been provided.

The first two visits (2016 and 2017) included site selection, biodiversity survey preparation and forest structure survey. The last two (2018) will include the completion of biodiversity ~70 sampling plots to complete modeling development and the thesis defense.

Additional Information

A report issued by The Wilderness Society titled "Federal Forests and the Economic Base of the Pacific Northwest", with contributors from the Brookings Institution and many regional universities, discusses the ecological significance of regional biodiversity in my study area as a functional aspect of healthy forests. It states that "Biodiversity represents an interplay of three fundamental qualities of ecosystems: composition, structure and function. Composition includes the kinds of species present and their variety and abundance. Structure refers to physical habitats and components such as [vegetation layers", and function "includes various ecological and evolutionary processes, such as nutrient cycling, [genetic diversity] and [species] adaptation."

"The [Pacific Northwest] ancient forests provide a home for a rich and varied complement of biological diversity." and its soils "may contain the highest levels of terrestrial diversity in the world." "Among the remarkable features of the Klamath region are its geological antiquity and its extremely rich diversity of plant species, including the most species of conifers anywhere on earth." We want our basic research to quickly move to applied research benefiting forest policy and conservation decision making. Management ecologists and National Science Foundation reviewers we have discussed our work with share our enthusiasm. It is important to remember that the national forests are the "people's forests", and as such, their vitality is dependent, as it always has been historically, on public interest advocacy to to guide federal land management policy.

Why the wilderness and thesis details.

My interest is in conducting basic research that yields results applicable to applied research technology development. But why study a wilderness forest that is already protected? The primary reason is to establish a baseline of natural forest states that show how biodiversity occurs in nature. The wilderness area selected has been protected since the 1980's and is roadless.

The primary human (anthropogenic) impacts to the area are fire suppression and grazing. Since many meadow habitats in the Northern California region are in dire need of restoration, they are purposely being excluded from the study plots although they represent high potential biodiversity in a healthy state. The other types of plots that will be studied are wilderness fire disturbances (high potential biodiversity after 3-5 years post-fire) and adjacent timber harvest areas on public land.

Thesis Research Topic: Analysis for

The objective would be the development of a regression meodel of independent structural variables that impact measures of biodiversity, i.e., richness and abundance, functional as well as taxonomic. This would increase the understanding of forest ecosystem services as they relate to structure over areas where a field survey approach would not be feasible or not likely to provide an accurate or cost-effective result relative to the use of remotely sensed data on a regional scale. The level of biodiversity data will be very comprehensive and robust, but limited to primary producers (vascular plants), lichens and bryophytes.

The models will use the best available metrics published by NASA and affiliated remote sensing labs. These mesure LiDAR data and model canopy structure. The model will also use leaf area index data taken from a WorldView2 multispectral image taken from a satelite born sensor, and incident solar radiation of the canopy surface derived from a digital elevation model (DEM).

Ultimately, a research product will be released designed around a single ecological community that can be scaled up to model areas for complex biodiversity studies.