2020 ESA Annual Meeting (August 3 - 6)

OOS 31 - Scaling Big Data on Big Landscapes to Make Big Decisions

Monday, August 3, 2020: 3:00 PM-3:30 PM
Organizer:
Sarah E. McCord
Co-organizers:
Daniel Rubenstein , Sheri Spiegal and Michael Duniway
Moderator:
Sheri Spiegal
Big data is changing the scale and scope of the questions ecologists are asking, however, data integration efforts are complex, and there is much to learn about best practices. On rangelands, new data sources and novel integrations of existing data are expanding our knowledge and improving our ability to make big decisions about land management. Advances in data integration and cyberinfrastructure techniques enable understanding of a diversity of interactions at multiple scales: across trophic levels, between species, in human-wildlife interaction, herbivore predator-prey dynamics, and vegetation patterns of structure and function of ecosystems. However, different technologies create a wide array of big data types, and leveraging such varieties of data and data integration approaches to address changes across scales, and spanning multi-stakeholder concerns while remaining locally relevant, requires active collaboration between ecologists and stakeholders. This session brings together a diverse group of ecologists and land managers to highlight the value of collaborative data-driven management approaches in rangeland ecosystems, with principles that span spatial, trophic, temporal, and organizational scales.
3:00 PM
A data commons approach can help span scales and stakeholders in ecosystem management and conservation
Sarah E. McCord, USDA-ARS Jornada Experimental Range; Nicholas Webb, USDA ARS Jornada Experimental Range/New Mexico State University; Rachel Burke, New Mexico State University; Kristopher Bonefont, New Mexico State University
3:15 PM
Beyond local spatial scales and single trophic responses: An example of grazing research across a precipitation gradient
Gregory Houseman, Wichita State University; Molly M. Reichenborn, Wichita State University; William E. Jensen, Emporia State University; Mary E. Jameson, Wichita State University
3:45 PM
Big data, local science: Not an oxymoron
Brandon T. Bestelmeyer, USDA ARS Jornada Experimental Range; Sarah McCord, USDA-ARS Jornada Experimental Range; Nicholas Webb, USDA ARS Jornada Experimental Range/New Mexico State University; Jeffrey E. Herrick, USDA-ARS Jornada Experimental Range; Debra Peters, USDA ARS Jornada Experimental Range and Jornada Basin LTER Program