Raymond Pierotti, Ph.D. - US grants

9308065
Holt

A long-term experiment on habitat fragmentation is underway in the prairie-forest ecotone in eastern Kansas. An archipelago of patches, representing different levels of fragmentation, was arrayed within a period 6 years. During the first six years of the study, fragmentation influenced consumer population dynamics, and the local persistence of herbaceous plant species with clonal life cycles, but did not affect measures of local species richness or the overall rates of succession. It is expected that during the next five, substantial effects of fragmentation upon successional dynamics should begin to appear, because: 1) there is a transition underway from species present in the original seed pool to species colonizing form external source pools, particularly trees and shrubs, and 2) the stature of the dominant plants is increasing, thereby enhancing microenvironmental differences between patch interiors and the surrounding interstitial habitats and hence edge effects. It is also expected that small mammal may be dominant driving factors in woody species establishment, and so fragmentation effects observed in plant succession may be indirect manifestations of fragmentation effects on the small mammal community. This project will document dynamics in plant community composition, local persistence, and plant architecture as a function of the degree of fragmentation, using both ground surveys, canopy analysis technology, aerial photography, and remote sensing. It will also monitor the spatial distributions of small mammals that are potentially important in slowing the invasion of woody species, and to use exclosures to directly measure effects on seedling survivorship. This study is one of the very few experimental studies of habitat fragmentation, and provides a system for exploring more general issue of scale in ecological dynamics.

Research projects such as this are fundamental to the better understanding of the associative processes that occur within communities. This understanding will provide a knowledge base on what to expect as landscapes are more finely fragmented. It may also suggest ameliorative measures for maintaining system integrity.

9317582 Pierotti

The cultural heritage of most Native American tribal groups incorporates considerable knowledge of and experience with the natural world. Some of this traditional knowledge includes detailed understanding of habits, ecological communities and cycles, seasonal variation, microdistributions, plant ecology, animal behavior, and the recent history of plant and animal species. Despite these powerful cultural traditions, Native Americans are the most underrepresented minority in the sciences in general, and in environmentally oriented sciences in particular. Our goal is to introduce Native American college students early in their careers to environmental research under the close supervision of top scientists in the field, giving them the opportunity to work on research projects during their undergraduate careers. Native students completing this program should be competitive with the best college graduates in the country from any institution in terms of hands-on research experience. Student will begin their training in basic research methods at Haskell Indian College, transferring in their third year to University of Kansas to complete the B.S. degree. Mentorship activities will be provided throughout their experience at both Haskell and Kansas. A long-term goal of the program is to train and develop Native American professionals who will not only carry on research in Environmental Biology, but will also teach courses and supervise research in the environmental sciences at Native American institutions of higher learning such as Haskell.

Pierotti
DEB-9988717

Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of indigenous peoples has become recognized in recent years as a potential source of both specific information and insight by ecologists and biodiversity researchers. Knowledge held by indigenous people has been compared to information gathered by western scientists and it has been demonstrated that TEK yields information whose quality is as useful as other sources of research data. One concern of indigenous people is that studies of TEK may become dominated by non-indigenous investigators. This symposium will bring together Native American trained as scientists and in touch with their cultural traditions to speak on the problems and solutions associated with the collection, use, and analysis of TEK. The short-term goal is to familiarize students and other colleagues with the advantages and limitations of TEK; however, the long term goals for the symposium is to help develop recognition in Native American communities that rigorous but culturally sensitive routes exist to careers in science.

Biological Sciences (61). This project is developing a five-course curriculum in indigenous science focused on the needs of Native American and Alaska Native students seeking careers in STEM disciplines, especially biology and environmental science. Courses at three of the mainstream institutions with the highest number of Native American undergraduate and graduate students in the country are being enhanced by the development of web-based interactive applications, which are helping to compensate for the lack of published textbooks in the field, as well as by distance-delivery technology that is allowing faculty to provide lectures and discussions for courses offered at other institutions. Assessment of student progress and evaluation of project objectives is addressing course content as well as cultural context and sensitivity. A long-term goal is to disseminate the curricular materials to programs at tribal colleges and universities and at mainstream institutions with interest in indigenous science, as well as to programs training tribal environmental professionals, resource management agency personnel, and communities.

This project is partially funded by the Division of Biological Infrastructure in the Directorate for Biological Sciences.