Tuesday 24 May, 2011

Director's Update

Welcome to the May edition of TERN News, the first since the TERN symposium and a previous update on our principles.
We have made a lot of progress since my last update, three of the key successes being:

• the TERN annual symposium
• the EIF project agreement signed
• strategic roadmapping of research infrastructure by the federal government.

The details on our successful symposium are covered below , so I won’t dwell on those, but I do want to thank everyone who participated and who organised it, as it was very positive and successful on a number of fronts. Everyone’s feedback was very helpful, and you will see some analyses of that from ACEAS soon. Based on some of the feedback, next year’s symposium will be in two parts, with the first two days for TERN facility meetings and the second two days open to all ecosystem science and management groups. It will be on in late March 2012.

As this newsletter goes out we should have finished all the necessary legal agreements to enable work to formally commence on the EIF component of our projects. This process has taken longer than expected, as it did with NCRIS funds, and our schedule of activities will be adjusted accordingly through the annual business plans. It does mean that all of our NCRIS facilities will start operating within the next 3–6 months, with live portals. A project team has been formed for the TERN ecosystems portal, consisting of staff from the Australian National Data Service (ANDS), TERN’s Eco-informatics Facility and the Queensland CyberInfrastructure Foundation (QCIF).

Establishing data portals and the associated infrastructure behind these is a major challenge common to a number of our facilities at present, and all are making significant progress in different ways and using different software, hardware and standards. A common challenge for all of them is how to ‘licence’ the data for appropriate multiple uses. TERN technical staff across all facilities are working with ANDS and the federal government’s licensing office to establish a suitable TERN-wide licensing system for the submission and retrieval of data. This system will be developed as part of the TERN ecosystems portal project.

Our other major activities over the coming months will be finishing the TERN strategic plan, and developing and implementing a new communication strategy for engaging with the ecosystem science and management communities.

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Enthusiasm and collaboration make TERN symposium a success

More than half the 100-plus people who attended the recent TERN symposium in Melbourne were not already involved in TERN, but interested in finding out more about how we can interact.

The symposium was officially opened by Ms Julia Evans, General Manager of the Research Infrastructure and Science Policy Branch of the Australian Government Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (DIISR). Julia made it clear that the bucket of money available to the department to fund and run programs such as the NCRIS and the EIF are finite; if the department is interested in creating new programs, then it has to do so by finding savings by discontinuing existing programs. This message was especially poignant to TERN, as we are exploring options for post-2014 funding when TERN’s current DIISR grants finish. The current roadmapping process for research infrastructure funding after 2013 is looking very positive, and reflects the concerns and requirements of TERN while at the same time highlighting sustained investment as the most critical task for the government’s infrastructure program to obtain value for its investments.

A couple of highlights of the symposium were the two keynote speakers. Dr Steve Kelling, from Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology, and Prof. Bill Dennison, from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, demonstrated what is possible when data can be gathered collaboratively (e.g. using citizen science or crowd-sourcing projects), ways of effectively communicating scientific information for lay audiences to support decision-making, and the challenges and pitfalls of both. You can see their presentations, and those of all conference presenters, here.

A representative of each of TERN’s facilities gave an overview of the scope and goals of the facility and how they were progressing towards achieving their aims. The ultimate goal of each facility is to develop a data portal for collecting and sharing data relevant to that ecosystem science area, and each facility also demonstrated their portal. The portal demonstrations and subsequent discussion session were extremely valuable, as the differing perspectives of the diverse audience identified challenges and roadblocks to this vision of sharing data, but also potential strategies to solve them and realise the vision.

It was also valuable to hear from other NCRIS projects that are further advanced than TERN to appreciate that, while at times the vision we have for TERN may seem too ambitious, others have travelled a similar path, are nearing the end of their journey, and will have the right to be proud of their legacy when their NCRIS funding ends.

Appreciating that not all ecosystem science data collection takes place within universities, government departments and the CSIRO, representatives from citizen science programs, non-government organisations and Indigenous land management groups also gave presentations outlining what sorts of data they collect and how it is used, and exploring ways of collaborating with TERN.

We would like to thank all the speakers and delegates, especially those from outside TERN, for the enthusiasm, time and open discussion they contributed to making this even a success. Special thanks to Lee Belbin for posting to Twitter, enabling people who were unable to attend to gain some small insight into the proceedings: hopefully this taste whets your appetite to attend the 2012 symposium, which will be held in March. Bill Dennison also deserves mention for serenading us at the close of the symposium with his rendition of ‘TERN, TERN, TERN’, to the tune of ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’; Bill’s lyrics have been linked to TERN’s Facebook page . You can enjoy your memories of the symposium all over again looking at photos taken over the two days.

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Like me! Find TERN on Facebook

At TERN we see ourselves not just at the cutting edge of collaborative science—but also of social networking. We have a presence on Facebook. Our page gives links to relevant science news, and can support photos, videos and discussion from TERN members. ‘Like’ us on Facebook! You can find us here.

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ACEAS opens May round of funding

The next round of applications for participation in ACEAS-funded collaboration opened on 16 May.

Applications close on 24 June, and applicants will be notified of the outcome by the start of August.

Guidelines for writing proposals are available on the ACEAS website, under ‘Preparing proposals’, which you can reach from the right-hand menu bar on the ACEAS home page. Other links there that are useful when preparing applications take you to ‘Collective intelligence’, similar to frequently asked questions, and to information on the advisory panel and the process that successful applicants will use.

The Program Manager of ACEAS, Assoc. Prof. Alison Specht, said: ‘This is an exciting opportunity to tackle those complex problems and gaps in knowledge that you never seem to have the chance to. ACEAS can help you and your “dream team” put the pieces together and conduct the analysis and synthesis necessary to advance our understanding and management of Australian ecosystems.’

A third of the applicants for the second ACEAS external funding round, held in November 2010, were successful. ‘We received submissions from 18 groups, with four applying for funding for workshops, and 14 to run working groups,’ Alison said.
Every state and territory was represented in the applications. International collaborators comprise 15% of all the successful working-group membership.’

‘The proposals were all around interesting and valuable topics, from koala conservation to soil carbon. The ones that were successful were able to demonstrate that they were poised to make the most of the support—their data were identified—and had integrated the science-to-management nexus.

Tips for success
Applications for funding will only be considered if they:

• have tangible output and outcomes for advancing ecosystem science and management, for example a peer-reviewed synthesis, an analysis paper, or a report
• are nationally significant for Australian ecosystem science and management
• focus on the analysis and synthesis of data
• use data held in Australia, to benefit ecosystem science in Australia, and
• can demonstrate their usefulness to others.

Your proposal is more likely to be successful if you can show us how it aligns with the ACEAS–TERN principles, which are listed on the ACEAS website under ‘Preparing proposals’, as follows:

• facilitate the advancement of pure and applied ecosystem knowledge through the search for spatial and temporal patterns and principles in existing data.
• improve the organisation and synthesis of ecosystem information in a manner useful to researchers, resource managers, and policy makers addressing important natural resource management issues.
• influence the way ecosystem research is conducted in the future, in both the short and long term, by promoting a culture of synthesis, collaboration, and data sharing.
• promote integrative research and the principles of ecosystem science to facilitate linkages between all ecosystem disciplines and the natural resource management community.
• serve as a conduit between the ecosystem and natural resource management communities in the development of innovative management strategies for sustainable management of Australia’s natural resources and the maintenance of biodiversity.
• assist in planning the evolution of TERN into the future, in particular, to determine the types of data and new infrastructure required to address remaining major applied and pure questions in ecosystem science.

Groups need to focus on bringing disparate data sets or information together around a national issue with a range of participants from several organisations (and, preferably, different locations). You should include some researchers who are in the early stages of their career and relevant ecosystem managers, to help bridge the science-to-management nexus.

The advisory group evaluates submitted proposals against these guidelines and assesses the proposal’s overall viability. Viability is assessed by considering: how likely are the products to be achieved in the time available with the plan suggested? Is the group membership appropriate for the task? Is the work of a high standard and does the applicant demonstrate that it’s needed?

If a proposal is considered viable and suitable for funding if it were modified a little, the panel will give the group the opportunity to return with a revised proposal. Once this is reviewed and approved, the OK is given to proceed. At all stages the TERN Executive Advisory Committee, the TERN Director (who sits on the ACEAS Advisory Panel), and the TERN Board are given the opportunity to comment and advise.
You can learn more about the projects ACEAS supported in the first two rounds at links on the ‘Science and Synthesis’ link, accessible from the home page.

Current projects
The working groups ACEAS has funded are investigating:

• patterns and processes of mammal decline, led by Dr Alex Kutt (Queensland)
• carbon and nutrient dynamics in agro-ecosystems, led by Assoc. Prof. Beverley Henry (Queensland)
• integrating and evaluating existing models of Australian fire regimes to predict impacts of climate change, led by Dr Brett Murphy (Tasmania)
• precise estimates of modern rates of biodiversity extinction, led by Prof. Corey Bradshaw (South Australia)
• thresholds and regime shifts in Australian freshwater systems, led by Dr Samantha Capon (Queensland and New South Wales)
• extinction risks of frogs under climate change, led by Dr David Keith (New South Wales).

There is one workshop currently running: it is investigating the transformational change of regional landscapes under the pressures of planetary resource limits over the next five decades, and is led by Prof. Wayne Meyer (South Australia).
One sabbatical fellow, Mr Richard Thackway (ACT), is also funded. This issue of TERN News looks at his ACEAS-funded project, which is the methodology for understanding the transformation of native vegetation in Australian landscapes.

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Working the social networks

A recent article on OzFlux, published online by Monash University, shows how the internet can be used to promote science and help people understand its value to their everyday lives. The story, ‘Cutting through climate data’ , was published on 13 May. It was picked up by The Conversation, and then TERN's Communication Coordinator, who put the link on the TERN Facebook page on 16 May. Each time it is picked up by an electronic source, it reaches a new audience. The Conversation, which was launched in March, bills itself as providing academic rigour with journalistic flair. It circulates research and university news, analysis and commentary.

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Understanding how we’ve transformed our vegetation

It is, of course, well known that the ways in which we have used Australian landscapes have caused massive changes in native vegetation, leading to modification and fragmentation, and observed changes in the structure of vegetation communities, the composition of species in a community, and the ability of native vegetation to regenerate.

Numerous data sets give us information about changes in different landscapes—but they don’t go far enough, according to Richard Thackway, a vegetation ecologist with a passion for understanding the changes that we have wrought so that we can improve the choices we make in using and transforming our vegetated landscapes.

‘The data sets describing native vegetation extent and condition we have now give you a snapshot of parts of the landscape in recent decades, and can’t easily cope with changes and trends over time,’ Richard said. He includes among these the one he developed with Rob Lesslie, Vegetation Assets, States and Transitions (VAST).

‘There is nothing wrong with that, but we need additional information and further development of VAST if we want to understand the magnitude of the transformations since European settlement. If we know where, when and what changes we have made over all that time we can better predict the consequences of the ways we use the land in future, and we can manage landscapes better. I am developing methods to do that.’

This is where ACEAS comes in. Last year Richard became the centre’s first sabbatical fellow. ACEAS funds have allowed him to take time off his usual job at ABARES to develop his methodology.

Richard takes observations of historical land management practices and their impacts on native vegetation in particular years, scores them against 22 benchmarked indicators of vegetation structure, composition and regenerative capacity, and synthesises it into graphs that show change at a site over time since European settlement.

‘My preliminary results are encouraging. The methodology can be applied to native vegetation types across all Australian landscapes,’ Richard said.

‘Much historical information is in bits and pieces, and much of it is useful, even though it hasn’t been peer-reviewed. For example, you might have good information on land management practices in farm records, but no ecologist has ever seen it. Give it to an ecologist, though, and new understanding may emerge, to add to the existing regional picture of the impact of management decisions in transforming our landscapes.

‘My project shows that we can use this information in a scientifically contestable way.’

The relationship with ACEAS has given Richard access to the scientists, data sets and institutions that are part of TERN. For example, he is using AusCover data to investigate scaling up from the site to the landscape level. There is also potential to use the methods being developed by Richard to document plot histories in AusPlots.

He has also recently returned from an ACEAS-sponsored trip to the US, where he attended a symposium hosted by the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent). It’s the first event like this sponsored by the major US synthesis centres, and the first ACEAS has taken part in—and, said Richard, it was a great opportunity to discuss with people doing similar research ways to solve problems about ensuring the reliability and quality of data.

‘I’ve been testing the methodology at 25 sites that cover the full range of landscape variability we expect to occur in Australia,’ Richard said.

‘I want others to test the data. I’ve made it all available, all the site-based longitudinal history and land-management practices data, all the vegetation condition data, the 22 indicators, graphs, the locations on Google Earth. They are in the ACEAS Wiki so that others can test the methodology and verify it.’

So, who will use the syntheses?
Governments can use it to inform policy decisions, develop funding programs and assess funding applications. Catchment authorities and other regional organisations can use it to design projects, allocate funding in defensible ways, and monitor and report on the impact and effectiveness of land-management practises. Scientists can use it to improve knowledge about the interactions of different facets of ecosystems and landscapes. It can be used to continue current uses, and to make decisions about emerging land uses, such as establishing biodiverse carbon landscapes.

‘It’s not about protecting landscapes only. It’s about the best use. If you have a landscape that has had little or no native vegetation on it because it has been farmed for wheat for 100 years (that is, it’s a long way from the pre-European reference condition), you can’t easily restore it, so you wouldn’t try. You’d continue productive use,’ Richard said.

Richard and ACEAS director Assoc. Prof. Alison Specht will be writing up the methodology for peer review in November.

‘After the methodology is finished, I’ll seek additional resources so that, in five years, I will have synthesised spatial data sets to upscale from the site level to the all landscapes in Australia since European settlement.’

And after that, he may have time for a spot of fishing.

For more on Richard’s work, including access to the ACEAS Wiki and the link to a presentation on the development of the methodology, go to http://www.aceas.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=74.

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Two new faces in TERN network

Meet Dr Nikki Thurgate and Matt Dewhurst, who have recently joined TERN facilities. They will be involved with TERN work across several facilities.

Dr Nikki Thurgate has just joined the LAMPS sub-facility as the LAMPS ecologist and coordinator, and is located with LAMPS and AusPlots at the University of Adelaide.

Nikki’s major focus will be on building the scientific and operational integration of the Multi-Scale Plot Networks (MSPN) facilities (AusPlots, Long-Term Ecological Research Network and Supersites). You can contact her on (08) 8313 1259, 0467 747 023 and nikki.thurgate@adelaide.edu.au.

Matt Dewhurst has commenced as a data and metadata integration analyst with Eco-informatics. Initially, he will work across the MSPN facilities, assessing the data management systems and structures of the MSPN facilities with a view to optimising incorporation and accessibility of facility data and metadata through ÆKOS and TERN central portals. ÆKOS is the Australian Ecological Knowledge and Observation System that Eco-informatics is developing. You can contact Matt on (08) 8313 1257 and matt.dewhurst@adelaide.edu.au.

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Biological sciences collaboration in Europe

Three projects to develop collaborative biological-sciences infrastructure in Europe have been announced. They are similar to TERN in that they promote collaboration between scientists, disciplines and institutions, and because they will focus on the biological sciences.

The projects will cost a total of €700 million (AUD$970 million).

One of the research facilities will study the responses of ecosystems to environmental change. The others will link systems biologists across Europe, and improve access to key research microbes.

A European Union research commissioner, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, said, ‘The biological science infrastructures we are announcing today can make a major contribution to tackling some of the toughest problems we face, including climate change and threats to human health and to our food supplies.’

For more information, go to Nature journal’s online news. This news snippet and other news related to your work can be found on TERN’s Facebook site. Visit us there!

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Date claimers

MSSANZ
One of the major national conferences that covers a range of environmental modelling activities will be held in Perth from 12–16 December. The Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand (MSSANZ) will host the conference, the theme of which is ‘Sustaining our future: understanding and living with uncertainty’. Abstracts are due by 16 May. Find out more at MSSANZ’s web site. 

OzFlux
The OzFlux meeting in June is a mixture of workshop and conference. It will be held at CSIRO at Floreat, Perth, 13–15 June. For more information, including the draft program, go to www.ozflux.org.au/meetings/index.html or contact Eva van Gorsel at eva.vangorsel@csiro.au or +61 (0)2 6246 5611.

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AusPlots-Rangelands workshop

AusPlots-Rangelands held a productive two-day workshop with staff from state and commonwealth agencies and other TERN projects in early May.

The focus was to agree on rangelands bioregional groupings and on representative bioregions within the groups to direct the location of AusPlots-Rangelands biodiversity surveys in each state. At the workshop participants agreed on 21 bioregional groups, and for the most part, identified representative bioregions within each group that will be used to locate survey plots.

State representatives will consult with others in their jurisdictions to clarify state priorities and fine-tune the location of plots. More information will be available soon at the AusPlots website. 

You will also be able to find a report on the 9th International Rangelands Congress on the facility’s website. The AusPlots-Rangelands poster on biodiversity benchmarking that Andrew White presented at the 9th International Rangelands Congress generated much discussion, especially with the large Argentinean contingent that has been working on biodiversity monitoring in various regions across Argentina.

Australians there were interested in TERN developments and proposed a beef research station being developed on the former pastoral property ‘Spyglass’, which the Queensland Government bought recently, which may be a valuable addition to the proposed Supersite network.

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