
NSF Org: |
DEB Division Of Environmental Biology |
Recipient: |
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Initial Amendment Date: | March 3, 2017 |
Latest Amendment Date: | March 29, 2018 |
Award Number: | 1637661 |
Award Instrument: | Continuing Grant |
Program Manager: |
Douglas Levey
DEB Division Of Environmental Biology BIO Directorate for Biological Sciences |
Start Date: | March 1, 2017 |
End Date: | February 28, 2021 (Estimated) |
Total Intended Award Amount: | $2,254,000.00 |
Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $2,312,110.00 |
Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2018 = $1,127,000.00 |
History of Investigator: |
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Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
2801 SHARON TPKE MILLBROOK NY US 12545-5721 (845)677-7600 |
Sponsor Congressional District: |
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Primary Place of Performance: |
NY US 12545-0129 |
Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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Parent UEI: |
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NSF Program(s): | LONG TERM ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH |
Primary Program Source: |
01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
Program Reference Code(s): |
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Program Element Code(s): |
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Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.074 |
ABSTRACT
Urban populations continue to expand around the world, highlighting the growing need for scientific information to deepen our understanding of ecological and social factors that influence the structure and function of urban ecosystems. A robust set of theories and models of cities as social-ecological systems is necessary to help cities adapt to changing conditions, and improve environmental quality both within cities themselves, and in the hinterlands that lie within their ecological footprints. In addition, knowledge of the drivers of ongoing changes within existing cities and suburbs are important for environmental sustainability, economic vitality, and human well-being. The Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) is a Long-Term Ecological Research project that is committed to understanding metropolitan Baltimore, MD, as an ecological system, and to sharing crucial ecological knowledge with communities, educators, and decision makers in the city and surrounding regions. A long-term approach to understanding urban systems is required because 1) many ecological processes that occur in cities, such as changes in plant communities, animal diversity, and soil development, are slow, 2) many of the intense and even catastrophic events that change city form and function occur only infrequently, and 3) the feedbacks between ecological processes and human actions unfold over long-time periods. BES has discovered clear baselines and has documented trajectories of environmental change over nearly two decades of concentrated research. These ongoing studies have documented surprising results about the functioning of urban systems, tested or modified existing ecological models, and generated new ways to understand the city as an ecosystem. Many of these insights have been incorporated into curricula and educational materials for K-12 and post-secondary education. The new urban models and perspectives developed in BES have proven to be important for understanding cities and regions well beyond Baltimore.
The fundamental challenge and mission of BES is to understand and discover how biological, physical, and human factors interact to change urban ecosystems over long time scales. The project addresses three questions that reflect the complex nature of urban ecosystems: 1) How do hydrology, ecosystem nutrient transformations, and social factors affect transport and retention of nutrients and contaminants by urban watersheds; 2) How do species composition and structure of biological communities respond to a complex set of biophysical and social processes; and 3) How do human choices about land management interact with watershed dynamics and the structure of biological communities? These questions emerge from fundamental theories of the drivers of nutrient retention in ecosystems, biodiversity and ecosystem function, metacommunity dynamics and human decision-making. The BES research team will continue to collect key long-term data on stream and watershed function, the biodiversity of plants, animals, and microbes, and human resource use and social structure. We will develop and implement new spatially extensive field sampling to improve knowledge about 1) the spatial linkages between streams and their watersheds, 2) the role of human management on diversity in plant and insect communities, and 3) the impact of both market and non-market land use decisions on ecosystem processes. Our overall approach is to co-locate research across all disciplines on three watersheds to facilitate the level of social-ecological integration necessary to achieve deep understanding of urban ecosystem structure and function.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) began in 1998 with three questions to advance understanding of urban areas as an ecosystem type: 1) Structure: What is the spatial and temporal patch structure of ecological, physical, and socio-economic factors in the urban ecosystem? 2) Function: What are the fluxes of energy, matter, and populations in the patches in the urban ecosystem? and 3) People: What are the choices people and their organizations make that affect the urban ecosystem? We initiated long-term data collection in these areas guided by a conceptual model based on patch dynamics, i.e., that there are coherent feedbacks among ecological, physical, and socio-political patches within an urban ecosystem that control ecological fluxes of water, nutrients and carbon, ecological communities, and people?s environmental perceptions and behaviors. BES has focused on three focal process areas: watershed biogeochemistry, ecological communities and sentinel species, and human environmental perceptions and behaviors.
Specific contributions of this phase of BES (2016-2020) include:
Watershed research: Continuous data on stream stage coupled with weekly manual sampling of stream water for water quality analyses have been conducted from 1998-2021. Weekly analyses include nitrate, phosphate, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, chloride, sulfate, turbidity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, and pH. These data have led to important discoveries on the long-term dynamics of the load of nutrients and other pollutants from BES watersheds. For example, long-term BES records demonstrate a relationship between green infrastructure installation and watershed nutrient retention, urban streams are significant sources of greenhouse gases, and stream production dynamics are highly responsive to floods.
Biogeochemistry of terrestrial habitats: The BES established long-term forest, grass and riparian study plots that have been sampled monthly. At these sites we measured soil temperature and moisture and make monthly measurements of soil:atmosphere fluxes of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane (in situ chambers), and leaching fluxes (zero tension and suction lysimeters) of N and P. For example, methane uptake has declined markedly in the rural forests over the past 16 years, likely due to increases in precipitation and uptake is greatly reduced in urban forests, and completely eliminated in lawns, likely due to changes in atmospheric chemistry and soil disturbance.
Urban forest canopy and vegetation dynamics: The main platform for long-term biotic data collection was the iTree sampling protocol that use standardized field data from 202 stratified randomly located plots to quantify urban forest structure, species composition, tree health, and diameter distribution. BES also assessed herbaceous plant populations and found an effect of management intensity of plant diversity and phylogenetic diversity of the natives species was more important than functional diversity in explaining increases in native plants cover in urban vacant land.
Sentinel Species: BES included data collection on sentinel species in the urban landscape including birds, mosquitos, soil invertebrates, and riparian and upland herbaceous vegetation. These long-term data illustrated the influence of land use, urban population dynamics, and climate change on species of interest in Baltimore. For example, infrastructure and vegetation interact with temperature and precipitation patterns to influence mosquito populations in Baltimore. Understanding these patterns is crucial for modeling populations of important pest species.
Human-Environment Interactions: This research includes a long-term telephone survey (conducted approximately every 5 years) investigating people's environmental perceptions, investigation of the connections among environmental organizations, exploration of real estate transactions to explore the influence of environmental conditions on housing values, among others. These data have led to insights about people's knowledge of watersheds and their willingness to support local environmental regulations. In addition, patterns and procedures in the city's early history of formal and informal segregation, followed by "redlining" in the 1930s, have left indelible patterns of social and environmental inequalities. These patterns are manifest in the distribution of environmental disamenities such as polluting industries, urban heat islands, and vulnerability to flooding, and they are also evident in the distribution of environmental amenities such as parks and trees.
Theoretical Advances in Urban Ecology: In addition to empirical studies and long-term measurements, the BES LTER made significant contributions to the theory of urban ecology. These advances are highlighted in the book text that was published during this phase; "Science for the Sustainable City: Empirical Insights from the Baltimore School of Urban Ecology".
Advances in Urban Ecosystem Education: The BES LTER also made significant contributions to the theory and practice of urban ecosystem education. BES educators have built on their long-term experiences to champion the incorporation BES data into the classrooms of Baltimore area High School Students. In addition, BES Education has conducted a series of Data Jams wherein students are challenged analyze a socio-ecological data set from the Baltimore region and present the "story" of their data set to a non-scientist audience through graphs, written explanations and a creative project.
Last Modified: 07/03/2021
Modified by: Emma J Rosi
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