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Dear CAP Community,

Nancy Grimm headshot

About half way through my “reunion tour” (thanks, Dave White, for the image) and two months after my return to ASU, I thought it time to write to the entire CAP community with my impressions of the state of our program and notes about upcoming milestones and opportunities. But the first order of business is a HUGE thank you to Dan Childers for his outstanding leadership over the past two years. Dan took over the helm of this big ship and expertly steered through the transition from CAP2 to CAP3 and the first two years (almost) of this new phase. It was wonderful to be able to immerse myself in the NSF and National Climate Assessment activities I did from 2010-2012 knowing that CAP was in good hands.

My re-entry began with the LTER All Scientists Meeting (ASM) in Estes Park, Colorado, to which I think CAP brought the largest contingent of all the LTER sites (some 38 CAP scientists, staff and students). We had a large number of excellent posters as well as several people leading workshops. I was fortunate to be invited as the plenary speaker to the pre-ASM Graduate Symposium, where CAP students were a lively presence given the topic of interdisciplinary science and CAP student Rebecca Hale was also a speaker. Several CAP scientists submitted proposals for follow-up workshops, about which we should be hearing shortly. SEV Director Scott Collins and I (among other LTER folks) followed the ASM with the ILTER meeting, held in Lisbon, Portgual, where future collaborations with other LTER networks were discussed in lunchtime meetings. One opportunity is for a US LTER site to host an exchange graduate student from the Portuguese LTER network; I will be coordinating this activity so please let me know if you have interest.

Following Dan’s lead, the reunion tour back here at ASU began with the Fall Welcome in October, and has continued with individual meetings with CAP scientists. I’m working my way through the long list of active and dormant and interested CAP participants in a sort of haphazard way; if you’d like to meet with me sooner than later please get in touch with me or with Michelle Wolfe. Although I no longer have an office in Wrigley Hall, I can meet with folks there or at your place; my office is in Life Science A (the 1950’s one) 316. I’m finding that there is a lot of exciting research going on in CAP and our many leveraged projects are contributing to ever-expanding horizons. But in focusing on the core research, the Human Decisions and Biodiversity IPA held a half-day workshop to evaluate the status of various long-term datasets and new work proposed for CAP3 that has been initiated or is yet to begin. I will be asking each of the IPAs to get together in a similar way (however it suits your team) over the coming months.

What’s on the horizon? We have the always-stimulating CAP ASM coming up in January, and we have 56 poster abstracts submitted. Please mark your calendars for the all-day event (January 11, 2013). This year, we are beginning our preparations for the mid-term site review for CAP3, so I’d like the leaders of the IPAs to start thinking synthesis—more information on this to come in the next couple of weeks.

The mid-term site review consists of a 2-day visit from an expert external team that culminates in their delivery of a report on our progress (to the NSF). It has been scheduled for September 26-27, 2013, so please mark your calendars now! The NSF has made some changes in their “charge” to the site-review teams, adding specificity about the purpose of these reviews and bringing them more in line with STC-style reviews. Here is an excerpt from the new instructions:

Mid-term site reviews are an essential part of the ongoing evaluation cycle of the LTER program and of each LTER site. Sites are funded for six years at a time. A mid-term site review is conducted in the third year of a six-year award to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of a site’s performance over the past three years and its plans for completing its research goals over the coming three years. The review advises NSF as to whether or not the site is

  • fulfilling its proposed research goals in a timely manner
  • collecting and managing core data sets
  • carrying out research at the leading edge of ecology that will advance the field
  • managed effectively
  • maintaining a unique research focus
  • making data and metadata readily accessible
  • integrating research with education, training and outreach.

The evaluation should be based on the research proposed in the site’s most recent renewal award, the extent to which the PI has addressed concerns raised by review panel in 2009, and progress in accomplishing the site’s proposed goals.  No funding decisions are attached to the mid-term review.

We have had a number of CAP-leveraged grants funded recently. Congratulations go to:

  • Soe Myint, PI. Wavelet Analysis of High Spatial Resolution Imagery for Urban Mapping Using Infinite Scale Decomposition Techniques. NSF.
  • Soe Myint, PI. Evaluation of Drought Risks and its Impact on Agricultural Land and Water Use to Support Adaptive Decision-making. NOAA.
  • Paul Westerhoff, PI. Regional water quality monitoring and research. NSF/IUCRC, Water and Environmental Technologies Center.
  • Becky Ball, PI. The role of plant litter decomposition in determining the fate and outcomes of nitrogen inputs in arid ecosystems. New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, ASU.
  • Kelli Larson and John Sabo, co-PIs. Water Sustainability under Near-term Climate Change: A Cross-Regional Analysis Incorporating Socio-Ecological Feedbacks and Adaptations. NSF.
  • Scott Yabiku, PI, Sharon Hall and Abby York, co-PIs. Feedbacks between Human Community Dynamics and Sociological Vulnerability in a Biodiversity Hotspot. NSF.

Congratulations also for the following recent CAP publications:

Ackley, J. and J. Wu. 2012. Watering grass in the desert: Can a Phoenix change its color?. CityGreen 5:Art. 11.

Banville, M. J. and H. L. Bateman. 2012. Urban and wildland herpetofauna communities and riparian microhabitats along the Salt River, Arizona. Urban Ecosystems 15:473-488. (link)

Boone, C. G., E. M. Cook, S. J. Hall, M. L. Nation, N. B. Grimm, C. B. Raish, D. M. Finch and A. M. York. 2012. A comparative gradient approach as a tool to understanding and managing urban ecosystems. Urban Ecosystems 15:795-807. (link)

Buyantuyev, A. and J. Wu. 2012. Urbanization diversifies land surface phenology in arid environments: Interactions among vegetation climatic variation, and land use pattern in the Phoenix metropolitan region, USA. Landscape and Urban Planning 105:149-159. (link)

Chow, W. T. and A. J. Brazel. 2012. Assessing xeriscaping as a sustainable heat island mitigation approach for a desert city. Building and Environment 47:170-181. (link)

Chow, W. T., D. Brennan and A. J. Brazel. 2012. Urban heat island research in Phoenix, Arizona: Theoretical contributions and policy applications. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 93:517-530. (link)

Chow, W. T., W. Chuang and P. Gober. 2012. Vulnerability to extreme heat in metropolitan Phoenix: Spatial, temporal and demographic dimensions. The Professional Geographer 64:286-302. (link)

Cook, E., S. J. Hall and K. Larson. 2012. Residential landscapes in an urban socio-ecological context: A synthesis of multi-scalar interactions between people and their home environment. Urban Ecosystems 15:19-52. (link)

Fokidis, H. B. and P. Deviche. 2012. Brain arginine vasotocin immunoreactivity differs between urban and desert Curve-billed Thrashers, Toxostoma curvirostre: Relationships with territoriality and stress physiology. Brain, Behavior and Evolution 79:84-97. (link)

Jones, J. A., A. Covich, C. Dahm, N. Grimm, M. Williams, M. Benson, E. Boose, W. Brown, J. Campbell, D. Clow, I. Creed, K. Elder, C. Ford, K. Hatcher, D. Henshaw, K. Larson, E. Miles, K. Moore, S. Sebestyen, A. Stone, J. Vose and R. Warren. 2012. Ecosystem processes and human influences regulate streamflow response to climate change at Long-Term Ecological Research sites. BioScience 62:390-404. (link)

Larson, E. K. and N. B. Grimm. 2012. Small-scale and extensive hydrogeomorphic modification and water redistribution in a desert city and implications for regional nitrogen removal. Urban Ecosystems 15:71-85. (link)

Lerman, S. B., P. S. Warren, H. Gan and E. Shochat. 2012. Linking foraging decisions to residential yard bird composition. PLoS One 7:e43497. (link)

Ruddell, D., S. L. Harlan, S. Grossman-Clarke and G. Chowell. 2012. Scales of perception: Public awareness of regional and neighborhood climates. Climatic Change 111:581-607. (link)

Sponseller, R. A., S. J. Hall, D. P. Huber, N. B. Grimm, J. P. Kaye, C. M. Clark and S. L. Collins. 2012. Variation in monsoon precipitation drives spatial and temporal patterns of Larrea tridentata growth in the Sonoran Desert. Functional Ecology 26:750-758. (link)

Thompson, J., A. Wiek, F. Swanson, S. Carpenter, N. Fresco, T. Hollingsworth, T. Chapin, T. Spies and D. Foster. 2012. Scenario studies as a synthetic and integrative research activity for long-term ecological research. BioScience 62:367-376. (link)

Trubl, P., T. Gburek, L. Miles and J. C. Johnson. 2012. Black widows in an urban desert: Population variation in an arthropod pest across metropolitan Phoenix. Urban Ecosystems 15:599-609. (link)

Willcox, B. P., L. Turnbull, M. H. Young, C. J. Williams, S. Ravi, M. S. Seyfried, D. R. Bowling, R. L. Scott, M. J. Germino, T. G. Caldwell and J. Wainwright. 2012. Invasion of shrublands by exotic grasses: Ecohydrological consequences in cold versus warm deserts. Ecohydrology 5:160-173. (link)

Zhuo, X., C. G. Boone and E. L. Shock. 2012. Soil lead distribution and environmental justice in the Phoenix metropolitan region. Environmental Justice 5:206-213. (link)


Finally, thanks to everyone for submitting your materials for the annual report – it was submitted last month, soon enough to avoid having to be the guinea pig for the new Research.Gov grant reporting system (!). Marcia did an outstanding job of pulling together all of the disparate information into a coherent report. Look for it here on the web site!

It’s great to be back with such an outstanding team and such exciting research. I look forward to seeing all of you at the CAP ASM in January! Don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions, concerns, or ideas.


Nancy