The ATBI in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

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The ATBI in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
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of the High Peak Flora of NC-TN in Great Smoky
Mts NP (5 of the area)
Common
Native
Occ/Infreq
G3
G2
G1
Rare
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Rare Vascular Plants of the Southern
Appalachians From R. Sutter, unpublished data
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A
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Oconee Bell -- Shortia galacifolia
"The fairest bloom the mountain knows Is not
an iris or a wild rose But the little flower
of which I'll tell Known as the brave acony
bell. From "Acony Bell", by Gillian Welch
and David Rawlings
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Oconee Bell -- Shortia galacifolia
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Rugelia nudicaulis
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Terrestrial EcoregionsVasc Plants, Amphibians,
Reptiles, Butterflies, Landsnails
Endemism
Richness
30 N Latitude 80
30 N Latitude 80
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Aquatic EcoregionsFish, Crayfish, Mussels, Herps
Richness
Endemism
30 N Latitude 80
30 N Latitude 80
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The ATBI

• History, Definition, Progress
• Interesting issues
• Scale dependence
• DNA Barcoding

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• In 1999, Jocelyn Kaiser wrote

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Others Smithsonian, National Parks
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Origins

• Attraction of the Park to Science
• Research permits ca. 100 (over 200 after the
  ATBI)
• A biodiversity park
• Rugged topography, habitat diversity
• Old growth
• Fortuitous discoveries
• Synchronous fireflies
• New invasives
• Threats and the shifted focus from wilderness to
  biodiversity
• People

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www.dlia.org
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• Scientists (200, 11 countries)
• Conservationists
• Educators
• Citizen Scientists, Volunteers
• Artists

A real coming together of normally
fractured taxonomic fociBack to Biology 101!
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Who we are!

• Educators
• Scientists Artists
• Conservationists Citizen Scientists

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Largest and most inclusive in North America and
all are invited, butsponges, flatworms,
rotifers, some insects, some crustaceans
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Caves to treetops
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The ATBI in Great Smoky Mts National Park

• We have begun to inventory all 100,000 species of
  all taxonomic groups in Great Smoky Mts National
  Park, North Carolina Tennessee
• We will embed systematics in an ecological and
  conservation frame of reference to promote
  understanding and the ability to detect change

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But not JUST a list

• MAPS We are building distribution maps and
  predictive models for these species and use GIS
  as fundamental base
• ASSOCIATED DATA We are constructing web data
  bases for each group and species, including
  information on ecology and conservation

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The Science Plan for the All Taxa Biodiversity
Inventory in Great Smoky Mountains National
Park, North Carolina and Tennessee Summer
2000 Science Committee Peter White, John Morse,
Frank Harris, Keith Langdon, Rex Lowe, Becky
Nichols, Chuck Parker, John Pickering, Mike
Sharkey
Structured Collecting and Observing Traditional
Collecting and Observing
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Tardigrades
Students

• Warren Wilson College
• Second largest inventory

This project has increased our list from 3 to 43
species, 8 of which are new to science
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Structured Collecting/Observing

• Strategy for allocation of effort
• Modeling distribution, prediction, hypothesis
  testing
• Completeness as a function of effort

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Ecological Zipcodes

• Includes 3 topographic surrogates for
  ecologically important variables.
• Elevation (5 levels) Temperature
• Hillshade (3 levels) Insolation
• Topographic Convergence Index (3 levels) Wetness

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Question set 1 diversity f(environment) Niche
breadth and characteritics Question set 2
diversity f(area, isolation) Vagility, gene
flow
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Question set 1 diversity f(environment) Niche
breadth and characteritics Question set 2
diversity f(area, isolation) Vagility, gene
flow
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Calculating Accessibility
Cost SurfaceDistance PhysiologicalCost(slope)
(Trail,OffTrailFriction
StreamCrossingFriction)
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As of 2006, 650 species new to science
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As of 20065,000 species new to the Park
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The ATBI

• History, Definition, Progress
• Interesting issues
• Scale dependence
• DNA Barcoding

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Why is it so hard to answer the questions How
many species are there?When will we be done?
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How many species are there?

• It reminds me of the question we used to get all
  the time at Mammoth Cave How many miles of
  unexplored cave are there?
• Phil Francis,
• Then Assistant Superintendent
• Now Superintendent BLRI

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Scale dependence
Inventory Diversity a, ?, d Differentiation
Diversity ß
spp non-linear f(grain, extent)
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Dave Wagner, University of Connecticut
The Lep Blitz 890 species in 24 hrs, 133 new to
the Park, 51 new to science
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Dave Wagner, University of Connecticut
DNA Barcodes for all specimens
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Paul Heberthttp//www.barcodeoflife.org/
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Potential Pros of DNA Barcodes 1

• Fragments, traces produce ID
• All life stages (7 in some aphids)
• Unmasks lookalikes
• Already used for microorganisms and other cryptic
  but ecologically important taxa

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Pros 2

• Diseases in museum specimens, living organisms
• Rapid pigeon-holing to prioritize work,
  probability of a species new to science
• Makes expertise go further, relieves
  identification burden on taxonomists so they can
  delimit speciesMay even be cheaper!

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Potential Cons of DNA Barcodes 1

• No gene for species this is only one 650 base
  pair fragment dont know the meaning unless
  youve already done the morphological systematics
• Hybridization, polyploidy
• Deciding inter- and intra-specific thresholds
• Young lineages (lt1m yrs old) and those with
  slower than 2 per million year sequence change

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In DiscussionA National Alliance of ATBIs

• National Parks
• State Parks
• Conservation Areas

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Lessons

• Fun!
• People, bridging the taxonomic blinders, human
  dimensions Science, education, conservation,
  citizen scientists, art
• GPS, GIS, statistical models of biodiversity
• DNA and the Linnean species