CFR 503 - Journal Club - Autumn 2009
aka "Current Issues in Restoration Ecology and Environmental Horticulture"

Meeting Time and Location
We meet on Fridays from 4-5 pm in DRC 103.

Discussions are facilitated by:

  • Jon Bakker
  • Kern Ewing
  • Jim Fridley
  • Soo-Hyung Kim
  • Sarah Reichard


Discussion board

A discussion board for this quarter's Journal Club is available here:

https://catalysttools.washington.edu/gopost/board/evadr/13222/

It can be used in many ways:

  • Weekly leaders can post questions or comments before class to guide our reading (and the in-class discussion).
  • People can continue discussions beyond class time.
  • Folks that have to be in the field or are sick can still participate.
  • Folks can post relevant articles.

Schedule
 

Date

Leader

Topic

Article(s)

Notes

10/2

Faculty

 Restoration and climate change

Dunwiddie, P.W., S.A. Hall, M.W. Ingraham, J.D. Bakker, K.S. Nelson, R. Fuller, and E. Gray. 2009. Rethinking conservation practice in light of climate change. Ecological Restoration 27(3):320-329.

 

10/9

Katie, Matt

Urban air pollution

Honour, S.L., J.N.B. Bell, T.W. Ashenden, J.N. Cape, and S.A. Power. 2009. Responses of herbaceous plants to urban air pollution: effects on growth, phenology and leaf surface characteristics. Environmental Pollution 157:1279-1286.

 

10/16

Lauren, Joy

Carbon markets

Galatowitsch, S.M. 2009. Carbon offsets as ecological restorations. Restoration Ecology 17:563-570.

Righelato, R., & D.V. Spracklen. 2007. Carbon mitigation by biofuels or by saving and restoring forests? Science 317:902.

Questions to prepare for:

1) How is carbon biosequestration important for restoration ecologists?

2) What are the benefits vs. risks of carbon markets?

3) How do biosequestration projects compare to other CO2e offset techniques in the long term?

10/23

Ian, Dave

Single-species management

Andelman, S.J., & W.F. Fagan. 2000. Umbrellas and flagships: efficient conservation surrogates or expensive mistakes? PNAS 97(11):5954-5959.

Simberloff, D. 1998. Flagships, umbrellas, and keystones: is single-species management passe in the landscape era? Biological Conservation 83(3):247-257.

The mandatory reading is Andelman & Fagan (2000).  However, a great deal of important background information is found in Simberloff (1998) and it provides a worthwhile introduction to the concepts and controversies involved in implementing various single-species management schemes. We will review this document (which certainly merits discussion on its own, but we have to choose one) at the start of seminar, then dive into discussion of Andelman & Fagan. It is not required if you are too busy, but would be a good one to at least skim.

10/30

 

Lab Meetings

 

 

11/6

Drew, Aaron, Eva, Ashley

Golf courses

Colding, J., & C. Folke 2009. The role of golf courses in biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management. Ecosystems 12(2):191-206.

Tanner, R.A., & A.C. Gange. 2005. The effect of golf courses on local biodiversity. Landscape and Urban Planning 71:137-146.

Questions:

1. In the most beneficial cases (urban or agricultural landscapes) are golf courses something that can be introduced economically? How viable of a tool is it for conservation/restoration?

2. Is biodiversity alone a good measure of ecosystem health, or does increased biodiversity in some cases indicate increased invasion by non-natives, or quantity over quality of species?
3. Do possible environmentally detrimental practices in the golf course/turf grass industry outweigh benefits outlined in these papers?

11/13

Jenny, Kathleen, Nate

Nitrogen

Brush, GS. 2009. Historical land use, nitrogen, and coastal eutrophication: a paleoecological perspective. Estuaries and Coasts 32:18-28.

Groffman, PM, & MK Crawford. 2003. Denitrification potential in urban riparian zones. Journal of Environmental Quality 32:1144-1149.

We suggest people read Brush first and then Groffman and think about how the two papers relate. We would be interested to know what people think is actually useful information that could inform urban or watershed planning/landscaping/horticulture decisions they might make in their future work, and what they think is incorrect, highly flawed, or not so useful.

11/20

Allison, Paul, Becky

Assisted migration

McLachlan, JS, JJ Hellmann, and MW Schwartz. 2007. A framework for debate of assisted migration in an era of climate change. Conservation Biology 21:297-302.

Mueller, JM, and JJ Hellmann. 2008. An assessment of invasion risk from assisted migration. Conservation Biology 22:562-567.

Read Mueller & Hellmann (2008); McLachlan et al (2007) is the background article that triggered research for assessing Assisted Migration.

Questions to consider: 1. What immediate risks/benefits of Assisted Migration (AM) come to mind after reading these papers?

2. Is the data analysis paper written by Mueller (2008) strong enough to convince opponents to Assisted Migration that there are some situations where AM may be appropriate for species conservation?

After these introductory questions the class will be broken into groups and asked a brief list of questions from the differing perspectives of policymakers and scientists on AM.

11/27

 

No School – Thanksgiving Holiday

 

 

12/4

Jake, Dan, Gabrielle, Eric

Stormwater retention

Bartens, J, SD Day, JR Harris, TM Wynn, and JE Dove. 2009. Transpiration and root development of urban trees in structural soil stormwater reservoirs. Environmental Management 44:646-657.

Asleson, BC, RS Nestingen, JS Gulliver, RM Hozalski, and JL Nieber. 2009. Performance assessment of rain gardens. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 45:1019-1031.

 Bartens et al. is the assigned article; Asleson et al is background information

12/11

Justin, Jessica, Chris, Kristin

Urban park management

No Ivy League. 2005. Forest Park Ivy Removal Project: Decennial Monitoring Report, 1994-2004. No Ivy League, Portland, OR. 29 p.

We've stuck to the advice of our peers and picked a paper that accommodates a room full of people who've just indulged at a holiday party.

Our paper, the Decennial Monitoring Report of Portland's No-Ivy League, is attached. As the title implies, it is the result of ten years of monitoring data on the effectiveness of invasive removal techniques in Forest Park. It brings up a lot of issues--from urban ecological restoration to community stewardship to citizen science. We'll be talking about all of them!

It's a long report, so we are asking the group to read the "Executive Summary," the "Abstract," the "Introduction," and the "Protocols & Methods" sections. This is up to page 11 in the document. We certainly encourage reading the whole document, but it is finals week, and the sections we've chosen give us enough to talk about.


Previous Schedules

Previous schedules are available here:

Send mail to: cfr503@u.washington.edu
Last modified: 12/07/2009 9:10 PM