Students may elect to work (a) independently on a project under the direction of faculty and graduate student mentors or (b) as a member of a research team on one of the three projects described below. In the Letter of Interest required for the EISI application, students MUST either: (a) Indicate that they elect to work independently and append evidence, in the form of an email or letter, to the Letter of Interest that demonstrating the mentor's agreement to work with you and a short description of the proposed project. The program is 10 weeks long and you will be expected to stay at the Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon throughout those 10 weeks. The time commitment is approximately 40 hours/week, as with other summer internships and as reflected in the stipends. Ecoinformatics on storage and release of water in the HJA Experimental Forest
Study Plans: Two pairs of student groups to perform a set of simple experiments (data collection and modeling components): Longitudinal stream temperature and fluxes of energy – New fiber Faculty Advisors: John Selker, Sherri Johnson, Jeff McDonnell Interdisciplinary EISI Team: 1 hydrology, 1 environmental/ecological, 1 stat/probability, 1 mathematical, 1 computer science student EcoInformatics: Unravelling the Effects of Climate Change and Forest Management on SnowpackBackground: Melting snow is a critical part of the annual supply of water to Oregon’s rivers, providing this valuable resource for drinking water, hydropower, and agriculture across the state. Uncertainty of future climates and changes in forest management have may affect annual snowpack and ultimately, the supply of water to cities and farms throughout Oregon. However, the relative importance and interactions of climate and management signals on snowpack is unclear. This is due, in part, to issues in spatial scaling associated with model distribution of climate stations measurements across a landscape that varies with elevation, temperature, wind, canopy cover, and aspect? Thus, this project aims to understand how changes in vegetation and climate parameters (e.g. temperature, precipitation) affect the distribution of snowpack in space and time on a watershed scale through field observations and modeling. Study Sites:Watershed 7 at HJA. This basin is distributed across the rain-snow transition zone, includes old growth, clear cut, and 2^nd growth forest conditions, and is home to an energy balance climate station. Study Plan: Field work : One botany/environmental student will work Measure Ultimately, this work will include mathematical treatment of the scaling processes and linking snow processes to surface and subsurface hydrologic processes. Faculty and Graduate Student Advisers: Anne Nolin, Eric Sproles, Julia Jones, Kari O’Connell Interdisciplinary EISI team: 1 botany/environmental science, 1 hydrology & 1 geosciences who are comfortable with modeling, 1 computer science student EcoInformatics: Retention by and fish use of wood habitat structures over time; Structural controls and disturbance on ecosystem stabilityBackground: Following decades of removing wood from streams to increase drainage and reduce flooding, many habitat restoration projects in the Pacific Northwest are now returning large wood to streams in an effort to recreate channel complexity, store sediment and organic materials, and establish cover habitats for Pacific salmon (/Oncorhynchus/ spp.). One fundamental question asks whether they effective at restoring habitat building processes under natural disturbance regimes? That is, how does flooding affect the structures and channel’s ability to retain wood, sediment, organic matter, water? And how do the structures, channel features (e.g. depth/area of pools, volume of stored sediment), and retention processes change over time following floods? A second question asks under what channel conditions (e.g. confined vs. Study Sites: Quartz Creek in the Blue River Basin, near HJ Andrews Experimental Forest. Wood structures were installed in 1988 and all field data (fish, wood, channel units, leaf retention, dye tracers) was collected for years 1988-1992, and again after the 1996 flood. Every year, channel units and wood surveys are performed. Study Plan: Field study: To be performed by one ecology and one geomorphology/engineering student - Electrofishing surveys, x-section surveys, dye (rhotamine) and leaf releases, wood (diameter, length, orientation), channel units. Analysis of data will evaluate links between presence of fish and the characteristics of and retention capacity for each structure. Mathematical Modeling: Will be used to address the larger question of how the structures help establish natural retention processes in the channel over time. A math student will use the existing literature and Quartz Creek dataset to develop a mechanistic model of organic and inorganic retention capacity of the structures over time and with disturbance. Graduate Student and Faculty Mentors: Desiree Tullos, Randy Wildman Interdisciplinary EISI team: 1 environmental science/fisheries biology, 1 geomorphology/bioengineer, 1 mathematics student Ecoinformatics of butterflies and moths, meadows, and biodiversityBackground: Meadows in the mountains of Oregon provide key habitats for hundreds of species of moths and dozens of species of butterflies, who depend upon meadow plants and provide a unique source of biological diversity in Oregon conifer forest landscapes. Moths and butterflies have been sampled in a couple of hundred locations in the H.J. Andrews Forest since the 1980s and information on moth occurrences has been used to create Google maps of moth species diversity and density. Records also have been used to estimate changes over time in moth life history in response to climate change. However, meadows shrank rapidly during the 20th century and meadow habitat is threatened; the Forest Service is exploring alternative strategies, such as burning and seeding, to preserve and restore meadows. Study sites: Meadows on Lookout Mountain, Frissell Ridge, Carpenter Mountain, and "chinkapin ridge" along periphery of the Andrews Forest. Study plan: Pairs of students will conduct plant and moth sampling based on list of target moth species and host plant species in meadows ranging in size and type and degree of isolation, and with alternative histories. Moth and plant sampling will be integrated using GIS and Google Earth and using machine learning techniques for species mapping. Faculty advisors: Matt Betts, Jeff Miller, Weng-Keen Wong, Yevgeniy Kovchegov Graduate student advisor: Steven Highland Interdisciplinary EISI student team: 1-2 botany/ecology; 1 geography/GIS; Ecohydrology - Relationships and processes driving diurnal fluctuations in StreamflowBackground:The links between water use by riparian vegetation and summer low flows are unclear. Although stream response to the diurnal cycle of transpiration is evident, recent findings indicate that near-stream vegetation is not drawing on the same water source as that expressed in the stream. This paradox leads to several questions aimed at better understanding the mechanisms and relationships of transpiration controls on streamflow? Is the connection between transpiration and streamflow direct (same water source) or indirect (differing)? How do lags between peak sap flow and minimum stream flow relate to travel time of water in the Oregon Coast Range. Is the behavior similar to recent published results from H.J. Andrews in the Cascades? How does topography and soil depth influence moisture distribution? Are the effects measurable in transpiration rates of trees? Are subsurface inflows to the stream predictable based on soil depth and topography? Study sites: Comparison between Watershed 1 at HJA and the Alsea watershed in the Oregon Coastal Range to evaluate relationships of transpiration and streamflow based on different soil types, slopes, climate. Study plan:Two students will work on collecting and analyzing soils, hydrology, and vegetation data. These findings will support a visualization and spatial analysis of spatial patterns in transpiration, soil moisture, and stream inflows based on soil depth and various topographic indices. ** Field work: Visualization/ Spatial Analysis: Faculty and graduate student advisers: Cody Hale, Julia Jones, Barb Bond Interdisciplinary EISI team: 1 hydrology/environmental, 1 botany, 1 spatial stats/GIS/visualization student |