Graduate Student Association Department of Natural Resources

s Research Symposium January 2005 Graduate Student Association Department of Natural Resources Cornell University Kate Ballantine Soil organic matter accumulation in New York restored wetlands Wetland restoration is increasingly used as a strategy to address both historic wetland losses and to mitigate new wetland destruction. However, limited research suggests that few restored wetlands achieve the biophysical properties or provide the ecological benefits of their native counterparts. While short term research has examined avifaunal habitat, plant biodiversity, and percent vegetative cover of eastern United States restored wetlands, little is known about soil development in these systems. This property is particularly important as soil organic matter, texture, and other properties are directly linked to wetland functions for water quality improvement. The purpose of this investigation is to examine soil development in restored wetlands of upstate New York. My specific objective is to compare soil properties and soil development processes among 30 restored wetlands of three different ages, e.g. ~2, 10, and 30 years since restoration. I am taking advantage of sites completed by the 15 year old Partners for Fish and Wildlife program and the historic Department of Conservation 48D Project which are comparable in restoration methodology, soil type, landscape position, and hydrologic regime. I collected replicated soil cores from each site to analyze for soil organic matter content, bulk density, texture, root abundance, and chemical properties. I also sampled aboveground plant biomass and litter as key soil contributors and am using a litter bag experiment to compare rates of in situ decomposition. This research should provide insights into a key aspect of restored wetland success and specifically, the rate of overall soil development. Carolyn Brown Managing non-wood forest products in the context of increasing market demand Non-Wood Forest Products (NWFPs) represent part of the high biodiversity of the Congo Basin rainforest, as well as a valuable resource for local people. In the Humid Forest Zone of Cameroon over 500 species of plant NWFPs are used by local people for food, medicine, construction or other cultural purposes. A growing domestic and international market for NWFPs, while providing a source of cash income, has also led to concerns about sustainable management. Research in nine villages, provided a comparison of two areas representing a high and low volume of trade in three commercially valuable species. Surveys with NWFP collectors revealed overexploitation of the liana, Gnetum sp., in the high volume of trade area. Two fruit tree species, Irvingia sp. and Ricinodendron heudelotii also were exploited heavily, but are less vulnerable. At the community level, traditional management systems may not be responding quickly enough to prevent overexploitation of the resource. Management of NWFPs in Community Forests may represent a viable option for sustainable management. Laura D'amato How does wilderness travel affect people's attitudes toward nature? Through interviews with recent Outward Bound (OB) and National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) participants, this study will examine how spending three weeks or longer in undeveloped natural areas affects students' perception of what nature is and how they are related to it. A continuing question in wilderness education is how the field contributes to the larger goals of environmental education, including the building of a healthy and environmentally responsible citizenry. This study theorizes that while students do not learn "environmental education" directly on courses, the continuous contact with nature will have profound impacts on students' emotional and mental state. It further hypothesizes that students will connect their personal changes and growth to their experiences in nature, possibly affecting their attitudes about natural places. The study will organize around four values of nature as categorized by Stephen Kellert. These values are moralistic (the value of nature's unity and interconnection), negativistic (the value of fears and anxieties about nature), aesthetic (visual impact of nature), and naturalistic (the value of immersion in nature, exploration and discovery). Results will be presented through profiles of each interviewee and an analysis of common findings. Conclusions from this study could help wilderness educators improve their programs and help other educators to understand how wilderness courses fit into the process of developing an environmentally responsible citizenry. Nicki Dardinger What's for dinner? The feeding ecology of the Massasauga Rattlesnake Knowledge of an organism's feeding ecology is crucial to the understanding of its natural history and ecological needs. To better understand the feeding ecology of the Massasauga Rattlesnake, Sistrurus catenatus, 1328 preserved Massasauga specimens from twenty museum collections were examined. Stomach contents were removed from 145 specimens, and 113 prey items have been identified including 88 (77.9%) mammals, 17 (15.0%) reptiles, 5 (4.4%) birds, and 3 (2.7%) centipedes. Western Massasaugas (Sistrurus catenatus tergeminus) consume a higher percentage of lizards (20.8%) than the Eastern Massasaugas (Sistrurus catenatus catenatus). This dietary shift parallels an increase in lizard prey items in the western part of the Massasauga's range. Throughout their distribution, the Massasauga forages for a wide variety of prey species, indicating that this rattlesnake is a generalist predator. This trait could enable the Massasauga to persist, even as its distribution and available habitat continue to diminish. Amielle DeWan Application of current and future inventory data for the development of a comprehensive wildlife monitoring program for New York State As human activities on the landscape encroach on natural communities, the health and persistence of native fauna is continuously threatened by one or more anthropogenic stressors. In response to these impacts, there is growing demand for a comprehensive monitoring program that tracks and evaluates the status of wildlife throughout New York State (NYS). Monitoring population changes in representative species is often proposed as a cost and time efficient "indicator" of the overall health and integrity of an ecological community. However, the use of indicator species is widely criticized because populations are highly variable, responses of individual species may not represent trends in co-occurring species and correlational relationships are rarely rigorously examined. Although many have recognized the importance of monitoring and maintaining community diversity, current terrestrial monitoring efforts rarely address these issues in the context of anthropogenic disturbance. Shifting the focus to indicators that vary consistently with human influence would allow managers to make more informed decisions about the status of target resources (Karr & Chu 1999). Therefore, the purpose of our study is to develop an ecologically relevant and feasible approach to regularly assess the status of terrestrial vertebrates. We will be exploring existing inventory data such as the NYS Breeding Bird Atlas and NYS Herp Atlas, to identify a consistent strategy for keeping track of wildlife across the state. In addition we will test the use and application of a terrestrial index of biotic integrity by examining the response of multiple vertebrate taxa across differing levels of anthropogenic disturbance. Mark Dettling Methanogenesis Who's in Control? An investigation of CH4 production control by alternative electron acceptors in New York State peatlands Peatlands in the northern latitudes play a dual role in regulating global climate. They have accumulated a large reservoir of atmospheric carbon because resident microorganisms decompose organic matter very slowly. However, peat soil holds water and harbors anaerobic methanogenic bacteria that produce an important greenhouse gas, methane. The interactions between methanogens and other microbial decomposers are poorly understood. For example, nitrate-, sulfate-, and ferric iron-reducing bacteria compete with methanogens for substrates. These microorganisms oxidize simple organic molecules by transferring electrons to the above compounds (termed alternative electron acceptors, AEA) resulting in mineralization of carbon into carbon dioxide. The general hypothesis is that sites with greater concentrations of AEAs will have lower CH4 production rates and greater CO2 production rates. To test the hypothesis I measured AEA concentrations and CH4 production rates of four peatlands with varying characteristics in central New York State. No significant differences in endogenous methane production rates were observed, and I found significant differences only in iron concentrations. I did a complementary laboratory experiment in which peat samples were incubated with added AEAs. All of the electron acceptors, except iron, reduced CH4 production, but a concurrent increase in CO2 production was not observed. The addition of substrate plus an electron acceptor likely selected for a particular group of microorganisms. All of the microorganisms capable of using AEA and methanogens coexist in the peatlands, but are limited by AEA concentrations as well as substrate. My results suggest that increased concentrations of nitrate and sulfate will reduce methanogenesis and increase populations of nitrate and sulfate reducers. Beth Gardner Beth's Recipe for Turtle Soup: Mix Well with a Large Amount of Water Loggerhead sea turtle (Carretta carretta) distribution and movements in offshore waters are not well understood despite continued efforts to monitor, survey, and observe sea turtles in the Western North Atlantic. This study aims to quantify spatial patterns of loggerhead sea turtle distributions to better understand the potential processes determining the patterns. The data examined in this study are from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) pelagic observer program 1992-2003 managed by the Southeast Fisheries Science Center, Miami Laboratory (SEFSC). A modified Ripleys K analysis was employed to determine the spatial patterns of sea turtle distributions within the pattern of the pelagic fishery distribution. Different spatial resolutions and temporal scales were examined. Our current results show that sea turtle distributions appear random when other variables are not included in the analyses such as sea surface temperatures and currents. Gary Goff The Theory and Practice of Sportsman Ethics Instruction This presentation will highlight the work accomplished by the authors via a contract with NYS Dept. of Environmental to develop an ethics curriculum for use in NYS Sportsman Education courses. The courses are taught by over 3000 volunteer Instructors, and cover the 3 general topics of safe, lawful, and ethical behavior. All Instructors were surveyed initially to document the time they spent on ethics instruction and techniques used. The authors then developed a pilot curriculum manual that was largely based on Kohlberg's theory that postulates a hierarchy of moral development. The manual was presented by the senior author to Master Instructors via regional workshops, who in turn presented the curriculum to County Instructors for use through one year. All Instructors were then again surveyed to document their use of the new curriculum and obtain ideas for improvements. The revised curriculum manual will be published by DEC and mailed to all Instructors in time for use in their 2005 spring classes. Andre Goncalves Ecoagriculture in the Torres Region of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil: Tradeoffs or Synergies? In Rio Grande do Sul (RS), the southernmost Brazilian state, 39.7% of the area was originally covered by the Atlantic Moist Forest, and today it is reduced to 2.7%. The last well preserved fragments of this ecosystem are located in the Torres Region, north littoral of the state. In order to preserve these last forest remnants several initiatives as parks and biological reserves have been promoted by federal and state governments. Apart from these governmental actions, which were essentially focused on setting up ecological reserves and legal enforcement ("fence and fines" perspective), others initiatives involving local communities as promotion of sustainable practices, organization of small-scale farmers in associations and cooperatives, and direct marketing of their products were established by local organizations. Such efforts have been demonstrating its efficacy and efficiency to improve the social-environmental conditions in the region. The main thrust of my research is to examine the ecoagriculture initiatives that have been implemented in the Torres Region Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and assess its potentials to promote agronomic, social, economic and environmental enhancement. Ragy Ibrahim Ecosystem analysis of pesticides impacts in agricultural watersheds in Egypt: a bird model to assess the contamination level and potential public health hazard Application of organochlorine insecticides was continued officially in Egypt for almost 20 years (between 1952-1971) throughout agricultural and medical pest control programmes. During these years more than 13,300 and 18,800 metric tons oftechnical DDT and Lindane, respectively were used (El-Sebae et al,1978). Chlorinated pesticides have been used since then until now. They have been reported in the Nile and drinking water recently (Afifi,1997 and Abd ElRahman,2000). The carcinogenic risk of pesticides in Egypt was assessed through circumstantial evidences correlating the rise in the numbers of cancer patients in some areas to the overuse of pesticides in such areas ( Ezz et al, 1985 and El-Sebaee 1977). This study aims at studying the loads of chlorinated pesticides in specimens of birds and bird eggs. Samples will be collected from an Agricultural habitat in AlFayoum governorate. Samples will also be collected from the biggest fishery lake in the country; Al-Manzala lake. This project aims at building a base line data about loads of pesticides in birds of Egypt at different trophic levels: granivores, insectivores,piscivores and birds of prey A comparison will be made between the samples from both areas, coastal and agricultural areas. Brian Irwin Confronting multiple long-term data sets to evaluate walleye abundance, gear catchability, and changes in mortality Since the late 1950s, standardized sampling in Oneida Lake has produced three long-term data sets (trawl catch-per-unit effort, gillnet catch-at-age, and adult mark-recapture population estimates) for walleye Sander vitreus. The mark-recapture estimates provide a measure of absolute abundance over a number of non-consecutive years for adult walleye (age-4+) only. However, walleye collected in trawls and gillnets have been aged, providing independent, agespecific estimates of their relative abundance over time. Due to the lack of direct estimates of population abundance for sub-adult fish, the age-specific catchabilities of the sampling gears are largely unknown. We evaluated long-term trends suggested by the individual sampling approaches as well as the effects of various weighting assumptions on sampling components in models utilizing all available data. We used AD Model Builder with the three long-term data sets to simultaneously estimate mortality, age-specific gear catchabilities, and the abundance of subadult walleye. We also compared more complex models to test our hypothesis that sub-adult walleye mortality has increased over time in Oneida Lake in response to environmental changes, such as the introduction of zebra mussels Dreissena polymorpha, and predation by cormorants Phalacrocorax auritus. Jeff Klein Understanding variance in forest management priorities in New York's Northern Forest The Northern Forest is a vast expanse of 26 million acres stretching from eastern Maine to western New York. In New York State, over 93% of this timberland is privately owned. Unlike the heavily regulated public lands of the Adirondack Park, private forests are susceptible to land use conversion, forest fragmentation, and unsustainable harvesting of forest products. Responding to these threats, working forest has emerged as a potentially useful development model to coordinate economic, social and ecological services derived from the forest. But what combinations of goods, services, and values constitute "working forests"? How do occupation, location of residence, and forest use patterns affect priorities for forest management? Our research addresses these questions through analysis of data derived from a mail survey (n=189; response rate 63%) in two northern NY communities with distinct economic orientations to the forest (Boonville and Saranac Lake). Through factor analysis of respondents' assessment of a set of potential management priorities, we identify four principal value orientations applied to management of forests: environmental orientation, recreation orientation, timber/large-scale industry orientation, and small-scale, cottage industry orientation. Based on conceptual arguments regarding political, economic, cognitive and demographic factors that shape forest management priorities, we derive hypotheses regarding the ways in which characteristics such as location of residence, occupation, and use of forest resources shape these value orientations. We use step-wise linear regression to test these hypotheses and enhance understanding patterns of convergence and divergence in forest management priorities within the local and regional