Publications

Great interest currently exists for developing ecosystem models to forecast how ecosystem services may change under alternative land use and climate futures. Ecosystem services are diverse and include supporting services or functions (e.g., primary production, nutrient cycling), provisioning services (e.g., wildlife, groundwater), regulating services (e.g., water purification, floodwater retention

Coyotes (Canis latrans) may affect adult and neonate white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) survival and have been implicated as a contributor to the decline of deer populations. Additionally, coyote diet composition is influenced by prey availability, season, and region. Because coyote movement and diet vary by region, local data are important to understand coyote population dynamics and thei

The spectral vegetation index (ρNIR – ρSWIR)/(ρNIR + ρSWIR), where ρNIR and ρSWIR are the near-infrared (NIR) and shortwave-infrared (SWIR) reflectances, respectively, has been widely used to indicate vegetation moisture condition. This index has multiple names in the literature, including infrared index (II), normalized difference infrared index (NDII), normalized difference water index (NDWI), n

The predictions from most forest ecosystem models originate from deterministic simulations. However, few evaluation exercises for model outputs are performed by either model developers or users. This issue has important consequences for decision makers using these models to develop natural resource management policies, as they cannot evaluate the extent to which predictions stemming from the simul

Current, accurate, and reliable information on the areal extent and spatial distribution of mangrove forests in the Philippines is limited. Previous estimates of mangrove extent do not illustrate the spatial distribution for the entire country. This study, part of a global assessment of mangrove dynamics, mapped the spatial distribution and areal extent of the Philippines’ mangroves circa 2000. We

Recent flood events in the Prairie Pothole Region of North America have stimulated interest in modeling water storage capacities of wetlands and their surrounding catchments to facilitate flood mitigation efforts. Accurate estimates of basin storage capacities have been hampered by a lack of high-resolution elevation data. In this paper, we developed a 0.5 m bare-earth model from Light Detection A

Previous studies suggested that the grasslands may be carbon sinks or near equilibrium, and they often shift between carbon sources in drought years and carbon sinks in other years. It is important to understand the responses of net ecosystem production (NEP) to various climatic conditions across the U.S. Great Plains grasslands. Based on 15 grassland flux towers, we developed a piecewise regressi

Tropical and subtropical forests provide important ecosystem goods and services including carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation. These forests are facing increasing socioeconomic pressures and are rapidly being degraded and fragmented. This analysis focuses on the rate of change and patterns of fragmentation in a collective forest area in Zhejiang province, China, during the time peri

Inundation maps of coastal marshes in western Louisiana were created with multitemporal Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture (ASAR) scenes collected before and during the three months after Hurricane Rita landfall in September 2005. Corroborated by inland water-levels, 7 days after landfall, 48% of coastal estuarine and palustrine marshes remained inundated by storm-surge waters. Forty-five days af

Satellite-based normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data have been extensively used for estimating gross primary productivity (GPP) and yield of grazing lands throughout the world. However, the usefulness of satellite-based images for monitoring rotationally-grazed pastures in the northeastern United States might be limited because paddock size is often smaller than the resolution limits

Land use change, natural disturbance, and climate change directly alter ecosystem productivity and carbon stock level. The estimation of ecosystem carbon dynamics depends on the quality of land cover change data and the effectiveness of the ecosystem models that represent the vegetation growth processes and disturbance effects. We used the Integrated Biosphere Simulator (IBIS) and a set of 30- to

Basal ecosystem respiration rate (BR), the ecosystem respiration rate at a given temperature, is a common and important parameter in empirical models for quantifying ecosystem respiration (ER) globally. Numerous studies have indicated that BR varies in space. However, many empirical ER models still use a global constant BR largely due to the lack of a functional description for BR. In this study,