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Facilities

The Merriam-Powell Research Station provides housing and facilities for researchers and students visiting northern Arizona, as well as facilities for Northern Arizona University field courses. The site was first designed in fiscal year 2007 and is currently undergoing revisions to highlight the diversity of users who have taken advantage of the facility’s resources. The Research Station is located on the property of The Arboretum at Flagstaff.

Contributors: Amy Whipple (Director); Zachary Walker (Website Design); Lizette Lopez (Maintenance).

The Walnut Creek Center for Education and Research is a partnership between Yavapai College, Prescott College, Northern Arizona University, Sharlott Hall Museum, and the Prescott National Forest. The Center serves as a research and educational station for users from each of the partnering intuitions. The WCCER currently hosts a number of scientific projects, including a hantavirus longitudinal and an arenavirus distribution study. The website is maintained by MPCER staff with content input by all institutions.

Contributors: Amy Whipple (Director); Zachary Walker (Website Design); Lizette Lopez (Website Maintenance).

The Geospatial Research & Information Laboratory (GRAI) provides NAU researchers and partners with technical support to conduct Geographic Information System (GIS)-related research. The website provides an overview of the facilities available to GIS users, as well as the training lab, workshops, and other support for GIS students. GRAIL-sponsored research projects are also highlighted on the site.

Contributors: Neil Cobb (Director); Zachary Walker (Grail Design); Lizette Lopez (embedded Yellow GPS design and Grail/Yellow GPS sites maintenance).

The Colorado Plateau Museum of Arthropod Biodiversity (CPMAB) is one of the museums operated by the Department of Biological Sciences at Northern Arizona University. The museum houses an arthropod collection of over 250,000 specimens, primarily from the western United States and Mexico. The CPMAB offers entomological consultation for NAU students, staff, and faculty, and provides free identification of insects and spiders for the public.

Contributors: Neil Cobb (Curator); Zachary Walker (Website Design); Lizette Lopez (Website Maintenance).

The Colorado Plateau Biodiversity Center (CPBC) is an official center that brings together many of the life sciences collections that have been active, but independent, at the University for nearly nine decades. The Center’s seven divisions of natural history collections comprise over 425,000 specimens cared for by sixteen faculty curators in conservation biology, ecological genetics, and informatics. The website serves as a central portal to these collections and promote the CPBC’s mission of preserving biological diversity through research and education.

Contributors: Stefan Sommer (Director); Zachary Walker (Website Design); Lizette Lopez (Website Maintenance).

Northern Arizona Regions

Contributors: Neil Cobb (Director); Zachary Walker and Denise Minger (Website Design); Lizette Lopez (Website Maintainence).

The C. Hart Merriam Elevation Gradient is dedicated to the natural history, educational, and research activities being conducted throughout the life zones that occur along the elevation gradient of the San Francisco Peaks. The website contains information on the archaeology, biology, climate, geology, hydrology, conservation, land use, education, and research on the elevation gradient. It also includes virtual tours of various locations along the gradient and detailed maps.
Contributors: Neil Cobb (Director); Paul Heinrich (Webmaster); Lizette Lopez (Website Maintenance).

Located in the central Arizona highlands, the Beaver Creek Watershed is a natural ecological laboratory. It provides habitat for a wide diversity of flora and fauna and is an excellent example of a typical southwestern hydrological system. The Beaver Creek Watershed Environmental Atlas is an interdisciplinary educational resource that provides information about the ecology and human history of the watershed.  The site creates an interface between education and research, and promotes researcher collaboration and coordination.

MPCER Programs & Projects

The Pinyon-Juniper Woodland Information Network (PJWIN) provides users with a comprehensive source of data and information about Pinyon-Juniper (PJ) woodlands on the Colorado Plateau. In 2000, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Colorado Plateau Science Committee developed a Colorado Plateau Pinyon-Juniper Strategy, which recognized the need to better understand of these ecological communities. The Southwest Information Node (SWIN) of the National Biological Information Infrastructure contracted MPCER to organize and disseminate the current state of knowledge about PJ woodlands to support enhanced natural resource decision making on the Colorado Plateau. This website and its sister website, PJ WOOD: A Database of PJ Woodland Treatments, support SWIN’s goal of providing access to biological data and information. 

Contributors: Neil Cobb (Director); Michael Peters (Website Design); Lizette Lopez (Website Maintenance).

In 2005, we proposed two research problems that addressed key issues associated with drought-related mortality and the impacts on pinyon-juniper woodland ecosystems of the Middle Rio Grande Basin (MRGB), New Mexico. The three problems reflected a strategy of scaling from intensive plot level studies (Problem 1) to a landscape-scale assessment of recent drought-related mortality on woodland stand structure and finally to a Basin-wide assessment of mortality that has occurred in pinyon-juniper woodlands within the MRGB (Problem 2)

Contributors: Michael Clifford (Research); Lizette Lopez (Website Development and Maintenance).

Over the last fifty-eight years, the BLM conducted Pinyon-Juniper treatments encompassing over 700,000 acres of land, constituting seven percent of all PJ on BLM lands on the Colorado Plateau. MPCER has collected and synthesized data from 786 PJ removal and revegetation treatments from BLM Field Offices across the Colorado Plateau. MPCER staff identified over one hundred treatment variables, including photos, maps, and various ecological, geographic, political, and economic attributes, as well as the full suite of treatment applications. The results of this study are accessible and searchable via the PJWood website. This data is useful to land managers to compare treatment methods on the Colorado Plateau and gives researchers access to standardized landscape wide ecological study materials.

Contributors: Neil Cobb (Director); Jill Rundall, Mead Mier, Michael Peters, Katherine Sides, Greg Hitzroth, Michael Clifford, Deanna Harkink (Research);  Zachary Walker, Lizette Lopez (Website Development and Maintenance).

Since the 1940s, the BLM has undertaken major efforts to eliminate sagebrush encroachment on the Colorado Plateau, which has serious implications for the loss of open grasslands and savannas, as well as the reduction biodiversity and land use options. In order to understand the efficacy of the BLM’s sagebrush reduction efforts and provide meaningful guidance for future treatments, the MPCER collected date on nearly sixty percent of sage treatments from the BLM offices on the Colorado Plateau. Treatments were delineated using ArcGIS and all treatment variables were entered into a searchable Oracle database.

Contributors: Neil Cobb (Director); Jill Rundall, Mead Mier, Michael Peters, Katherine Sides, Greg Hitzroth, Michael Clifford, Deanna Harkink (Research);  Zachary Walker, Lizette Lopez (Website Development and Maintenance).

Bryce Canyon National Park is an exceptional area to study vegetation succession along an elevation gradient. From 1957-1959, Hayle Buchanan established permanent plots to monitor vegetation change over time.  Interim studies of the permanent plots were conducted in 1969-1970 (Buchanan, 1960), in 1978-1980 (Buchanan and Harper 1981), and again in 1990-1992 (McKnight and Buchanan 1993, final report 1998). The permanent plots were surveyed again in the summer of 2007 to repeat this research a fifth time to provide a quantitative description and a pictorial record of plant successional changes over the last 50 years. This study helps resource managers determine best management practices to preserve park resources into the future.  The website provides access to all survey data via an ESRI personal geodatabase.  The site also includes an interactive map which allows users to view a time series of photographs of the 221 plots monitored over a five decades using repeat photography.

The FRAME,Framing Research in support of Adaptive Management of Ecosystems, Project is a partnership among the US Geological Survey, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Colorado State University, Prescott College, MPCER, and the Colorado Plateau Cooperative Ecosystem Study Unit at NAU. The goal of the FRAME Project is to more effectively link science to the needs of natural resource management on public lands. The FRAME Project’s focus is to develop collaborative approaches to address natural resource management issues using modeling as a tool to aid resource management planning. The FRAME website disseminates information to policymakers, researchers, and other interested stakeholders about the project. It features the strategy’s applicability at Mesa Verde National Park, which acts as a model that can be replicated on other public lands.

Contributors: Christine Turner, Richard Zirbes (Project Facilitators); Mark Millder, Lisa Floyd-Hanna, William Romme, Neil Cobb (Science Team); George San Miguel (Resource Management Advisors); George Leavesley, Jim Chew, Kirsten Ironside, Roland Viger (Modeling Team); Denise Minger (Website Development).

Regional drought in the last nine years is rapidly and dramatically altering Southwest ecosystems. The drought has become a catalyst, bringing researchers and land managers together to assess drought impacts. The DIREnet Portal enables researchers to address specific questions that can not be addressed without effective pan-regional coordination. This network fosters collaborations of researchers from academia and land management agencies. The DIREnet Portal uses DotNetNuke, an off-the-shelf open source Content Management System based on Microsoft SQL. The portal includes tools for creating calendars, HTML pages, discussion groups, web logs, wikis, document repositories, and database grid views and downloads, as well as many other functions.

Contributors: Neil Cobb (Director); Michael Peters and other MPCER staff (Website Development and Maintenance); MPCER-affiliated contributors include: Michael Clifford, Robert Delph, Eck Doerry, Catherine Gehring, Bruce Hungate, Kirsten Ironside, George Koch, Tom Kolb.

A River Reborn: The Restoration of Fossil Creek is a one-hour documentary that describes the natural and human history of Fossil Creek, examines the ecological effects of a dam and hydroelectric facilities there, and chronicles the 15-year process that led to its decommissioning. The River Reborn website provides a central source of information about the film, including its resources for the media and educational guides. The site also includes an interactive map that provides information about other dams throughout the US.

The Colorado Plateau ATBI project is an emerging collaboration among regional universities, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the USGS, to inventory all taxa in national parks and monuments, including invertebrates, fungi, algae, lichens, and microbes. These inventories will provide the basis for developing conservation management plans that will help preserve our national biodiversity. The ATBI website gives an overview of the ongoing inventory projects, and information regarding the participating national parks, monuments, and research institutions. Researchers are also invited to submit their own inventories to
contribute to the project. 

Contributors: Neil Cobb (Curator); Zachary Walker, Denise Minger (Website Development and Maintenance).

The NERD project is the result of a collaborative effort between Northern Arizona ecological researchers, Coconino National Forest, and the Rocky Mountain Research Station (USFS) to track scientific research being conducted within the Coconino National Forest (COF). In additional to its function as a research database, the site facilitates the permitting process for researchers interested in performing working within the COF.

Contributors: Bob Vance (USFS Research Permit Coordinator); MPCER staff (Website Development and Maintenance).

NAU Programs & Projects (Non-Merriam-Powell websites maintained by Merriam-Powell)

NAU’s IGERT program: “Integrative Biosciences: Genes to Environment” offers PhD fellowship opportunities to students interested in molecular genetics, environmental sciences, and spatio-temporal modeling. IGERT is funded by the National Science Foundation. The website provides potential students with details about the program, as well as complete information about the application process. It also highlights the research of current IGERT fellows. The site is currently under revision to include information about funding and employment opportunities to graduate students interested in the biosciences.

SEEDS is an educational program of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) that diversifies and advances the profession of ecology through student opportunities, with a particular emphasis on cultivating the interests andprofessional development of historically underrepresented groups. The website serves as a central homepage for this student community. MPCER staff updates the site regularly as requested by student leaders.

Contributors: Stefan Sommer (Advisor); Lizette Lopez (Website Developer).

Contributors: Jan Kerata (Administrator); Zachary Walker (Website Design); Lizette Lopez (Website Maintenance).

The Directory of NAU Environmental Courses & Program provides students with a central resource for discovering the vast array of environmental course, websites, programs, and institutions at NAU. In total, the Directory lists thirty-one departments collectively offering 262 undergraduate, 116 liberal studies, and ninety-seven graduate courses taught by 188 professors. The Directory is updated regularly as new course become available.

Contributors: Neil Cobb (Director); MPCER staff (Website Development and Maintenance).

The NAU Carbon Footprint Project is an interdisciplinary group of NAU students, staff, and faculty from six departments working together to measure and mitigate the university’s contribution to global warming. The project, organized as an independent study course during the spring semesters, is designed to help NAU meet the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, which President Haeger signed in early 2007. The class has now convened twice. The website presents the findings of both classes in a comprehensive format.

Contributors: Bruce Hungate, George Koch, Marc Chopin, Sally Evens (Instructors 2007 and 2008); Tom Acker (Instructor 2007); Steve Mead (Instructor 2008); Amanda Bowles, Daniel Ryan, Kyle Jones, Michael Madigan, Tomy Somers, Carson Pete, Jaina Moan, Kris Schaedel, Kristi Shoenleber, Ashley Maryn, ben Sullivan, John Held, Michael Goldman, Anthony Disanto, Angelica Rogers, Angelina Robinson, Jackie Johnson, Jay Lussenhop (Students, Spring 2007); Natasha Lowe, Morgan Kimberly, Camille Naaktgeboren, Amy Van Gundy, Angela Woods, Robert Stenson, Nora Donovan, Scott Santamaria, William Lee, Kevin Rice, Zachary Walker, Anna Zinenko, Isaac Bickford, Karen Koestner, John Akerley, Matthew Amanti, Murray Andress, Tamarah Binek, Brock Cash, Bernard Citron, Kevin Cluff, Joel Dugdale, Ian Hamilton, Cole Johnson, Nicholas Krysinski, Karl Schultz, Sean Varga, Brett Wham; Zachary Walker (Website Development); Lizette Lopez (Website Maintenance).

The National Institute for Climatic Change Research (NICCR) is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), which is part of the DOE's Office of Science. The goal of NICCR is to mobilize university researchers, from all regions of the country, in support of the climatic change research objectives of DOE/BER. The NICCR is managed and coordinated through five regional centers, hosted by Pennsylvania State University, Duke University, Michigan Technological University, Northern Arizona University, and Tulane University. MPCER hosts and coordinates the website with input from the regional centers. The site provides information about the mission of NICCR, as well as a portal for researchers applying for NICCR climatic change grants.

Contributors: Torbjörn Törnqvist (Tulane University), Ken Davis (Pennsylvania State University), Rob Jackson (Duke University), Andy Burton (Michigan Technological University), Bruce Hungate (Northern Arizona University), Jeff Amthor (U.S. Department of Energy), Sally Evans (NAU/NICCR National); Paul Heinrich (MPCER-Website Development and Maintenance).

At NAU, an interdisciplinary group of researchers seek to better understand the causes and impacts of climate change and learn how to mitigate its potential threats. The climate change website is part of network of individuals actively engaged in climate change activities at NAU. The site features a comprehensive list of ongoing research projects, faculty, and classes at NAU focusing on climate change. It also includes pragmatic ways that university affiliates can work towards a more sustainable future.

Contributors: Neil Cobb (Director); Darrel Kaufman, Caleb Schiff, Vince Mariola (Contributors); Denise Minger, Catherine Woodwell (Website Development); Lizette Lopez (Website Development).

The purpose of this study is to study the impacts and benefits of thinning, prescribed burning, goat grazing, and wildfire on the Payson Ranger District. Our objective is to reduce catastrophic wildfire danger in the wild land and urban interface in Mogollon Rim Country, to initiate the restoration of natural ecological systems and watersheds, and to develop and foster sustainable forest conditions utilizing interagency and public cooperation and the best science available.

Contributor: Denise Minger (Website Development).

The Environmental Genetics and Genomics Facility at NAU is a multi-user research laboratory designed for diverse biological applications. This high-throughput laboratory is a regional resource center that supports molecular genetic analyses and training across a wide user base. The website provides an overview of the services provided by the laboratory, as well as an instrumentation description and information about the short training courses offered to new and advanced users of genetic and genomic equipment.

Contributors: Gary Allen (Principle Investigator); Zachary Walker (Website Design).

Wireless environmental sensing has tremendous benefits, and environmental scientists are becoming increasingly aware of its potential). At the same time, fundamental research directed at understanding the communication- and network-theoretic properties of generic energy-aware wireless sensor networks is underway worldwide. Most recently, small-scale proof-of-concept networks that target the environmental sensing application are under development. While these projects indicate that optimism is warranted, the promise of wireless sensor networks for environmental monitoring--arrays of hundreds or thousands of small, inexpensive sensors that gather information and cooperate to relay that information to the ultimate destination---remains to be realized.

Contributors: Paul Flikkema (Director); Lizette Lopez (Website Design).