National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis 2013 - Report to the National Science Foundation

Stephanie Pau 11JAN2010 - 31DEC2012 Improving our understanding of the ecological controls on the distribution and phenology of C3 and C4 grasses in response to climate variations 8 This proposed project seeks to analyze and synthesize herbarium, climate, and satellite data over several decades to address the spatial and temporal response of C3 and C4 grasses to climate variability in the Hawaiian. [...] Our ultimate goal is to take full advantage of the NCEAS model – ranging from the opportunity to pursue the basic processes of data and conceptual synthesis, to the use of ecoinformatics resources that are unique to NCEAS – to advance our understanding of the nature of nutrient limitation in tropical forests. [...] Current activities involve annual recalculation of the global scores, regional applications at national and sub-national scales, support of other governments and NGOs developing regional applications of the Index, and a software toolbox to allow easy calculation and exploration of the Index and its results. [...] We are using the physics model of arXiv, the open access policy common in evidence-based medicine, and the data sharing policies of most genetics research as a point of departure for our working group and our vision of the future of science publishing. [...] The primary deliverable from this objective will be a synthesis paper of the limitations and strengths of the current publication models (from publisher handling of journals to treatment of reviews) and a discussion of future directions.