[LTER-BioProd] bimonthly update for LTER synthesis working group on scaling-up BEF

[Forest Isbell]

Dear all,

As promised, here is your bimonthly update on progress for each of the projects identified in our second meeting. For your reference, the list of projects and leaders can also be found here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iML_EzPHvhQjNI50Z0ITYCGj58kiP7lbUBSog9aQ5IU/edit?usp=sharing <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iML_EzPHvhQjNI50Z0ITYCGj58kiP7lbUBSog9aQ5IU/edit?usp=sharing>
If you would like to contribute to one or more of these projects, then please feel free to contact the project leader(s) and offer ways to help. In some cases, specific requests for help are included in the summaries below. If you have questions, then please feel free to ask the project leaders or me. Thanks in advance for your contributions!

Best wishes,

Forest, Jane, and Laura



Nonrandom changes in biodiversity and EF led by Tim Newbold
- I have spoken with Kim who is still keen to collaborate on the rarity paper. She will provide some analyses (by the end of April I think), on how rare and common species are changing in the NutNet data.
- I will finish some analysis of PREDICTS data by around the same time.
- I have a masters student working on commonness and rarity with the PREDICTS data. Her work might be useful for our project.

BEF causality review led by Laura Dee
Laura emailed March 26th with the outline and draft, also here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Kce2Hwa94FN8RDaBOnjPrAbsQzEWK4m0whgGQrSlOMU/edit?usp=sharing
At this stage, by April 6th, I would like
(1) general input and
(2) for people to sign up to contribute to sections and tasks.

NutNet BEF causality analysis led by Laura Dee
The NutNet biodiversity-productivity analysis, that I mentioned at the start of first meeting but we did not work on in the second meeting, is going forward and I plan to submit it before the next meeting. Please reach out to me directly if you would like to contribute (& in what ways) and be involved by April 6.

Instrumental variables with Cedar Creek biodiversity and fertilization experiments led by Jane Cowles
We got an email from a USDA-ARS researcher who was interested in doing something similar, so are hashing out some ideas with him. Analyses will start soon. I am hoping we'll have preliminary analyses and scope of project done by early May.

Quantifying performance-enhancing insurance effects led by Forest Isbell
I have requested help from investigators of tree diversity experiments to standardize data into a common format. After this is finished, I will analyze data from more than three dozen grassland biodiversity experiments and two dozen tree diversity experiments. If we are going to add in marine data, which would be fantastic, then I will need someone, such as Mary or Jarrett, to take the lead on organizing those data, as I am already swimming in data and finding it difficult to keep up with all the emails on the grassland and forest sides. I am also working with John Connolly and other statisticians to try to develop a good approach for estimating species monoculture yields for observational data, which would allow us to estimate biodiversity effects (complementarity, selection, and insurance effects).

Global drivers of biodiversity loss (N) led by Yann Hautier
We had a skype meeting with Adam Clark and Jarret Byrnes mainly to see which statistical approache(s) we planned to use (SEM and/or CCM). The plan is that I will put the data together and have a look at the individual relationships in the conceptual SEM model (decide on the model for each path in the SEM). Once this is done we will put this together into an SEM and potentially follow with CCM analysis.

SAR, EAR, and BEF led by Akira Mori
My collaborators and I have been discussing and working on calculating species distribution of more than 1000 tree species at the finest spatial scale (1 x 1 km). As I have suggested on the last day of the workshop, my plan is to estimate the SAR and EAR curves in each of the grid (0.5 x 0.5 degrees). At this moment, computation for the MaxEnt is the issue that needs to be overcome. Our rough estimation is that it will take at least half a year to finalize the estimations of species distribution for all of target species. We are now trying to shorten the time required for calculation. 

Agenda 2049 led by Mary O’Connor
We spent a few hours continuing to focus and develop our outline for the agenda paper, and will revisit this once or twice before late May. Anyone who is interested in fleshing it out at early stages is welcome to get in touch with Mary, otherwise we will send an update to the group when we have a first draft. At that point it will still be open to the group for comment and contribution.

Coexistence mechanisms led by Jane Cowles
I've been sketching out ideas for this, and am trying to decide between more of a conceptual framework to an actual simulation/modeling paper. Will be in touch with Patrick and Adam to hash out ideas, and get back to the main group by May with a scope of project and ask for people to be involved.

Global BEF led by Sasha Wright
No update at this time.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.lternet.edu/pipermail/bioprod/attachments/20180401/842696b1/attachment.html>