Nutrient Mobilization and Species Introductions Analyzing a Science Scenario to Define Critical Site and Network Functionality

Overarching Questions: (1) Under what circumstances is society able to manage the social origins and ecological dynamics of nutrient mobilization and species introductions and under what circumstances does society fail? (2) Does society perceive and respond differentially to changes in regulating, provisioning, and cultural ecosystem services caused by human alterations in nutrient mobilization and species introductions?

Feedback loop: the linkages between social and ecological systems with respect to nutrient mobilization and species introductions

Q1: How do changes in the mobilization of diffuse and non-diffuse sources of nutrients derived from both human and natural origins interact to influence producer biomass, diversity, net primary production and nutrient cycling? Approach: Field experiments that alter rates and patterns of nutrient mobilization. CI Needs: Sensor networks for soil moisture, temperature, and CO2 Wireless network to transmit data from field site to field station Software to upload data into a database and QA/QC it Web programs to display graphs of data in near real-time

Q2. How do alterations in the sources and rates of nutrient mobilization and species introductions influence the interaction between community structure and ecosystem processes? Approach: Various kinds of process models CI Needs: Storage of model output Model versioning system Modeling expertise

Q3: How do changes in nutrient dynamics and species introductions affect the types and amounts of services that ecosystems provide? Approach: Sites will determine how much a system can be altered before measurable changes in services provided are detectable. Provisioning services (food, fiber, biofuels) are measured as yields and quality. Regulatory services (flood control, water quality) are valued for their assimilative and transformative capacities. CI Needs: Data of many new types will need to be managed New standards development for measurements/units?

Q4: How do cultural and regulating services affected by alterations in the sources and rates of nutrient mobilization and species introductions influence humans as non-consumptive users? (i.e., who lives where) Approach: Repeated household surveys to determine whether human values, perceptions, and behaviors towards different ecosystem services change over time. Survey data will feed into social/economic models CI Needs: Model and model output management

Q5: What determines how society chooses between protecting different ecosystem services threatened by human-induced changes in nutrient mobilization and species introductions? Approach: Sites will characterize local and regional government agencies and non- government organizations’ monitoring (cognition) of different sources of nutrient loading and species introductions and their adverse consequences to different types of ecosystem services. CI Needs: New data types: administrative and legal records, news articles, editorial opinions, political campaign issues, and election results, household and organizational surveys, laws, BMPs, enforcement programs GIS

Q6a. Are mechanisms employed to reduce human alterations in nutrient mobilization and species introductions effective? Q6b. What unintended consequences arise from mechanisms employed to reduce human alterations in nutrient mobilization and species introductions? Approach: Evaluation of the effectiveness of regulatory and policy changes, educational and marketing campaigns, and financial incentive programs CI Needs: New data types: regulatory acts, zoning changes, permitting, citations GIS

Questions for discussion How much new data will the new research agenda be producing? How much data will be flowing among sites? What new kinds of data will need to be managed? Is the management of these new data types significantly different from an IM perspective? How many people will be needed at sites to handle the new information management demands? What type of expertise will these people need? Are there new standards that will need to be developed? What will the critical training needs be? For cross-site projects, should data management be centralized or distributed? Model management? What resources are needed at the network level vs. the site level?