TAKE OUR SURVEY!!

Greetings uncertainty enthusiasts,

As part of the QUEST workshop at this summer’s LTER All Scientists Meeting, we developed a brief survey to assess practices in reporting uncertainty in precipitation, streamflow, biomass, and soils. We are extending it to all researchers working in these areas. All four sections need not be filled out by the same individual.

The survey can be taken here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/EcosytemUncertainty

We’re asking that respondents complete the survey within two weeks. Each section takes an estimated 5-10 minutes.  Please feel free to pass this on to other researchers at your site or at other sites.

To express our appreciation, one respondent will be randomly selected to receive QUEST support of a publication that reports uncertainty, in the form of payment for Open Access publication. 

We plan to report the results in a review article on uncertainty analysis.

QUEST Workshop at the LTER All Scientists Meeting a Success

Last week QUEST held a working group at the LTER ASM in Estes Park, CO, titled “Sources of Uncertainty in Ecosystem Monitoring.”  The first hour of the working group consisted of six brief presentations on different aspects of uncertainty in ecosystem monitoring, each followed by a similar lightning round discussion. The second hour consisted of a longer group discussion, and at the end participants were invited to take a survey on how they deal with uncertainty in their own research. We received positive feedback from many participants, and plan to use the results of the survey as part of a review article on current practices for uncertainty in ecosystem ecology.

List of presenters:

·        Ruth Yanai (SUNY-ESF): A brief history of QUEST; Uncertainty in the Hubbard Brook nitrogen budget

·        Craig See (University of Georgia): Gaps: why they occur, and what we can do about them.

·        John Campbell (USFS): Uncertainty in the net hydrologic flux of calcium in a paired-watershed harvesting study.

·        Josh Roberti (NEON): Connecting uncertainty estimates and QA/QC methods.

·        Melissa Slater (NEON): Examining spatial patterns of precipitation in complex terrain.

·        Carrie Levine (UC Berkeley): Using Bayesian hierarchical models to estimate forest demographic processes.

QUEST Special Issue of Canadian Journal of Forest Research

We are pleased to announce a special issue of CJFR titled: Quantifying uncertainty in forest measurements and models: Approaches and applications. Many of the papers in this issue will be based on the research presented in the QUEST sessions at the 2014 IUFRO world congress in Salt Lake City, but we encourage the submission of any relevant papers.

The deadline for submissions is April 15, 2015.  The Online First technology allows for immediate online publication after acceptance, so the paper can be cited before the issue appears in print (Fall 2015).

CJFR is published by NRC Research Press, a non for profit organization. Instruction for Authors can be found at: http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/page/cjfr/authors

During submission you will be asked if the paper is for a special issue. Please respond yes, and when prompted by Scholar One, provide the issue name “Quantifying uncertainty in forest measurements and models: Approaches and applications”. Please also mention the special issue in your cover letter.