PARENT SESSION
Wednesday, August 9, 8:00-11:30 am
Symposium 11 - From upstart to icon: Geographic Information Systems in plant population ecology: historical perspective and innovative approaches in presentation, analysis, and dissemination of data
Cotton Row, Mezzanine Level, Cook Convention Center
Organized by: SA Scobell (summer_scobell@hotmail.com) and CA Johnston
Scientists from diverse fields of ecology discuss innovative uses of Geographic Information Systems for plant population biology from the population to the regional scale with special attention given to the most effective means of using GIS to communicate important ecological information to the public.
Real-time landscape-scale science: from data isolation to data integration.
Newman, Greg*,1, Stohlgren, Tom2, Graham, Jim1, Jarnevich, Catherine2, Shory, Rick1, 1 Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO2 USGS Fort Collins Science Center, Fort Collins, CO
ABSTRACT- Because user-friendly desktop Geographic Information Systems (GIS) arose prior to the emergence of solid database-driven, web-scripting technologies, these two technologies have evolved separately. This disparity has led to isolated geospatial data and the subsequent response to such isolation: the current WMS, WFS, and WCS web service protocols. Despite these new protocols, the historical roots of this isolation have created barriers to true real-time geospatial science applications that have made it difficult for plant ecologists to conduct landscape-scale spatial-temporal analyses across disparate data sets. However, effective use of these technologies in concert will allow us to realize the future scenarios already envisioned and many more. Here, we detail one such scenario: the effective use of existing GIS, database, and web technologies to achieve a real-time online spatial-temporal data integration system for mapping and predicting global invasive plant distributions. Our experiences thus far in creating this system - the Global Organism Detection and Monitoring (GODM) system - have taught us valuable lessons regarding the “best” ways to use GIS and web technologies to present, analyze, and disseminate data.
Key words: Geospatial data integration systems, spatial predictive modeling, invasive species, landscape-scale data integration