SECN Highlights September 2016

Rob Muxo, Briana Smrekar, and Kevin Whelan brainstorm on anuran community monitoring.

NPS photo / SECN staff

Newsworthy Stuff

• Dela attended the ACM conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD) in San Francisco, California last month. KDD is a premier interdisciplinary conference bringing together researchers and practitioners from data science, data mining, knowledge discovery, large-scale data analytics, and big data.
• Briana and Emily pitched in at the Annual Ocmulgee National Monument Butterfly Bioblitz on 19–20 August. They conducted butterfly surveys, led and educated school groups, and assisted with check-in for the event. An event highlight: Briana found a new species to add to the OCMU park butterfly species list—the Dion skipper! (A big thanks to Marc Minno for confirming the ID.)
• Wadeable and non-wadeable stream channel monitoring has been implemented at the first park. This field work at Horseshoe Bend National Military Park included a videographic survey of the Tallapoosa River, a detailed survey of a wadeable stream reach, and an area of special interest survey.
• Briana spent a week in St. Mary’s with Kevin Whelan, ecologist, and Rob Muxo, biological technician, both of the South Florida Caribbean Network. South Florida/ Carribean Network is considering implementing a monitoring approach similar to that of the Southeast Coast Network anuran community monitoring protocol, and the group discussed SOPs associated with this protocol, maintainance and programming of ARDs, and using SongScope in data extraction and analysis.

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Field Work

Completed in July/August

• Salt marsh data was collected at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Cape Lookout National Seashore, Fort Pulaski National Monument and at one site in Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve.
• Automated Recording Devices (ARDs) have been collected at Fort Sumter National Monument and Cumberland Island National Seashore.
• Vegetation community monitoring was completed at Cape Lookout National Seashore.

Citizen Science: A sea turtle hatchling scurries toward the ocean to check out the water quality (left). A hatchling reaches the water on Cumberland Island National Seashore (right).

NPS photos / SECN staff

From the editor

The editing department is plugging away at our backlog of data summaries and reports. Landbird data summary reports and resource briefs have been updated on IRMA. The last four landbird reports for 2014 (Fort Frederica National Monument, Congaree National Park, Canaveral National Seashore and Moores Creek National Battlefield) will be published later this month.

• Landbird community monitoring at Ocmulgee National Monument: 2014 data summary.
• Landbird community monitoring at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park: 2012 data summary.
• Landbird community monitoring at Ocmulgee National Monument: 2011 data summary.
• Landbird community monitoring at Fort Sumter National Monument: 2012 data summary.
• Landbird community monitoring at Horseshoe Bend National Military Park: 2012 data summary.
• Landbird community monitoring at Cape Lookout National Seashore: 2012 data summary.
• Landbird community monitoring at Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area: 2011 data summary.
• Landbird community monitoring at Horseshoe Bend National Military Park: 2011 data summary.
• Landbird community monitoring at Cumberland Island National Seashore: 2012 data summary.

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Sonde guard mounted to a dock at Cape Hatteras National Seashore. EXO 2 shown in lower right.

NPS photo

What does THAT do?

The sonde guard is mounted to a dock (pictured at right at Cape Hatteras NS) and protects the sonde. The sonde EX02 stays in the water and collects continuous water-quality data in 15 to 30 minute intervals. It gathers information on temperature, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, salinity, water levels, pH, and in some parks, chlorophyll a.

For More About the SECN: https://www.nps.gov/im/secn/index.htm