Book study drive maryland 2019 Patch#
Book study drive maryland 2019 professional#

In addition to these overviews, please refer to highlighted publications (below) and to the bibliography of BES papers (which includes over 1500 publications).īaltimore Ecosystem Study researchers have presented their work in conferences, classroom presentations, and other public events in the US and internationally, taught college courses that highlight BES research and data including a graduate urban ecology course at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, and were active members of professional organizations dedicated to various aspects of urban ecology, planning, and sustainability. Below are descriptions of the major research efforts undertaken by the BES LTER. This understanding allowed BES researchers to examine how exogenous drivers, both natural and anthropogenic, act on this integrated ecosystem structure to produce ecosystem responses in the three focal areas.

Book study drive maryland 2019 Patch#

The project evolved from analysis of patch dynamics to exploration of urban ecosystem structure as the confluence of biological, physical, social, and built components (Pickett et al. Research over more than 20 years allowed BES to refine our conceptual models (Figure 1, Pickett et al. These encompass the traditional LTER core research areas: 1) primary production, 2) population studies, 3) movement of organic and 4) inorganic matter, and 5) disturbance patterns-and the additional urban LTER core areas specified in the 1997 request for proposals: 6) interactions among people and the environment, and 7) land use/land cover change. Since its inception, BES has focused on three focal process areas: watershed biogeochemistry, ecological communities and sentinel species, and human environmental perceptions and behaviors. People: What are the choices people and their organizations make that affect the urban ecosystem?Īt that time, we initiated long-term data collection in these areas guided by a conceptual model based on patch dynamics, i.e., that there are coherent feedbacks among ecological, physical, and socio-political patches within an urban ecosystem that control ecological fluxes of water, nutrients and carbon, ecological communities, and people’s environmental perceptions and behaviors.Function: What are the fluxes of energy, matter, and populations in the patches in the urban ecosystem? and.Structure: What is the spatial and temporal patch structure of ecological, physical, and socio-economic factors in the urban ecosystem?.We posed three lines of investigation dealing with: The Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) began in 1998 with three questions to advance our understanding of urban areas as an ecosystem type. McDonogh, an agricultural watershed and.Baisman Run, an exurban site with low-density residential development served by septic systems.Pond Branch, a forested reference site.Carroll Park, near the confluence with the harbor but above tidal reach.īES also samples an array of watershed locations to provide land-use contrasts in similar-sized watersheds including:.Villa Nova, at the mid-point of the watershed and.Gwynnbrook, approximately 25% downstream.BES has four longitudinal long-term sampling stations on this stream: Watershed studies (which are ongoing through a Long Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) grant beginning September 1, 2021) focus on the Gwynns Falls, which has headwaters in suburban Baltimore County, traverses older (1950s) suburban areas, enters Baltimore City where it flows through older residential areas and a large City park, and then drains into Baltimore Harbor. BES LTER was situated in the Baltimore Metropolitan Area.