This blog has been seriously neglected over the last six months, so there's a lot of catching up to do here.
There's lots of conferences and papers to list, but first I should highlight the slight difference in look of this blog and the entire website. I recently decided I was going to switch to Google sites to host www.landscapemodelling.net and move this blog from Wordpress to Blogger (for multiple reasons I won't go into here). The website is lacking many of the pages from its previous guise and the NetLogo models have been moved to openABM.org. I'm continuing to add the old (and maybe some new) content to the website but that's likely to be a slow process (particularly given how long it's taken me to get to write this post!). The link structure of the blog pages has changed - I think I've managed to change most links but there may still be some that are broken (if you find any please let me know). Many of the images are also currently missing - I'll get to re-inserting those sometime...
I've managed to get to quite a few conferences this year in the US, UK and Germany.A particular highlight was getting to see my old PhD advisor George Perry in the US. George was on sabbatical at Harvard Forest and he invited me to the forest to give a seminar. It was also great to attend the 4th USFS FVS conference in Fort Collins, CO and to be one of the only four or so international attendees. There's a list below of all the conference presentations I gave with links to the conference websites.
I've also been working hard to get a few papers published. The paper I've been working on with George and David O'Sullivan on the narrative properties of generative simulation models (i.e., agent-based models and the like) has now been accepted and is in press at Geoforum. Two papers I have been working on related to my work in Michigan have also been accepted, subject to corrections, by Ecological Modelling. The papers are closely linked, with one describing the northern hardwood forest gap regeneration model we developed and the second showing how that model can be used in the integrated model to examine trade-offs and synergies in managing for both timber and deer in the forests. The current (provisional) citations for the three papers are below. When all are available online and in print I'll post again here with the abstracts and links to the full text (and likely tweet the links before I blog!)
I'm still working on lots of other things, including a paper on the school choice modelling I have been doing, and another paper for a special issue in Ecology and Society on feedbacks in Coupled Human and Natural Systems. I'm also preparing some exciting (I hope) new classes for the students at King's, including a field day at Heartwood Forest and a class on GPS and mapping. More details on that to come in the future too I'm sure!
Papers Millington, J.D.A., O’Sullivan, D., Perry, G.L.W. (in press) Model histories: Narrative explanation in generative simulation modelling Geoforum [Online][Geoforum] Millington, J.D.A., Walters, M.B., Matonis, M.S. and Liu, J. (accepted) Modelling for forest management synergies and trade-offs: Tree regeneration, timber and deer; research manuscript accepted, subject to corrections, by Ecological Modelling [Ecological Modelling] Millington, J.D.A., Walters, M.B., Matonis, M.S. and Liu, J. (accepted) Filling the gap: A compositional gap regeneration model for managed northern hardwood forests; research manuscript accepted, subject to corrections, by Ecological Modelling [Ecological Modelling] Conferences Millington, J.D.A., Walters, M.B., Matonis, M.S., Liu, J. Trade-offs in long-term forest ecosystem management: Timber, birds and deerPresented at: 19th ialeUK conference, Edinburgh, UK, September 2012 [ialeUK]
Millington, J.D.A.Using social psychology theory for modelling farmer decision-making Presented at: 6th International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software, Leipzig, Germany, July 2012 [iEMSs 2012]
Millington, J.D.A., O'Sullivan, D., Perry, G.L.W. Narrative explanation of agent decision-making Presented at: 6th International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software, Leipzig, Germany, July 2012 [iEMSs 2012]
Millington, J.D.A., Walters, M.B., Matonis, M.S., Liu, J. Investigating Combined Long-Term Effects of Variable Tree Regeneration and Timber Management on Forest Wildlife and Timber Production Using FVS Presented at: Fourth Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) Conference, Fort Collins, Colorado, April 2012 [FVS 2012]
Millington, J.D.A.Agricultural Landscape Change: Using social psychology theory in agent-based models of land-use change Presented at: US-IALE Symposium, Newport, Rhode Island, April 2012 [US-IALE 2012]
Millington, J.D.A., Walters, M.B., Matonis, M.S., Liu, J. Regeneration for Sustainability: Coordinating Long-term Forest Ecosystem Management for Timber Production and Wildlife Habitat Presented at: US-IALE Symposium, Newport, Rhode Island, April 2012 [US-IALE 2012]
If you look at my blog posts over the last few months you might notice they've been becoming a less frequent. It can take time to write a post, and time has been hard to come by recently. I don't expect time to be any more readily available in the near future, so from now on I'll be posting my latest observations and thoughts on Twitter. Twitter, you see, is quicker. But it's also thinner, and so from time-to-time I'll be back here on my blog to get deeper into certain ideas and issues (or if I simply need more than 140 characters). If you don't like Twitter and don't want to follow me, my two latest tweets will always be at the top of this blog.
Now, I know a blog post about tweeting that complains about insufficient time to post blogs might seem absurd, but hopefully in the longer term the tweets and the blogs will prove an economic way to separate my more wheaty thoughts and observations from the chaffier ones...
This week I discovered a new blog that looks worth following for anyone interested in human-environment interactions, sustainability, or CHANS. The Global Change blog intends to explore big questions about society and environmental change, such as:
How do personal choices and values play a role in this conversation?
What do the natural sciences have to say about the way our world is changing?
What do the social sciences and humanities have to say about the ways that the social and the cultural intersect with questions surrounding environment?
How can we address environmental and social challenges at the same time?
How is environmentalism changing in response to these pressures?
What’s the role of higher education in facilitating sustainability and environmental literacy?
So far the blog has posted a mix of thoughtful original writing (for example on reasons why people don't engage climate change) and brief highlights of other work. Hope they keep it coming!
I've just discovered Apture - it looks like a pretty cool tool for integrating media into websites and blogs like this one. I've just installed it and will be experimenting to see how well it works. When you see an icon like this or this , the link it accompanies should open some related content in an interactive Apture window (which you can reposition or enlarge as you please). Here's an example:
Towards the end of last week the MSU Environmental Science and Public Policy Program held a networking event on Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS). These monthly events provide opportunities for networking around different environmental issues and last week was the turn of the area CSIS focuses on. The meeting reminded me of a couple of things I thought I would point out here.
First is the continued commitment that the National Science Foundation (NSF) is making to funding CHANS research. The third week in November will be the annual deadline for research proposals, so watch out for (particularly) tired looking professors around that time of year.
Second, I realized I haven't highlighted on this blog one of the NSF CHANS projects currently underway at CSIS. CHANS-Net aims to develop an international network of research on CHANS to facilitate communication and collaboration among members of the CHANS research community. Central to the project is the establishment of an online meeting place for research collaboration. An early version of the website is currently in place but improvements are in the planning. I was asked for a few suggestions earlier this week and it made me realise how interested I am in the potential of the technologies that have arrived with web 2.0 (I suppose that interest is also clear right here in front of you on this blog). I hope to be able to continue to make suggestions and participate in the development of the site from afar (there's too much to be doing elsewhere to get my hands really dirty on that project). Currently, only Principle Investigators (PIs) and Co-PIs on NSF funded CHANS projects are members of the network, but hopefully opportunities for wider participation will be available in the future. In that event, I'll post again here.
During the second half of the course I'm teaching at MSU this semester (FW852 Systems Modeling and Simulation) I've invited several colleagues to give guest lectures on the modelling work they do. These lecture serve as examples to the students of modeling and simulation in practice, and provide the opportunity to tap the brains of experts in different fields.
One of the speakers I invited was one of my former PhD advisors, Dr. George Perry. George is at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Rather than pay for him to fly half way around the world we thought we would save some CO2 (and money!) by doing the lecture via internet video conference. As you can see from the photo below we had a video feed from George up on a large screen (you can also see the video feed he had of our room down in the lower right of his screen) with his presentation projected onto a separate screen (at right).
George spoke about research he has done modelling habitat dynamics and fish population persistence in intermittent lowland streams in SE Australia [I'll link here to his forthcoming paper on this work soon]. The emphasis was on the ecology of the system and how modeling combined with fieldwork can aid understanding and restoration of systems like this.
Everything went pretty well with only a couple of Max Headroom-type stutters (the stutters were purely technical - George's presentation and material was much more coherent than the 80's icon!). With the increasing availability of (free) technologies like this (I often use Skype to make video calls with my folks back home, and Google just released their new Voice and Video Chat) no doubt this sort of communication is here to stay. And it looks unlikely that eLectures will stop here. As highlighted this week, academic conferences and lectures in virtual environments like Second Life are beginning to catch on too.
ABM of Mediterranean LUCC Paper Published in JASSS
Apparently blogging is just soooo 2004 and we should just leave it to the pros. The blog you're reading may not be dead, but has been anaemic of late. Although this may not be the place to catch breaking news and cutting edge analysis in the 24-hour current affairs news cycle, it is a place where I can highlight some of my recent thoughts and activities. Maybe others will benefit from these notes, maybe they won't. But in writing things down for public view it forces me to refine my thoughts so that I can express them concisely. Hopefully this blog has some life it yet and I will try to write soon about what has been taking up all my spare time recently - QuadTrees, seed dispersal and fire.
For now I will just let you know that the paper describing the agent-based model of Mediterranean agricultural Land-Use/Cover Change that I began developing as part of my PhD studies has now officially been published in the latest issue of JASSS.
Millington, J.D.A., Romero-Calcerrada, R., Wainwright, J. and Perry, G.L.W. (2008) An Agent-Based Model of Mediterranean Agricultural Land-Use/Cover Change for Examining Wildfire Risk. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation11(4)4 http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/11/4/4.html
My first stop in working this out was 'Free Geography Tools' and their series of posts about exporting shapefiles to Google Earth. From their list of free programs, first I tried Shp2KML by Jacob Reimers. Unfortunately this program resulted in some security conflicts with our network so I couldn't use it. Next I tried a second program, also called shp2kml, from Zonum Solutions and that worked a treat. Zonum have several other Google Earth tools that I'll have to try out sometime.
You can download the kml file it produced for the boundary of our study area here (right click, 'save as' or whatever). If you have Google Earth installed you can then just double click that file (once downloaded) and Google Earth will take you right there. When I first created the link above, I hoped that when you clicked on it the file would open automatically in Google Earth - it didn't. But after a little playing I found that kmz files will open automatically in Google Earth. kmz files are simply zipped (compressed) kml files - I used WinRar to zip the kml file and then changed the file suffix from zip to kmz. Click here - the study area file will open automatically in Google Earth (from Firefox at least - see note below). Sweet.
I also exported shapefiles for DNR and private industrial stand boundaries which match up nicely with spatial patterns of vegetation observed in the landscape. Obviously, I can't post these shapefiles online, but you can see evidence of land ownership boundaries in our study area right here. The light green rectangular area is non-DNR land and has been clear cut. The surrounding area is managed by the DNR (possibly selective timber harvest) - the resulting land cover from different management approaches is stark. These are the sorts of patterns and issues we will be able to examine using our ecological-economic landscape model.
[Note - When posting the presentation to our web server I also learned about MS Internet Explorer .png issues. They say they've fixed them, but there still seem to be some problems - try viewing this page in both IE and Firefox and note the difference (hover your cursor over the words at the bottom). Viewing the presentation pages in Firefox means the links to the .kmz files are active - they are not in IE. The issue arose becasue I used OpenOffice Impress to convert my MS PowerPoint file to html files.]
When I get round to reading this new batch I'll review some of these also (at first glance the Wiens et al. book looks particularly useful for any Landscape Ecologist - student, teacher or researcher). You've got up until May 31st to order yours.
KML files are used in Google products, such as Google Earth or Google Maps, to display geographic data. The data Mark has posted on the King's server are freely accessible to all for non-commercial use. you can visualise the data in Google Earth and, in many cases, links to the actual downloadable GIS files also provided. Many of the datasets are works in progress and new data will continue to be posted in the future, so keep checking back.
The availability of data such as these, and projects such as Pete's, really show how Google Earth can be used for so much more than virtual tours of other places or previews of you next holiday destination... [Speaking of which, I'm off to Utah snowboarding next week so hopefully I'll have some new pics to post on my own Google-enabled photos page.]
A while back the 'new' IALE-IUFRO Working Group website launched, so I thought I'd highlight it here. During the IALE World Congress 2007 in Wageningen, a new IALE-IUFRO working group was approved and sanctioned by both IALE (International Association of Landscape Ecology) and IUFRO (International Union of Forestry Research Organizations):
Forestry was the first major field to recognize the importance of landscape ecology, and today foresters widely know, use, and even develop landscape ecology principles based on experience and science. Landscape ecology is an exciting field for researchers and managers together. In this sense, landscape ecology is viewed as the nexus of ecology, resource management, and land use planning. It is within this framework of synergy and integration that we envisaged this formal link between the two groups.
Thus, the IALE-IUFRO WG aims to collate landscape ecologists with an interest in forest science and ecology including studies and methods for monitoring, planning, designing, and managing forest ecosystems and landscapes. Through the website, members of IALE-IUFRO WG will be able to exchange experiences and share common needs and interests to build up on the strength of the network. This group can serve as an international platform for advocating and updating research and management on forest landscapes.
There's been some moving and shaking on my friends' websites recently (see the full list in the sidebar), so here's a quick update.
Nicky has added some new t-shirts and hoodies for sale at Creative Current. For the discerning geek... "There are 10 types of people in the world, those who know binary and those who don't".
Jamie and Helen and are still on the road but they've stopped off in Kyrgyzstan for a while where they've been volunteering for The Alpine Fund, "a small, non-profit, non-governmental organization using the incredible mountain resources of Kyrgyzstan to help the country’s most vulnerable youth." Jamie worked on setting up their fancy new website and blog.
Olivia has still been doing her musical thing - watch out for her on the circuit in London and check out some of her tunes at myspace. Finally, travelorphan has been offline for a while but I'm assured she'll be back to blogging soon enough...
Welcome to the 8th issue of Oekologie, the travelling blog carnival of the best ecology and environmental science blog posts from the past month. Although the summer is often the time that ecologists and environmental scientists are out in the field doing what they love most (fieldwork) this didn't stop some of us from posting stories that grabbed our attention.
Several of posts this month discussed the ecology of mammals, some more positive than others. Talking about Yellowstone's Ecology of Fear, Jeremy at The Voltage Gate highlighted the benefits of the re-introduction of wolves to the National Park and that the restoration of historic ecosystems is possible. GrrlScientist notes that the egg-laying mammal Attenborough's long-beaked echidna (named after Sir David Attenborough) is not extinct as was previously thought, and Tim at Walking the Berkshires emphasised the successes of the Khoadi Hôas Conservancy in Namibia for the conservation of elephant populations. Though problems remain, Tim suggests that it is possible for humans and elephants to exist side-by-side. In a great post over at Laelaps, Brian is less optimistic however about the management and survival prospects for the Saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica).
More concerned with the The Other 95%, Kevin discusses the benefits for crabs moulting their exoskeleton (other than simply allowing them to grow). Concerning the plant world, Jennifer at The Infinite Sphere presents the invasive Purple Loosestrife and the trade-offs associated with controlling the plants with herbicides, and at Seeds Aside Laurent suggests a game for the next time you're strolling through a meadow.
"Mooney also takes a long, critical look at how scientists communicate (or don't) to the public, and how the media handles what information they can get their hands on."
Finally, considering some of the larger issues, Mike at 10,000 Birds examines the ecological basis for conservation. Part of a larger series called Protect the Commons, he highlights the need to remember the fragile connections between things and to understand that "all is of a part"
That's it for this month - check Oekologie #9 at Fish Feet next month. Remember to submit your best posts here.
In a current thread on the ECOLOG-L listserv there's a debate going on about the environmental impacts of academics travelling to conferences in far-off places to discuss the environmental state of the world (the current case being this week's ESA conference in San Jose). On correspondent suggested we might be better off taking better advantage of the internet and teleconferencing, as suggested by E.O. Wilson. Several people have responded noting the virtues of physically attending meetings including the opportunities to meet face-to-face with potential collaborators, funders and students and to see presentations of data that may not be published for a couple of years hence.
Another correspondent suggested that delegates consider the form of transport they take to reach the meeting - trains are commonly held as being more fuel efficient than planes for example. This led me to the Fuel Efficiency in Transportation page on the ubiquitous wikipedia. Assuming this page is correct, it suggests that generally;
Cycling (653 mpg) is more efficient than walking (235 mpg)
European trains (500 mpg) are considerably more fuel efficient than planes (67 mpg)
Planes (67 mpg) are actually more fuel efficient than the average US car (36 mpg), but less efficient than a hyprid such as the Toyota Prius (77 mpg)
Travel by the average US car (36 mpg) is of comparable efficiency to travel on an Amtrak intercity train (39 mpg)
Travel by Steamboat (12 mpg) or Helicopter (4 mpg) is only for those who don't give a jot about carbon emissions
Here mpg = miles per gallon of gasoline, and these are rough comparisons for the average occupancy of the vehicle which don't really consider things like the distance travelled. There are many other considerations that need to be taken in these comparisons as James Strickland shows in his examination of the numbers.
Of course, the problem with this discussion is that the two most important factors that people consider when deciding how to travel are not accounted for: Time and Money. Flying internationally (and in many cases on short-haul too) is, in general, more efficient in both time and money than travelling by train (though some would say less fun). I can see currently that the advantages mentioned above for attending a conference in person do make it preferable to teleconferencing or online conferences. Maybe if ecologists really want to be environmentally friendly when meeting to discuss how the natural environment works they'll need to go that one step further and embrace meetings in virtual words such as Second Life. Businesses are now experimenting with virtual spaces where remote workers come together to collaborate, and whilst it may take time to perfect and get used to this way of 'meeting' it seems like an option for the future. Whilst ESA 2007 is held in sunny a San Jose, maybe ESA 2010 be held in a sunny simulated city...
Today is the first anniversary of Direction not Destination, a year since I wrote this. Since then I've relocated from the OC to East Lansing with few other trips for work (Poland, Spain, USA), and otherwise (India, Dorset), in between. I was offered a couple of jobs, awarded a PhD and generally the good times have outweighed the bad.
Initially I didn't really know how this blog would turn out or what I would do with it. It seems to have become a place for me to write some thoughts with a little more freedom than I'm afforded with work stuff, a place to keep track of what I am actually doing at work, a place to post some of my favourite pics, and of course at place just to have a quick rant every-now-and-then.
I've contributed to Just Science Week and Oekologie and generally some people seem to be finding my meandering thoughts interesting. So much so that recently I was awarded a Thinking Blogger Award! What a nice birthday pressie. Thanks to Jeremy at the Voltage Gate for the nod. Having been awarded this it is now upon my shoulders to nominate the five blogs that make me think. To be honest, and as I implied in the other post I made a year ago, I don't go checking other individuals' blogs directly that often. Instead, I usually stick to my favourite blog aggregator 3quarks and the Guardian's excellent Comment is Free. Anyway, here are my five:
3quarksdaily - "a daily must-read for intellectuals of all stripes"
Prometheus - mainly for the havoc Roger Pielke Jr causes - he's now blogging for Nature
Oekologie #8 will be hosted right here on Direction not Destination in mid-August. Submit your recent writings on ecology and environmental science here. Here's the details of what we're looking for from the Oekologie home page:
Oekologie is a blog carnival all about interactions between organisms in a system. While Circus of the Spineless might look for a post discussing the hunting techniques of a trap door spider, Oekologie is looking for posts discussing how a trap door spider’s hunting techniques affect prey populations or its surroundings. While Carnival of the Green might look for a post discussing a big oil policy decision regarding ANWR, Oekologie would accept a post describing the ecological consequences of pipeline construction in the area.
Again, we are looking for posts describing biological interactions - human or nonhuman - with the environment.
Topics may include but are not limited to posts about population genetics, niche/neutral theory, sustainabilty, pollution, climate change, disturbance, exploitation, mutualism, ecosystem structure and composition, molecular ecology, evolutionary ecology, energy usage (by humans or within biological systems, succession, landscape ecology, nutrient cycling, biodiversity, agriculture, waste management, etc. The list goes on and on; I think you get the idea.
Your blog does not have to be an ecology or environmental blog itself, but the post should present an accurate representation of the field.
The post should be spell-checked, grammatically sound, and substantial; we’re not looking for brief reviews. If you are reviewing research, please include solid commentary involving other sources.
Initial Michigan UP Ecological Economic Modelling Webpage
We now have a very basic webpage online, (very) briefly outlining the Michigan UP Ecological-Economic Modeling project. This is just so that we have an online presence for now - in time we will develop this into a much more comprehensive document detailing the model, its construction and use. Hopefully, at some point in the future we'll also mount a version of the model online. I'll keep you posted on the online development of the project.
Two of my best friends are currently travelling across Eurasia. To document their trip they've set up a cool little travelblog complete with comic strip ('Hel on Earth - episode two out now!), movies (check the Black Panther in Belgrade), music, pics, food reviews and treasure maps!
or this 
, the link it accompanies should open some related content in an interactive Apture window (which you can reposition or enlarge as you please). Here's an example:
