Highlights for July 25, 1997
USGS Center for Biological Informatics

I. Key Department News:

• International Taxonomy Symposium Organized by BRD Scientist: The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently approved Gary Waggoner's (CBI) peer-reviewed proposal to organize The Crisis in Taxonomy, an international symposium to be held at the 1998 AAAS Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, February 12-17. Five invited speakers, including Waggoner, will address the symposium. On July 17, Waggoner received confirmation of participation from Dr. Joel Cracraft (Curator of Ornithology, American Museum of Natural History), Dr. Jim Rodman (Program Director for Systematic Biology, National Science Foundation), and Dr. Steven Blackmore (Keeper of Botany, The Natural History Museum, London). Dr. Peter Raven, Director of the Missouri Botanical Gardens, has also been invited to speak at the symposium. (Gary Waggoner, Denver, 303/202-4222)
  

• Invertebrate I&M at Acadia: On July 21, Paul Opler (CBI) attended an informational and organizational meeting on invertebrate inventory and monitoring at Acadia National Park, Maine. Dr. Opler presented a brief discussion of problems associated with invertebrate inventory and monitoring and joined a task force that will consider an inventory and monitoring plan for Acadia. The program developed could constitute a model for other National Parks. (Paul Opler, Fort Collins, CO, 970/226-9409)
  

• USGS-NPS Vegetation Mapping Program Guidelines Used by Army: On July 21-25, Gary Waggoner, CBI, discussed the USGS-NPS Vegetation Mapping Program with Joe Watts, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Watts and other Corps staff are preparing a document, "Army Guidelines for Vegetation Mapping," that will provide technical and programmatic guidance to U.S. Army installation personnel engaged in vegetation mapping projects. (Gary Waggoner, Denver, 303/202-4222)
  

• DOI-NASA Hyperspectral Workshop: On July 22-23, Ralph Root and Maury Nyquist (both CBI) and Mike Story (CBI-NPS) attended a workshop on hyperspectral remote sensing DOI-NASA cooperative activities. The workshop, sponsored by the DOI-NASA Hyperspectral Steering Committee, was chaired by James Getter (OBIO). Story and Root presented plans and fielded questions from the Committee regarding cooperative studies at Congaree Swamp (vegetation mapping) and Theodore Roosevelt National Park (detection of invasive leafy spurge). (Ralph Root, Denver, 303/202-4232)
  

• Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting: On August 11, Gary Waggoner (CBI) will present a professional paper at the 1997 Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA). His paper, "The need for a national vegetation classification system: The case for standards," will be part of a symposium, A Vegetation Classification for Conservation and Resource Management, sponsored by The Nature Conservancy. During the week, Waggoner will also participate on the ESA National Panel on Vegetation Classification, reviewing a major report the Panel has been preparing over the last year. (Gary Waggoner, Denver, 303/202-4222)
  

• Butterfly and Moth Monitoring Trial: On August 12, Paul Opler of CBI will attend a BRD butterfly and moth monitoring program planning meeting at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. A trial season is scheduled for 1998. (Paul Opler, Fort Collins, CO, 970/226-9409)

• ASC Partner Notes TRED Popularity: Gary Waggoner, Bruce Powell, and David Duran (all from CBI) are continuing work on the Taxonomic Resources and Expertise Directory (TRED), linking it into the National Biological Information Infrastructure and BRD WWW home pages, including a press release prepared by Anne Frondorf and Duncan Morrow (both OBIO). Staff at the Association of Systematics Collections (the BRD partner in this project) noted that the TRED has been the most popular survey and database they have ever conducted. An average of 30 new online registrations per week have been made by taxonomic experts, in addition to 10-15 requests per week for hardcopy survey forms. Monthly updates of the online TRED database will be made to reflect this influx of new information. (Gary Waggoner, Denver, 303/202-4222)
  

• International Standards Workshop: On July 7-10, Sharon Shin (CBI) participated in an International Standards Organization-American National Standards Institute Metadata Registries Workshop held in Berkeley, California. The workshop consisted of plenary sessions and working group discussions. Shin was a member of the working group that finalized resolutions regarding development of a standardized method to record the characteristics of a diverse group of products, from manufactured items to spatial data. The group's focus was on how information is recorded rather than on the recorded information itself. Participants represented North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia and came from a spectrum of disciplines. (Sharon Shin, Denver, 303/202-4230)
  

• International Metadata Workshop: On July 15-21, Sharon Shin and Susan Stitt of CBI and Jennifer Gaines of OBIO helped conduct a National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) Metadata Workshop for EROS Data Center's Inter-America Geographic Data Network. Thirty participants from Central and South America, Jamaica, and Canada attended. Following a tour of the Data Center, participants learned basic HTML programming prior to being introduced to the NBII Profile and MetaMaker, the metadata data entry program developed by the BRD. Attendees then learned how to verify their metadata reports, how to prepare metadata for serving through a clearinghouse, and how to install and register a clearinghouse node. (Sharon Shin, Denver, 303/202-4230)
  

• British Scientists Laud ITIS: On July 18-24, Gary Waggoner worked with scientists from Oxford University and the Natural History Museum, London, concerning their intensive specialized use of the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) in an analytical comparison of their scientific names for vascular plants of North America with accepted names within the ITIS system. Dr. Fernley Symons, a lepidopterist at Oxford University, discovered the ITIS system on the WWW and has been pleased with its information and utility and will use it again for further research activities. (Gary Waggoner, Denver, 303/202-4222)
  

• USGS-FWS Provide NBII Metadata Training at National GAP Conference: On August 4-7, Sharon Shin and Susan Stitt (both CBI), Jennifer Gaines (OBIO), and Marcia McNiff (FWS) will present National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) metadata concepts during three individual sessions at the National Gap Analysis Program (GAP) Conference in Reston. The first session will discuss the differences between Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) metadata, the current standard used by GAP, and the NBII profile. Gaines will lead the second session, a discussion on funding metadata documentation. The third session will be a tutorial on MetaMaker, the metadata data entry program developed by BRD. GAP information will be entered into MetaMaker and compared to the FGDC record at the GAP Web site. (Sharon Shin, Denver, 303/202-4230)

IV. Press/Media Inquiries: No report.