Highlights for July 7, 2000
USGS Center for Biological Informatics

I. Key Department News:

• USGS Scientists Work with NASA, Bureaus on Invasive Species Control. CASI (Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager) was deployed on June 28 over Theodore Roosevelt National Park, with concurrent ground calibration measurements taken by USGS scientists and other members of TEAM Leafy Spurge. The Ecological Area-wide Management [of] Leafy Spurge project is a $4.5 million, five-year USDA-Agricultural Research Service research and demonstration program focusing on the Little Missouri drainage in Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas. Its goal is to research, develop, and demonstrate ecologically based Integrated Pest Management strategies that landowners and land managers can use to achieve effective, affordable, and sustainable leafy spurge control. Karl Brown and Ralph Root of the USGS Center for Biological Informatics facilitated ground spectral measurements to validate hyperspectral imagery collected using the aircraft CASI system. Also assisting were Ray Kokaly of the Geologic Division Spectroscopy Lab, Steve Hager of the National Park Service, and Ed Holroyd from the Bureau of Reclamation GIS and Remote Sensing group. Three study areas providing multi-year comparisons of control methods and remote sensing tools will be evaluated to assist land managers in the control of this invasive plant of great concern. See TEAM Leafy Spurge at http://www.team.ars.usda.gov/index.htm for more information. (Karl Brown, Denver, 303-202-4240)

II. Agency Works on Presidential Initiatives:

• USGS Provides NOAA with NBII Metadata Training. On July 6-7, Sharon Shin of the USGS Center for Biological Informatics will conduct a National Biological Information Infrastructure Metadata Training Workshop for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Geophysical Data Center's National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS). The workshop is open to NESDIS staff at their Boulder, Colorado, facility. (Sharon Shin, Denver, 303-202-4230)

• cc:Mail Post Offices Retired. The USGS migration to Lotus Notes continues, with BRD decommissioning the cc:Mail Post Offices at the Florida Caribbean Science Center, Leetown Science Center, and Western Ecological Research Center. They join the Center for Biological Informatics in being totally migrated to the USGS Lotus Notes environment. Congratulations to all who worked so hard to make this happen. (John Clark, Denver, 303-202-4244)

III. Notable Congressional Activity: No report.

IV. Press/Media Inquiries: No report.

V. FOIA Requests: No report.