Bird watchers, space technology come together in Montana State Univer...(ve Running of UM Regents Professor of Ec...)
ve Running of UM, Regents Professor of Ecology and director of the Numerical Terradynamics Simulation Group.
"It is very difficult to study bird breeding habitat over large area from ground surveys, as birds are so mobile," he added. "MODIS allows a broad regional view of the landscape similar to the view birds have from the air."
Running and a team at UM developed MODIS. The sensor detects information about vegetation across North America and sends it to a clearinghouse in Sioux Falls, S.D.
The bird data for MSU's study came from thousands of bird watchers -- mostly volunteers --who participated in the North American Breeding Bird Survey. The survey is a joint effort of the U.S. Geological Survey and the Canadian Wildlife Service to monitor the status and trends of some 400 bird populations. It began about 40 years ago.
The bird watchers, using the same techniques as McEneaney, covered almost 3,500 routes in the continental United States, Canada and Alaska, Phillips said. MSU obtained their reports from a clearinghouse in Maryland, then analyzed 1,390 of the routes and combined the results with those from MODIS.
"I'm sure the volunteers had no idea we would be using their data in such a sophisticated way," Phillips said.
Hansen said, "It's a really neat example of how volunteer efforts, mixed with NASA satellite program, allow us to learn things we never would have thought possible to examine at a national scale."
MSU's study typifies the kind of research conducted in his Landscape Biodiversity Lab and speaks well of the Montana University System, Hansen said.
"Who would have thought that our local universities were designing satellite sensors, being responsible for putting them in space, generating all this data and now we are using that data across the continent for understanding things like conservation and land use issues?" Hansen commented.
The next two papers from MSU's study wi
'/>"/>
| Contact: Evelyn Boswell evelynb@montana.edu 406-994-5135 Montana State University Source:Eurekalert |
Related biology news :
1. Shuttle brings space-grown strep bacteria back for study
2. UCs NIH grant brings technology from outer space to playgrounds
3. Spaceflight shown to alter ability of bacteria to cause disease
4. A new milestone in the GMES Space Component Program successfully achieved
5. Space technology harnessed to search out TB
6. The industrial space age
7. Space technology put into service for global water resources observations
8. Air quality forecasts see future in space
9. Final preparations for first human-rated spacecraft to be lauched from Europes Spaceport
10. Birds, bats and insects hold secrets for aerospace engineers
11. Private Rocketeers reach for space -- science writer in Canada to explain
| Copyright © 2003-2009 Bio-Medicine. All rights reserved. ABOUT | CONTACT US | DISCLAIMER | PRIVACY POLICY | TERMS AND CONDITIONS |  |