A cyberCommons for Ecological Forecasting. NSF EPSCoR, 2009-2012. (Co-PI and lead scientist for Oklahoma, PI: Paul Risser, University of Oklahoma)

We are one of four universities in two states, Oklahoma and Kansas, who are collaborating to create a cyberCommons, a powerful, integrated cyber environment for knowledge, discovery, and education across complex environmental phenomena. Specifically, the cyberCommons will integrate two frameworks - the science framework of data, models, analytics and narritives, and the cyberinfrastructure framework of hardware, software, collaboration, environment and integration environment. Weaving these frameworks harnesses the enormous revolution of cyberinfrastructure technologies for ecological forecasting across the Central Plains. In doing so, the cyberCommons will make complex, cross-domain research on ecological systems collaborative for investigators, tractable for science, and beneficial for society. Two scientific questions underlie the understanding and forecasting of ecological systems in the Central Plains. Without a unifying and fertile cyberinfrastructure environment, their complexity will continue to elude comprehensive exploration and knowledge discovery. 1. What are the impacts of changes in land-use/land-cover and climate, both natural and anthropogenic, on biogeochemical cycles and ecosystem function? In turn, what are the feedback among these drivers and consequences? 2. What are the impacts of changes in land-use/land-cover and climate, both natural and anthropogenic, on biodiversity - its compostion, patterns and dynamics? In turn, how do these changes in biodiversity affect the spread of plant and animal diseases and invasive species, and how do these phenommena influcence ecosystem structure, function and services?