Article
Forestry
Andrew J. Hansen, Alyson East, Robert E. Keane, Matt Lavin, Kristin Legg, Zachary Holden, Chris Toney, Franklin Alongi
Summary: The study found that smaller diameter whitebark pine trees were not proportionally more abundant at lower elevations, suggesting that competitive exclusion may not be the primary mechanism limiting this species' distribution at lower elevations. However, smaller diameter whitebark pine trees were slightly less warm-dry tolerant than larger individuals, indicating a shift in the regeneration zone towards higher elevations possibly due to warming in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The predicted zone of suitable habitat for smaller diameter whitebark pine trees was 122 meters lower in elevation compared to reproductive-sized trees in previous studies, implying that the species may be slightly less sensitive to climate warming but could still face range contractions in the future.
FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
(2021)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Piotr Wolski, Stefaan Conradie, Christopher Jack, Mark Tadross
Summary: The study analyzed long-term rainfall data in the southern part of the winter rainfall region of southern Africa, revealing coherent spatial patterns and seasonal differences in rainfall trends influenced by regional driving mechanisms. While trend patterns are consistent with multidecadal-scale quasi-periodicity, they alone cannot fully explain the pattern of 2015-2017 drought anomalies.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Forestry
Hang Li, Ichchha Thapa, James H. Speer
Summary: This study used tree-ring width and normalized difference vegetation index to establish a model, reconstruct annual vegetation index maps, and discovered trends of forest decline and regime shifts. The research showed a decrease in vegetation density over the past 100 years and identified several major regime shifts caused by significant climate events.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Laura C. Gigliotti, Wenjing Xu, Gabriel R. Zuckerman, M. Paul Atwood, Eric K. Cole, Alyson Courtemanch, Sarah Dewey, Justin A. Gude, Patrick Hnilicka, Mark Hurley, Matthew Kauffman, Kailin Kroetz, Arthur Lawson, Bryan Leonard, Daniel MacNulty, Eric Maichak, Douglas McWhirter, Tony W. Mong, Kelly Proffitt, Brandon Scurlock, Daniel Stahler, Arthur D. Middleton
Summary: Formally protected areas are important for wildlife conservation, but they may not be effective for migratory species. In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, migratory elk rely on both protected areas and private lands, facing challenges such as habitat fragmentation from human development. Future conservation strategies need to consider coordination between public and private land to ensure migratory connectivity.
BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION
(2022)
Article
Ecology
James P. Michielini, Erik B. Dopman, Elizabeth E. Crone
Summary: The study used 27 years of citizen science monitoring data to quantify trends in butterfly phenology and relative abundance, finding that elongated activity periods within a year may be a key factor in increasing abundance. Some species appear to be adding a late-season generation, while others appear to be adding a spring generation, indicating a possible shift from vagrant to resident.
Article
Water Resources
Giacomo Moraglia, Erika Brattich, Gregory Carbone
Summary: This study investigates trends in the pluviometric regime in North and South Carolina, USA using data from forty-four historical stations. The results show that most of the stations do not exhibit consistent, statistically significant trends in precipitation amount, frequency, and intensity. However, a third of the stations show a significant increasing trend in the annual number of light rain days. These findings contribute to the understanding of trends in the southeastern United States and have implications for adaptation planning.
JOURNAL OF HYDROLOGY-REGIONAL STUDIES
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Banzragch Nandintsetseg, Bazartseren Boldgiv, Jinfeng Chang, Philippe Ciais, Enkhbaatar Davaanyam, Altangerel Batbold, Tserenpurev Bat-Oyun, Nils Chr. Stenseth
Summary: Climate change is projected to increase the aridity of semi-arid ecosystems, including Mongolian grasslands, leading to more frequent hazardous droughts. The increase in risk is mainly caused by the climate change-induced increase in the probability of hazardous drought and, to a lesser extent, by the increasing vulnerability. Strategic management for both adaptation and ecosystem conservation is needed in regions like northcentral and northeast Mongolia to cope with climate change impacts.
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2021)
Article
Entomology
Gaurab Nandi Das, Zdenek Faltynek Fric, Shristee Panthee, Jatishwor Singh Irungbam, Martin Konvicka
Summary: India is a tropical megadiverse country with a rich butterfly species diversity. However, there is a lack of quantitative studies on species richness patterns in India. This study used the division of the country into federal states and territories to analyze the species-richness patterns and the factors influencing them. The results showed that topographic diversity and energy availability had major effects on species richness, while geographic variables, climate, and land covers were also significant predictors. This study provides valuable insights into the distribution patterns of butterflies in India and highlights the importance of considering geographic and ecological factors in conservation efforts.
Article
Engineering, Civil
Conrad Wasko, Yawen Shao, Elisabeth Vogel, Louise Wilson, Q. J. Wang, Andrew Frost, Chantal Donnelly
Summary: Changes in the hydrologic cycle have significant impacts on agricultural productivity, water resources availability, and environmental management in Australia. While northern parts of Australia have experienced increasing rainfall and water availability, the southwest and southeast coast have seen declines in rainfall, affecting runoff and soil moisture. Standardised runoff index indicates increasing streamflow droughts across large parts of Australia.
JOURNAL OF HYDROLOGY
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Christine R. Rollinson, Andria Dawson, Ann M. Raiho, John W. Williams, Michael C. Dietze, Thomas Hickler, Stephen T. Jackson, Jason McLachlan, David J. P. Moore, Benjamin Poulter, Tristan Quaife, Joerg Steinkamp, Mathias Trachsel
Summary: This study examines ecosystem sensitivity to centennial-scale hydroclimate variability and finds that the spatial patterns in ecosystem responses are strongly governed by sensitivity rather than exposure. Model-data comparisons suggest that interactions among biodiversity, demography, and ecophysiology processes dampen the sensitivity of forest composition and biomass to climate variability. Integrating ecosystem models with observations beyond the instrumental record can improve understanding and forecasting of forest sensitivity to climate variability in a changing world.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Jennifer R. Head, Gail Sondermeyer-Cooksey, Alexandra K. Heaney, Alexander T. Yu, Isabel Jones, Abinash Bhattachan, Simon K. Campo, Robert Wagner, Whitney Mgbara, Sophie Phillips, Nicole Keeney, John Taylor, Ellen Eisen, Dennis P. Lettenmaier, Alan Hubbard, Gregory S. Okin, Duc J. Vugia, Seema Jain, Justin Remais
Summary: This study found that drought in California led to an increase in coccidioidomycosis cases, especially in historically wetter areas. The results suggest that with anticipated more frequent droughts in the southwestern USA, the spread of coccidioidomycosis is expected to continue, emphasizing the need for increased precautions following major droughts.
LANCET PLANETARY HEALTH
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Karina Winkler, Richard Fuchs, Mark Rounsevell, Martin Herold
Summary: Quantifying the dynamics of global land use change is crucial for addressing global challenges such as food security, climate change, and biodiversity loss. The unprecedented HILDA+ project reveals that land use change has significantly impacted a large portion of the global land area, with notable geographical variations in processes. Over the period of 1960-2019, afforestation and cropland abandonment were prominent in the Global North, while deforestation and agricultural expansion were more common in the South.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2021)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Julia K. Briand, Hector M. Guzman, Jennifer M. Sunday
Summary: Coral reefs in sheltered and exposed environments differ in composition and function, with lagoonal reefs being less resilient to environmental change. Over a 15-year period and 3 bleaching events, lagoonal reefs experienced greater losses in coral species diversity and lacked major reef-building species. However, both lagoonal reefs and forereefs became functionally similar over time.
FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
L. Ma, G. Hurtt, H. Tang, R. Lamb, E. Campbell, R. Dubayah, M. Guy, W. Huang, A. Lister, J. Lu, J. O'Neil-Dunne, A. Rudee, Q. Shen, C. Silva
Summary: This study updated and expanded a high-resolution forest carbon modeling approach for 11 states in the RGGI domain, providing detailed maps of aboveground carbon, carbon sequestration potential, and time estimates for realization. Utilizing airborne lidar data, the study assessed the potential for added aboveground carbon sequestration in forests, highlighting sensitivity to climate change and providing valuable input for regional planning efforts.
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2021)
Article
Forestry
R. Urrutia-Jalabert, J. Barichivich, V. Rozas, A. Lara, Y. Rojas, C. Bahamondez, M. Rojas-Badilla, T. Gipoulou-Zuniga, E. Cuq
Summary: The study in Chilean Andes evaluated the growth patterns, climate response, and drought resilience of Nothofagus obliqua forests across different latitudinal gradients. Tree growth was found to be influenced by stand dynamics and related to precipitation, with a negative impact from maximum temperature. The two northern stands showed higher resilience to drought, while overall climate conditions did not solely define the tolerance of stands, as local environmental factors played a significant role.
FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
(2021)
Article
Statistics & Probability
Natalia da Silva, Dianne Cook, Eun-Kyung Lee
Summary: The article introduces a new ensemble learning method called PPF, which uses linear combinations of variables to construct trees and choose the best projection to separate classes, outperforming traditional random forests in cases of variable correlations and separations between groups.
JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL AND GRAPHICAL STATISTICS
(2021)
Review
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Gota Morota, Hao Cheng, Dianne Cook, Emi Tanaka
Summary: Statistical graphics and data visualization are crucial but often underestimated in animal science. The advancement of web technologies has made it easier to share interactive and dynamic graphics, potentially improving data analysis outcomes in the field.
JOURNAL OF ANIMAL SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Statistics & Probability
Ursula Laa, Dianne Cook, Stuart Lee
Summary: In high-dimensional data analysis, the curse of dimensionality causes points to spread far from the center and be crowded at the edges. This article introduces a geometric transformation called the "burning sage tour" to reverse this curse, integrated seamlessly into the grand tour algorithm in R package tourr. Case studies demonstrate how sage visualizations enhance exploratory clustering and classification problems.
JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL AND GRAPHICAL STATISTICS
(2022)
Article
Statistics & Probability
Sayani Gupta, Rob J. Hyndman, Dianne Cook, Antony Unwin
Summary: Deconstructing a time index into time granularities can help in exploration and automated analysis of large temporal datasets. Linear granularities respect linear progression of time, while cyclic granularities can be circular or quasi-circular. These granularities can be used for data visualizations to explore periodicities, associations, and anomalies.
JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL AND GRAPHICAL STATISTICS
(2022)
Article
Statistics & Probability
Ursula Laa, Dianne Cook, Andreas Buja, German Valencia
Summary: Multivariate data is often visualized using linear projections, but projections can obscure low and high density regions near the center. This article introduces a section pursuit method to reveal these regions through optimized slices and dynamic structure search. The method is useful for non-uniform or non-normal data distributions, and shows two applications.
JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL AND GRAPHICAL STATISTICS
(2022)
Review
Statistics & Probability
Stuart Lee, Dianne Cook, Natalia da Silva, Ursula Laa, Nicholas Spyrison, Earo Wang, H. Sherry Zhang
Summary: This article explores a high-dimensional visualization technique known as the tour, which allows for viewing data in more than three dimensions. It covers the theory, history, software developments, and applications of the tour across various fields. Categorized under statistical and graphical methods of data analysis, statistical graphics and visualization, and statistical learning and exploratory methods of the data sciences.
WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS-COMPUTATIONAL STATISTICS
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Audrey L. McCombs, Diane Debinski, Keith Reinhardt, Matthew J. Germino, Petrutza Caragea
Summary: This study evaluated the nectar response of two native forbs to warming and found that it reduced nectar volume, increased sugar concentration, and increased the number of flowers produced. These findings suggest that warming can induce changes in nectar characteristics and impact the nectar-feeding community.
Article
Ecology
J. Simone Durney, Arden Engel, Diane M. Debinski, Laura A. Burkle
Summary: Climate change is altering species' response to environmental cues, potentially leading to phenological mismatches. This research shows that a combination of warming and earlier snowmelt can advance and extend flower blooming, providing more resources for pollinators. Short-term studies may underestimate the effects of climate change on plant phenology.
Article
Statistics & Probability
Natalia da Silva, Dianne Cook, Eun-Kyung Lee
Summary: This article explores the use of interactive graphics to analyze forest classification models. By combining and analyzing the results from multiple decision trees, a forest classifier can provide insights into class structure in high dimensions. The article discusses various aspects of the models, including model complexity, variable importance, and prediction uncertainty. The methods described can be applied to random forest and other bagged ensemble models, helping to improve their interpretability. The graphics are built using the ggplot2, plotly, and shiny packages in R.
COMPUTATIONAL STATISTICS
(2023)
Article
Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Applications
Nicholas Tierney, Dianne Cook
Summary: Despite existing research on missing value distribution and imputation, there is limited literature on making the handling, exploration, and imputation of missing values easier. This paper addresses this gap by introducing a new methodology that incorporates missing value handling as a key component of data analysis workflows. The methodology includes a new data structure and set of operations that provide a connected framework for handling, exploring, and imputing missing values. These methods are implemented in the R package naniar.
JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL SOFTWARE
(2023)
Article
Statistics & Probability
Ursula Laa, Alex Aumann, Dianne Cook, German Valencia
Summary: This article introduces new user controls for examining high-dimensional data using low-dimensional linear projections and slices. The user can interactively change the contribution of a given variable to a low-dimensional projection and shift the center of a slice to explore structure changes in local subspaces. Mathematica package and example notebooks are provided for users to experiment with these manual controls, with one specifically for exploring regions and boundaries produced by classification models. Limited implementation is also available in the R package tourr.
JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL AND GRAPHICAL STATISTICS
(2023)
Article
Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Applications
Nicholas Tierney, Dianne Cook, Tania Prvan
Summary: Longitudinal (panel) data provides the opportunity to examine temporal patterns of individuals. Traditional visualizations are often too overloaded to read easily, and interesting individual differences can get lost in the noise. Longitudinal data is better modeled using hierarchical linear models, but fitting these models can be difficult and unusual individual patterns may be missed. This paper introduces the R package brolgar, which provides better visual tools for diagnosing longitudinal models and capturing individual experiences.
Article
Education, Scientific Disciplines
Dewi Amaliah, Dianne Cook, Emi Tanaka, Kate Hyde, Nicholas Tierney
Summary: This article discusses the difficulties and challenges of refreshing textbook datasets and provides a reproducible workflow and code for others to follow. Refreshing datasets improves the timeliness and relevance of teaching materials.
JOURNAL OF STATISTICS AND DATA SCIENCE EDUCATION
(2022)
Article
Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Applications
Earo Wang, Dianne Cook
Summary: The tsibbletalk package allows users to interactively explore temporal data with hierarchical structures, discover differences between levels, and uncover interesting periodic or aperiodic patterns. It includes tools for linked brushing between coordinated views and shiny modules for seasonal pattern visualization, demonstrated using examples of domestic tourism in Australia and pedestrian traffic in Melbourne.
Article
Education, Scientific Disciplines
Julia Polak, Dianne Cook
Summary: Kaggle is a data modeling competition service that enhances learning by engaging students in predictive modeling competitions.
JOURNAL OF STATISTICS AND DATA SCIENCE EDUCATION
(2021)