Tim Allen and Buz Brock could not make it to the meeting due to clash with teaching.

To represent Information Management, Dave Balsiger sat in for Barbara Benson (out of town).

Garry Peterson, a post-doc who is going to be working on the Biocomplexity program as well as the Resilience Alliance grant, was also present at the meeting.

http://limnology.wisc.edu/biocomplex/finalpdf/

Files of interest:

The web-site should be up and running in another 2-3 weeks.

Tony Ives represented Biocomplexity at the meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to pull together a report on areas that could need funding (from the NSF, Federal Govt., etc.) in quantitative environmental biology. Many of the topics are relevant to the Biocomplexity project, and could potentially provide supplementary funds. The program announcement for Quantitative Environmental and Integrative Biology (QIEB) has already appeared on the NSF website. The workshop report and related information is available at

http://www.sdsc.edu/QEIB

Steve and Tim Kratz met with WDNR officials over the summer at Trout Lake. People attending from DNR were Leisa Nesta, Steve Newman, Steve Gilbert, Doug Beard and Paul Cunningham. The DNR staff praised the LTER database and were keen on continuing their use of the data.

The Biocomplexity project would need to be thorough with the sampling permits that will be required for the experiments.

Along with the rusty crayfish removal experiment at Sparkling Lake, we might also be interested in the removal of smelt (an exotic species). The experiments could easily be altered to accomplish both tasks.

We have asked WDNR for 3 changes in fishing regulations in Sparkling Lake. The proposals for changing these regulations would need to go in now for them to be effective by 2002, when manipulations begin. The proposed changes are:

1. Walleye - 28 in. limit with bag limit =1

2. Smallmouth Bass - 22 in. limit with bag limit =1

Steve Gilbert of the DNR has already been stocking walleyes for awhile to compensate for the collapsing walleye population. He plans to put in 1000 adult walleyes in 2002 which should also help reduce the crayfish population.

No dialogue has been initiated with the Great Lakes Indian Fisheries and Wildlife Commission as of now but this needs to be done. The contact with GLIFWC should probably come from UW.

There was also a discussion on the reintroduction of extinct species. Should we reintroduce taxa that were formerly present, and if so, when?

Bill came up with the suggestion that we might need to formalize the reaction of land-owners to the experiments. However, statistical analysis would be tough as there are only 5-6 land owners at TL/Sparkling Lake. All the land-owners need to be individually contacted - open house at TL this winter and get their co-operation. Steve Gilbert (of DNR) also wants the residents to know of how the introduction of smelt led to the walleye population collapse, and he should be invited to the Open House. Also, at least one of the senior scientists from Madison should attend.

We had envisioned habitat removals during the initial proposal phase. However, Steve (as well as WDNR staff) thinks that we need to be doing habitat addition rather than removals. This experiment is easier to conduct in many ways.

The team would need to go through the filing and permit process for these manipulations (not critical this winter but will be by winter 200-2001). The DNR forestry staff would be adding the wood in winter (2001-2 or beyond), perhaps using tree-tops from upland harvested sites. These would be placed on the ice with anchors to retain the wood in the littoral.

Questions: How do we add wood to the lake? How much wood? What species of trees? What would be the spatial arrangement? What is the affect of new wood on fish/microbes?

These questions should be addressed early so we could come up with some answers based on field sampling carried out in summer 2001.

The experimental lakes are Spruce and Nebish. These are public access lakes with no private landlords on either of them. There are long time series data available on these lakes (post WWII). Also these are DNR control lakes where all catches and harvests are reported on a daily basis.

See also the discussion of Little Rock Lake, below.

The student funds would need to be sorted out at a group meeting. We will need to form "funding packages" for students which are a mix of Biocomplexity funds with other sources such as fellowships, Teaching funds, LTER, MO and other grants. We have funding for 5 full-time R.A.s in years 1 and 2, and for 6 full-time R.A.s in years 3-5. The advantages of joint advising of biocomplexity students was discussed. While it was recognized that each student should have a single primary adviser, informal "co-advising" arrangements offer many advantages for an interdisciplinary project such as this one.

PI salaries are for 4.5 months each, spread over the 5 year grant. These funds could be used as summer salary or for other purposes that promote the objectives of the grant. If used as summer salary, the paperwork would need to be done in April/May of the year in which summer salary is desired. Steve and Ankur will assume that the PIs will plan accordingly.

Other major budget items include technical and hourly salaries for the field program, as well as field work travel and supplies.

No funds were included for meeting travel or capital equipment.

There are no funds earmarked for Administration. For now, Steve, Tim K and Ankur will bootleg administration from LTER funds. Later in the project, it may become necessary to divert some funds for administration.

What we said in the proposal:

While this plan may be a good one once we are up and running, it may not be the best way to get started. What should we do in this startup year?

We agreed on the following plan:

Form task forces to address the pragmatic issues of the field program elements:

1. Forest/CWD - Monica(Chair), Eric, Sara, Tim K., Jim, Tony, Garry

2. Sparkling Lake - Steve(Chair), John, Jim, Tim K., Tony

3. Cross Site - Bill(Chair), Steve, Monica, Jim, Buz, Garry

Little Rock Lake discussions would be with the entire group but may develop into a task force later on.

Each of these subgroups would plan out individual exercises related to their domains.

In addition, we plan several meetings of the "committee of the whole":

The meeting would also include a few graduate students and post-docs.

The meeting should be held in the last week of January once all student applications are in.

Role of Little Rock Lake – Carpenter, Kratz To be a future agenda item

The fishery closed in 1984 when lake acidification experiments started. The lake is dedicated to research with a sunset clause (When does the clause end? We must find out) Here wood/CWD could be moved from one region of the lake to another to study the effects (John's flip-flop experiment).

The flip-flop experiment could be carried out at Little Rock lake but should not replace one of the other experimental lake sites. Additional costs could be absorbed as there would already be a fish sampling team in place. Also, the sampling could be more broad rather than in-depth. More discussion is required on practical aspects of fitting Little Rock into the sampling plan.

The bass population is adult dominated and same on both sides of the lake. The zooplankton sampling has shown that the different populations in the two basins have been converging (94-95:different, 97-98:start getting together) and are now rather similar. Data from the last summer is being counted and would be available by Jan/Feb 2001. Funding for sampling ends in Feb 2001 and there are no plans for further acidification experiments.

The habitat manipulations should be carried out in 2001-02 but no later than 2002-03.

There are existing problems with the nets/curtains in place (holes and tears due to beavers amongst other problems). The curtain could be removed but that would change the nature of the experiment from ecological to behavioral, and the relevance to Biocomplexity would be questionable. The curtain could be strengthened, but this would have significant costs.

Other issue brought up were: Sampling intensity versus the number of lakes, need for models/data to verify responses to habitat addition/removal.