Speaker: Dr. Thomas Lee, UHH Geology Department
Title: Understanding Legacy Data and Developing Methods for Its Modern Usage
Abstract: Microseism are a ubiquitous feature recorded in seismic data, and exist on records going back for over a century. The main source of microseism is oceanic wave activity, and thus these seismic signals are sensitive to climate-sensitive phenomena such as increases in near-coastal wave-state and changes in the behavior of oceanic storms. The use of modern tools to rescue and digitize old seismic data allows modern quantitative analyses to be performed on them. Such analyses cast valuable light on the oceanic climate of the pre-satellite era. In particular, rescued legacy seismic data for 1936 through 1940 from Harvard, MA, are digitized into usable time series, and instrument corrections derived from earthquake doublets are applied to make comparisons to modern data. For historical and modern data, spectrograms are calculated, instrument responses removed, and microseism signals are extracted. The results are consistent with changes to tropical cyclone behavior in the North Atlantic for the last century; comparison of these results to those using only modern data illustrate the additional information that obtained from historical data. Extraction of such oceanic information from legacy seismic data provides valuable and irreplaceable quantitative data for future climate modeling and verification of hindcasts.
Speaker: Dr. Rebecca “Becky” Ostertag, UHH Biology Department
Title: Using plant functional traits to design forest restoration: an example of hybrid ecosystem restoration in an invaded Hawaiian lowland wet forest
Abstract: Plant functional recently have been suggested to be useful for restoration planning. The Liko Nā Pilina hybrid ecosystem experiment in Hilo, Hawaii, USA employed functional traits to design and test the suitability of different species combinations, using native and introduced (but non-invasive) species to meet the objectives of increased carbon storage, native biodiversity regeneration, and invasion resistance. In this case, restoration to a previous reference condition was not feasible. After several years of forest development, we evaluated community-level outcomes related to nutrient cycling: carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus via litterfall, litter decomposition, outplant productivity, rates of invasion, and leaf litter arthropod species composition. We found that regardless of treatment, the experimental communities had low rates of nutrient cycling through litterfall relative to the invaded forest. In addition, which treatment did “best” depends on the metric being assessed. And we found that several surprises have altered ecological trajectories. This seminar will include a discussion of how hybrid ecosystems represent a paradigm shift, how potential metrics of belonging within an ecosystem may be developed, how new policies can support these efforts, and how the technique can be applied in other ecosystems. Although challenges remain, this study provides evidence that functional trait-based restoration approaches to carefully select species and to assess ecosystem functioning can achieve management goals.
Speakers: Dr. Karla McDermid and Dr. Grady Weyenberg, UHH Marine Science Department and UHH Math/Data Science Departments
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Speaker: Dr. Matthew L. Knope, UH Manoa School of Life Sciences
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Speaker: Dr. Norman Arancon, UHH College of Agriculture, Forestry & Natural Resource Management
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Speaker: Dr. Elisabeth “Lis” Gallant, UHH Geology Department
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Speaker: Angela Bridges, Physics and Astronomy Department
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Speaker 1: Atlas Quarles, Physics and Astronomy Department
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Speaker 2: Raven Kromer, Physics and Astronomy Department
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