1995 Annual GAP Meeting

Thanks to everybody who helped make the Annual Meeting in Fayetteville a success - especially the Arkansas crew! Below is the list of 13 "to do" items that came out of the meeting, along with annotations on the progress that has been made in addressing each.

1. Review the manual guidelines for modeling prediction of vertebrate distribution.
   • Several research projects on this topic are ongoing. Bill Krohn (ME-CFWRU) is identifying species whose distribution can be easily predicted versus those difficult to predict. John Ratti (ID-CFWRU) will be conducting a study of "The impact of land use practices on vertebrates of Western states." Chuck Peterson (Idaho State University) is upgrading models for herps.
   • Patrick Crist sent a request for methods statements to all GAP PIs. He will extract the most practical methods and develop new standard methods that will be reviewed by a working group.
2. Utah and Montana researchers have developed algorithms for aggregating the land cover maps from 30 m pixels to 100 hectare polygons.
   • Fred Limp of the Arkansas project has made a preliminary comparison of the two methods (see page 22, this volume).
3. Idaho, Utah, and Massachusetts have all developed accuracy statements of their vegetation maps, and guidelines for accuracy assessment are detailed in the GAP Handbook. However, more work is needed. A workshop will be held to make progress on developing one standard technique for accuracy assessment.
   • A regional accuracy assessment meeting was held April 9-10, 1996 in Denver to review the experience of states that have done accuracy assessment and to advise new start-ups.
4. GAP researchers have been at the cutting edge of developing and improving techniques for pattern delineation and polygon identification of land cover maps. How can the wide variety of experiences be "harvested" for better, more consistent results?
   • One of GAP's objectives in 1996 is to review and synthesize this experience. The evaluation of all methods used by GAP projects for land cover mapping will be spearheaded by Jim Merchant of NE-GAP.
5. The four land management categories used for the Gap Analysis project may be too limited. There is a need to revisit our thinking on land management categories and provide more detailed guidelines for designation of land use categories. NM-GAP developed a dichotomous key that could possibly serve as a basis for development of finer levels of land management categories.
   • Bruce Thompson is chairing a working group to prepare revised guidelines for the GAP manual (see page 20, this volume).
6. A standardized state project final report outline needs to be developed.
   • The standard report outline is done. A disk with the outline and all boiler plate text is available from the National GAP Office by request.
7. Aquatic guidelines: Dr. Pat Heglund of the University of Idaho and Mike Jennings developed a draft copy of an aquatic manual for GAP. Mike Jennings presented its contents at the meeting. These guidelines will be revised based on comments received at the meeting and circulated for further review.
   • Pat Heglund is completing work on the guidelines for Aquatic GAP.
8. The GAP Handbook chapter on metadata was revised to include more detailed examples.
   • The updated version was distributed to handbook recipients and is also available on the GAP home page.
9. Regionalization of state land cover maps by Bailey's ecoregions is currently under way for the Mojave and Great Basin ecoregions. New regionalization efforts will focus on the Colorado Plateau, Sonoran, Arizona, and New Mexico mountains and semi-desert.
   • Regionalization between Colorado and Utah land cover maps was recently completed. Tom
10. Thompson shared his experience on the GAP Bulletin Board. Efforts in other states are ongoing.
    • The National GAP Office is obtaining Bailey's subsection boundaries from ECOMAP that may be used to segment the landscape for ecoregion analysis. These will be available by request.
11. A digital copy of the TNC master list of animal names and codes will be distributed to all GAP principal investigators.
    • Completed (see page 48).
12. Several PIs indicated that they were unable to get a crisp, sharp version of the GAP logo from the GAP home page.
    • The logo has been enhanced and can be downloaded from the home page. The logo is available in ARC/INFO.gra form as well as in raster form.
13. Edge-matching of vertebrate distributions for the different states will be conducted on an ecoregion basis, with the first ecoregion matching done for the Sonoran and Great Basin ecoregions.
    • Tom Edwards and Blair Csuti are working on edge-matching of vertebrate distributions. Tom O'Neil, with Blair Csuti and Chris Grue, is updating Jack Ward Thomas's paper on the Blue and Wallowa Mountains, Oregon.
14. The home page will be reviewed and a variety of new discussion sections set up for regions and topics of interest.
    • The home page has been reviewed and modified. Further improvements are forthcoming.

The results or status of all these action items will be presented at the next annual GAP meeting. There will be an opportunity for further discussion on how to best accomplish these goals.

Mike Jennings and Elisabeth Brackney
National Coordinator and Program Assistant