Summary of the Minutes of the

Alliance for Aerobiology Research (AFAR)

Governing Board Meeting

Atlanta Marriott Marquis, Atlanta, GA
30-31 January 1996

Call to Order

The meeting of the AFAR Governing Board was convened at 2:11 PM on 30 January 1996 by Stuart Gage, chair. The Governing Board (GB) met in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society and the 12th Conference on Biometeorology and Aerobiology. AFAR sponsored a symposium on the morning of the 30th, organized by Gary Achtemeier and Scott Isard, entitled Formulation and Evaluation of Hypotheses for the Ascent, Transport, and Descent of Airborne Biota. Four of the seven papers were published in the preprint volume. The talk by Stuart Gage set the stage for discussion at the GB meeting, and those attending the symposium were invited to join the GB at their meeting in the afternoon.

Attending

Governing Board members in attendance were Gary Achtemeier, Don Aylor, David Byrne, Stuart Gage, Scott Isard, Estelle Levetin, Mary Ann Rankin, and Elson Shields. Michael Irwin was on sabbatical in Australia and unable to attend. James Li was also unable to attend due to a conflict in scheduling. Achtemeier and Byrne were newly elected to four year terms as At Large and Ag/Forestry Outreach representatives respectively, replacing outgoing members Paul Comtois and Gen Long.

Also participating in the discussions were Wayne Decker, Alistair Drake, Mark Kienzle, Glenn Norrie, Joe Riley, and John Westbrook. Gail Kampmeier recorded the minutes.

All NCR-148 members are considered part of AFAR.

Proposal

The main business of the meeting was to discuss the possibilities for obtaining funding for a joint project under the AFAR umbrella. Stuart Gage distributed a draft of a proposal for AFAR to design and develop a strategy to characterize and quantify the spatial occurrence of biota in the atmosphere and their flow over time.

Hypotheses:

• Organisms that utilize the atmosphere for translation from one geographic place to another flow in patterns of atmospheric motion that are mediated by physical features of the landscape.
• These patterns of biotic flow are regular and thus organism movement in atmosphere is predictable.

Objectives:

• determine potential pathways to study biotic flow across North America
• establish strategic locations within the proposed pathways for the measurement of the flow of organisms along the pathways due to atmospheric motion systems
• develop a complete set of standard protocols for the measurement of biotic flow
• develop a set of procedures to manage, disseminate, and analyze information to be collected at each of the strategic sampling locations
• set the stage for the spatial and temporal analytical infrastructure of the information -- GIS,
• initiate biotic and atmospheric monitoring at the strategic sampling locations for an array of organisms

With the Internet and the World Wide Web, we have the capability to ship and receive information, images, and maps, interacting with the world.

The proposed characteristics of the pathways to be considered would be that they are:

• used by a large number of organisms
• large enough to detect different scales of biota
• located where most of the North American scientific community involved in aerobiology can participate
• where most of the infrastructure for meteorological and biological measurements are already in place

Steps in the selection of strategic monitoring locations

• analysis of atmospheric patterns: to determine geographical locations and their extension where major atmospheric phenomena favor the takeoff and landing of organisms
• analysis of biological information: to discuss records for geographical locations of takeoff and landing for major groups of organisms (including an analysis of scale)
• assessment of sampling logistics: places where instruments for atmospheric and biological monitoring already exist

Criteria for Standard Monitoring -- compatibility in scale

Biota

• duration and frequency of sampling
• sampling device should be simple to maintain, be observer independent, permanent over time

Environment

• scale and resolution of samples
• frequency of recording

AFAR's role would be to facilitate and coordinate efforts.

Planning

The following plan was proposed for 1996:

1. Governing Board members will review the proposal and send comments by 14 February to Stuart Gage
2. Each GB member will develop a 1 page protocol by the 29 February describing how to sample target organism(s) in this proposal.
3. Send revised package by March 15 to membership for feedback
4. Membership will be asked to review the proposal, make suggestions, and suggest other protocols. They will also be asked to submit ideas of what they would like to do if the project were funded -- how they would link under the umbrella, with an emphasis on sharing and leveraging (coupling) of resources -- by submitting a 2-4 page preproposal on how they would implement their protocol and including a rough budget due to Gail Kampmeier by June 1st. There was a somewhat unresolved discussion on whether we should try to limit the budget for individual projects to $30,000/yr + 50% overhead projection.
5. Compile the responses by August 15
6. Organize a workshop to work out the details of the proposal.
7. Governing Board would meet before the workshop

Assignments made at the GB meeting for protocols:

Sampling:

• Estelle Levetin -- spores and pollen
• John Westbrook -- noctuid moths
• Don Aylor -- plant pathogens (overlap with Estelle)
• David Byrne -- whiteflies
• Gail Kampmeier (w/ Mike Irwin & Scott Isard) -- aphids
• Sid Gauthraux -- birds
• Elson Shields (and Stuart Gage) -- leafhoppers
• Stuart Gage and Gary Achtemeier -- landscape meteorological flow

Other technologies

• Alistair Drake -- radar
• Elson Shields -- drones (unmanned aircraft)
• Stuart Gage -- database technology
• Scott Isard, Joe Riley & Pete Lamb -- NEXRAD and other radar technologies

Mary Ann Rankin, Stuart Gage (95 chair) and Estelle Levetin (96 chair of GB) will investigate funding possibilities and strategies.

Communications

Because AFAR is currently working without a budget and time that can be devoted to AFAR business is limited, Gail Kampmeier proposed requiring that all persons who wanted to remain active in AFAR be accessible by email. This would be inexpensive (no copying or mailing costs; no labor of collating copies and stuffing envelopes), much less time-consuming, and more timely than the traditional snail mail. The prevalence of Internet carriers for those not currently connected through their place of work seems to make this a reasonable request. John Westbrook tempered the proposal by suggesting that we set a deadline for this process (e.g., October 1996) and try to make arrangements for those for whom this is a hardship.

Thanks!

Stuart Gage was thanked for his leadership as 1996 chair of the Governing Board and organization of the meeting. Gary Achtemeier was also thanked for his role in local arrangements, including arranging a deli dinner for Tuesday night.

Submitted February 13, 1996 by Gail Kampmeier, Recording Secretary

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