In medicine, disease screening with tests like colonoscopies and mammograms helps detect problems before symptoms emerge \u2013 while there is still time to reverse course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nebraska\u2019s Dirac Twidwell, associate professor of agronomy and horticulture, is bringing this proactive early-detection approach to agricultural resilience, which focuses on the ability of ecosystems to withstand sudden, destabilizing transitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These shifts \u2013 from grassland to cedar woodland or fertile farmland to desert, for example \u2013 can spark chaos in communities by reducing biodiversity, wildlife habitat and livestock forage. These changes reduce food and water security and increase flood, wildfire and other risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Twidwell is collaborating with University of Montana researchers to develop and implement first-of-their-kind screening tools that detect, more precisely and earlier, subtle changes that foreshadow destabilizing ecological transitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe approach is meant to mimic the philosophy of medicine, so we can start to nail down, as early as possible, where we see problematic changes that we know carry a host of severe consequences to ecosystem services and people\u2019s well-being,\u201d said Twidwell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe can talk with landowners about what we\u2019re seeing and give them a heads up that they may need to change their management strategies.\u201d<\/p>Dirac Twidwell<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The team\u2019s tools include maps that highlight changing vegetation patterns across the Western U.S. The maps, developed based on cloud computing, comprehensive vegetation data and resilience theory, enable researchers to identify areas where one vegetation type is displacing another across multiple tracts of land \u2013 a telltale sign of forthcoming disruptive change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe tools are no different than a patient looking at an X-ray scan or a brain scan,\u201d Twidwell said. \u201cWe can talk with landowners about what we\u2019re seeing and give them a heads up that they may need to change their management strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Montana researchers will use big data approaches and social network analysis to develop an algorithm that identifies individuals likely to use the technology. They\u2019ll also meet with Nebraska and Montana stakeholders to showcase the tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nebraska\u2019s team includes Craig Allen, professor and director of the Center for Resilience in Working Agricultural Landscapes; Simanti Banerjee, associate professor of agricultural economics; and Daniel Uden, assistant professor in the School of Natural Resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A $4 million National Science Foundation EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Track-2 award funds this project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In medicine, disease screening with tests like colonoscopies and mammograms helps detect problems before symptoms emerge \u2013 while there is still time to reverse course. Nebraska\u2019s Dirac Twidwell, associate professor of agronomy and horticulture, is bringing this proactive early-detection approach to agricultural resilience, which focuses on the ability of ecosystems to withstand sudden, destabilizing transitions. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[78,53,75,77,74,82,79,6,81,4,76],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agricultural-resilience","tag-agronomy-and-horticulture","tag-craig-allen","tag-daniel-uden","tag-dirac-twidwell","tag-ecology","tag-ecosystem-transitions","tag-education-and-outreach","tag-institute-of-agriculture-and-natural-resources","tag-national-science-foundation","tag-simanti-banerjee"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}