Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Rocky Mountain CESU

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The purpose of the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center (NOROCK) funding opportunity is to explore patterns and relationships in hydrologic data between different locations in wetlands in order to assess hydraulic gradients, and then to assess the relationship between the hydrology of the sites and the change sin vegetation at the sites. Collecting the hydrologic data at a high time resolution which provides information on both short time scale changes and on longer term trends, allowing comparison of patters on both scales. Use generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs) to isolate the short and long term behaviors at specific locations and account for spatial and/or temporal correlations in the measurement. Then like to relate those time series results to characteristics of the locations being studied, both geological and vegetative. One possible approach that can accomplish this analysis involves attempting to explain the differences in locations based on site characteristics within the GAMMs. Another possible approach involves using the different patterns identified in the GAMMs to either relate them to either vegetation or geological site differences using multivariate permutation methods such as Multiple Response Permutation Procedure or permutation MANOVA. One of challenge in working with these specific observations involves the slug tests that were performed to assess hydraulic conductivity of surrounding materials. In terms of overall models, the effects of the slug tests need to be removed. Use time series intervention modeling techniques to both estimate the effect of the slug tests and to provide time series with this effect removed for further analysis.

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