Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Rocky Mountain CESU

The summary for the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Rocky Mountain CESU grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the Geological Survey, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Rocky Mountain CESU: The purpose of the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center (NOROCK) funding opportunity is to explore two methods of modeling complex multivariate wetland vegetation system: Bayesian Belief Networks (BBN) and Bayesian Graphical Models (BGM). Both approaches represent the complex multivariate system by a graph composed of edges and nodes. Variables are represented by nodes and edges can be directed representing a "causal" relationship or undirected representing a correlation (spatial or temporal). The research objectives are as follows: 1) Build a predictive model of wetland vegetation species abundance as a function of abiotic factors within Red Rock Lakes NWR using BBN and/or BGM that incorporates time lags at different temporal scales. 2) Investigate tools for BBN and BGM model selection to establish if the typical information theoretic criteria are appropriate to use to select among different hypothetical causal structures and if the criteria are appropriate in a system with spatial and/or temporal correlation. And 3) Determine if a BBN or a BGM could be a useful tool for practitioners to address the effects of climate change on natural systems.