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STAR Helps Grantee Shape a Vision
(March, 2003) With his associates at Pennsylvania State University, Dr. Robert P. Brooks has successfully used a series of four Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grants to create a far-reaching research program. The set of STAR-funded research projects directed by Dr. Brooks and his colleagues has generated significant knowledge and understanding about the role and condition of biological communities - plants, birds, amphibians, and macroinvertebrates - in defining healthy wetlands, streams, riparian areas, lakes, and estuaries.
In 1997, EPA sponsored a grant that allowed the Brooks team to expand their work on reference wetlands, achieving a range of cases in Pennsylvania that span ecoregions, land uses, and watersheds. This research explored the ecological changes in wetlands occurring over a 60-year period. Scientists analyzed sediment cores, seed banks, and historic aerial photographs to refine their assessment of the watersheds. They also developed standard monitoring protocols that could be used for future work throughout the study region. At the present time, they have a repository of 220 wetland examples, from the relatively pristine to the severely disturbed. This research extended our knowledge of wetlands, both in a regional sense, as well as in basic wetland ecology.
Subsequent STAR-funded projects enabled Dr. Brooks to expand his research to other sites representing the variation in environmental conditions across multiple ecoregions. For instance, Penn State researchers, including Dr. Brooks and Dr. Timothy J. O'Connell, teamed up with scientists from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and East Stroudsburg University to develop a regional index of biological integrity for forested headwater streams. They collected data on birds, aquatic macroinvertebrates, stream habitat, water chemistry, and landscape features in three major drainage basins - the Delaware, Susquehanna, and Ohio.
Results from this project, Dr. Brooks explains, indicate that bird populations can provide good diagnostics for identifying the multiple stresses that, for example, degrade headwater streams, a vital natural asset. The research found that because of its feeding habits and distribution throughout the eastern United States, the Louisiana Waterthrush alone provides an efficient, early warning signal on the condition of headwater streams and surrounding areas. With the research almost complete, the authors believe that this wildlife monitoring approach could translate into significant improvements in environmental resources.
Complementary research by Dr. Brooks and Gian Rocco, a Penn State doctoral candidate, investigated how salamanders along stream areas respond to a variety of aquatic stresses. The researchers used the stream sampling grid established by EPA's Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP). The project, now in its final stages, has formally generated an Index of Biological Integrity, which Brooks believes may have the potential to be widely and cost-effectively applied, possibly by trained volunteers.
Most recently, Dr. Brooks is leading one of the interdisciplinary projects known as the Estuarine and Great Lakes Indicators Program that collectively seeks to develop and test ecological indicators for assessing the condition of the nation's estuaries and contributing watersheds. His STAR-funded Atlantic Slope Consortium, led by Penn State, includes five other research and educational institutions, with more than 40 natural and social scientists tackling an immense study area that includes portions of eight states, the District of Columbia, and 60 small watersheds and estuarine segments.
Dr. Brooks says, "The continuing support of EPA's STAR grants program has been essential to our success. It has allowed us to truly gain an understanding of these ecosystems and to produce a whole set of reports, articles, and science-based tools that will help improve the way we manage our aquatic resources."
Dr. Brooks is a professor of Wildlife and Wetlands and Director of the Penn State Cooperative Wetlands Center (CWC). He has taught seven different undergraduate wildlife courses and graduate courses in the ecology and management of wetlands, restoration ecology, and habitat modeling. Since 1978, he has published more than 120 technical papers, books, and book chapters, and made more than 110 technical presentations at conferences and meetings. Dr. Brooks has been the senior principal investigator on 72 of 101 grants from STAR and other sources funded between 1981-2001, and has consulted for EPA and other agencies, as well as various industries.
To learn more about Dr. Brooks' STAR research, see:
- Watersheds and Wetlands: Large Scale Disturbances and Small Scale Responses;
- Using Bioindicators to Develop a Calibrated Index of Regional Ecological Integrity for Forested Headwater Ecosystems;
- Stream Plethodontid Assemblage Response (SPAR) Index: Development, Application, and Verification in the MAHA; and
- Development, Testing, and Application of Ecological and Socioeconomic Indicators for Integrated Assessment of Aquatic Ecosystems of the Atlantic Slope in the Mid-Atlantic States.
Additional information on the STAR program can be found at the National Center for Environmental Research. For more information, contact Estella Waldman at Waldman.Estella@epa.gov.