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Gauging the Aspect of Lands and Waters
(September, 2003) In the minds of most people, the verb 'to landscape' conjures notions of adorning or improving a section of ground-in particular, by the contouring of that ground and by planting it with flowers, shrubs, or trees. To landscape is-in other words-to arrange grounds artistically as a profession. Not surprisingly, nature accomplishes this feat easily by providing us with the panoply of 'landscapes' that we recognize as ecological systems. We see them before us as meadows, farmlands and deserts, lakefronts and seascapes, mountain vistas and, even as the metropolis. These landscapes are the shared, intertwining habitats of people and other organisms. Their structure (that is, how they are arranged or put together to form a whole) and their integrity (that is, their quality or condition of being whole or undivided-or, more simply, their completeness) underpin the health, well-being and continued survival of humankind, plants and wildlife.
Dr. Bruce Jones is Chief of the Landscape Ecology Branch of the National Exposure Research Laboratory's Environmental Sciences Division (ESD) in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Environmental Sciences Division conducts research focused on developing methods for describing the qualities or peculiarities of chemical and physical stressors-such things as contaminants or landuse or habitat change. The Landscape Ecology Branch's research is geared toward increasing the Agency's capability to assess ecological landscapes at geographic scales that-depending on the issue or question-can be national, regional, State, or local. The Branch works to achieve this capability through the use of remote sensing and other advanced spatial analysis tools and techniques. Dr. Jones, in describing this group's mission simply says it all revolves around the notion "See Globally, Act Locally." That, in fact, tells only part of the story that follows.
Before we get into trying to understand the value of Landscape Ecology, this authors has to admit that this Spotlight Feature's title may not capture the full essence of Bruce Jones. Actually, "Charmed by Snakes" might have been a better title; but, that one had been used elsewhere recently. It does tell us more, however, about how science became a driving and guiding influence in the life of Dr. Jones, a man with the electronic mail handle "Crocodylus."
Always one inclined to understand how things work, as a third grader he constructed a model volcano-one that could erupt-with dinosaurs mingling about the cinder cone and lava flows. At nine years of age, his parents made what he says was ". . .a big mistake," by taking him to a reptile farm in upstate New York. He took one look at a bull snake there and resolved to become a Herpetologist. From then on, scores of visits to the Bronx Zoo's reptile house led him to follow closely the work of Raymond Lee Ditmars. An American naturalist, Ditmars was Curator of Reptiles at the Zoo, and during his lifetime was considered the world's leading herpetologist. His work made a lasting impression on the young Dr. Jones, who received his Bachelors degree at Florida's Jacksonville University, and his Masters at New Mexico State University, both in Biology. His Doctorate is from the University of Nevada in Environmental Biology. He has been certified as a Wildlife Biologist by the Wildlife Society, and has served as President of the Society's Arizona Chapter. He currently serves as Counselor-At-Large for the U.S. Chapter of the International Association of Landscape Ecologists.
At this point you may well ask how one goes from Herpetology to Landscape Ecology; and, what is the connection? Some explanation can be found in the works of one of Dr. Jones' favorite authors, Aldo Leopold. In his 1948 volume, A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There, Leopold addresses humankind's relationship to the land. He said, "The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. A land ethic of course cannot prevent the alteration, management, and use of these 'resources,' but it does affirm their right to continued existence, and, at least in spots, their continued existence in a natural state."
Landscape Ecology is a discipline that covers a lot of ground and as such, it is of necessity a field that embraces the knowledge of many scientific and technical fields. Perhaps it is best to envision it as the interdisciplinary framework that looks at the relationships among the spatial patterns and conditions of-and the risks to-ecological resources. Currently, those ecological resources are being defined broadly by ORD to include forests, range and agricultural lands, wetlands, rivers, streams, lakes, estuaries and even urban environmental settings. So, you can see that Landscape Ecology's purview and depth are more comprehensive than the traditional air-water-land view most people have of our environments.
But why should comprehensive study of the nature of landscapes be of interest to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), seen by many people solely as a developer and enforcer of regulations. It has to do with the fact that being able to identify changes in the extent and the condition-or health-of ecological systems over relatively large areas is crucial to adequately protecting those systems. Coupled with increasing the ability to appropriately manage those systems-the job of such agencies as the Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management or the Fish and Wildlife Service-the study of landscapes provides a palpable link to the protection and maintenance of human health, in the largest sense.
In tracing the historic development of the EPA, Dr. Jones notes that the Agency has steadily widened its focus from concern about single environmental media and single stressors to a focus that recognizes the more realistic interplay of all of the media (that is, air, water, and land) under the influence of many stressors. He points out that this more comprehensive outlook is allowing the Agency to become increasingly interested in understanding the relationships between environmental and human health. He sees this shift in thinking evidenced most recently and clearly in the topics covered in EPA's Draft Report on the Environment. Landscape Ecology is playing an increasingly important role in allowing the Agency to address the complexities of environmental protection. It is providing EPA with a platform to integrate the power of geographic information system (GIS) technology, progress in computer performance and information management, advances in statistics and experimental design, and the creation of databases capable of representing a range of geographic scales (from local to regional to national to global).
As a nationally and internationally-recognized technical expert for GIS technology and spatial analysis, Bruce Jones hopes to lead ORD into becoming a world-class leader in research underlying spatial analysis and GIS modeling. To do this, he foresees the need for ORD to continue its production of a wide array of Landscape Ecology-based approaches and tools key to addressing questions at the interface of environmental quality and human health issues. He sees, for example, in the case of such special subpopulations as children, the need for models and tools that identify those facing greatest risk from multiple stressors from the perspective of many geographic scales; or the development, validation and refinement of GIS-based models offering spatially-explicit identification of activities and stressors most responsible for observed conditions in the environment and human health. Significantly, for use at all levels of governance, he stresses a need for a GIS-based capability that can increasingly allow decision makers to identify spatially-explicit management and policy options for use in reducing risks and protecting human health and environmental resources-whether they be administrators, governors, or just folks.
Dual forces have motivated Bruce Jones' immersion in science. He says that he was "born with and enchanted by a desire to discover." Also, he says that his desire to make the world a better place to live has become a feasible goal due to his enchantment with science and the discovery process. He believes that his work becomes a creative process as it affords him a vision for research on fundamental questions. For example, much of the time we fixate on vertically stratifying environmental media (that is, water-air-land); but, from a landscape perspective we are led to add consideration of the horizontal dimension of the mix and placement of ecological systems across the biogeosphere. Rivers abut forests, agricultural lands skirt suburbs, and the places where they intertwine-ecotones-fill in the gaps affording a more comprehensive understanding of what gives structure and substance to the biogeosphere. Bruce Jones thinks it is not difficult to see how studying and understanding landscapes is as creative a process as painting or architecture-especially when you can stand back and view the whole.
Bruce Jones has said that he recognizes that his first mentor, Dr. Ted Allen, an Ornithologist at Jacksonville University, had a critical role in fueling his desire for learning and discovery in the Biological Sciences. In fact, Jones says, "no one person had more of a positive effect on my life as a scientist than did Ted. Ted had confidence in me even when I doubted myself. He has had a positive influence on hundreds of students in his some forty plus years at Jacksonville University."
Dr. Jones credits an opportunity to conduct surveys of reptile and amphibian populations with bringing him to the Federal workforce, an opportunity provided by the Bureau of Land Management. At the same time, he studied and was influenced by Dr. Walter Whitford. Whitford, now Professor Emeritus of Biology at New Mexico State University and a nationally known desert ecologist, also was Senior Research Ecologist for the Characterization Research Division at ORD's Las Vegas Laboratory. Jones worked for a time with the Endangered Species Office of the Fish and Wildlife Service, and another opportunity-to work on global climate questions-brought him to the Las Vegas Laboratory. He enjoys working at EPA for a multitude of reasons not the least of which include the challenge posed by Landscape Ecology research, the ability to pursue truly cross-disciplinary research, and the freedom to undertake research collaboratively with other agencies and scientific organizations. Currently, he is writing a book, along with an EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grantee on the influence of scale on the operation of ecological systems.
In his non-research time, Dr. Jones says that he enjoys travel and Baseball-note the capital B. In fact, he spends a good deal of his time with his sons and other youngsters coaching Baseball. He feels that such sports coaching is an ideal way to introduce young people to habits that make for good team interaction and sacrifice-useful attributes on the Baseball diamond as well as "Behind-the Bench."
The Office of Research and Development is committed to showing the difference the important work its scientists and engineers are making in peoples lives. We welcome your reaction to-and any comments on-this "Spotlight" feature article; please send them to draggan.sidney@epa.gov.