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Work in progress: author - Rebecca Rowe (Committee on Evolutionary Biology)

This research examines patterns of species richness and metacommunity structure of small non-flying mammals across a series of elevation gradients (mountain ranges) in Utah. Addressing these types of questions requires extensive spatial and taxonomic sampling. Fortunately, a unique amount of data (over 100 years) is available for these species across this region. GIS has been essential to this research program for two reasons. First, creating a digital elevation model (DEM) of the state of Utah at 30 meter resolution allowed for the extraction of elevations at each georeferenced locality or collecting site. Second, GIS has the ability to sort the georeferenced localities (and their associated specimen records) to different mountain ranges, transects, and slopes for ease of analysis. This image shows a section of the DEM. The red line indicates 2300 meters in elevation, the approximate lower limit of montane habitat. Each purple rod represents one sampling locality.

Work in progress: author - Carrie Hritz (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations)

This area of central Iraq is of interest because it lays outside of the archaeological survey of Mesopotamia. GIS/Remote sensing is being used to fill in a historical gap in the settlement record. The area shown here is where the Euphrates river splits into the Hilla (eastern Branch) and Hindiyah (western branch). The large canal which can be seen coming off the image to the west is the Husaniyah Canal, originally dug in the 18th century to feed the holy city of Kerbala. The background image is from Corona satellite mission DS11042DA138040, August 16. 1968, resolution 2-5 meters. The large squarish red site is Babylon and beneath it is the modern town of Hillah. The red dots to the east of the river are from the Akkad survey Adams 1972. To the west are sites that have been identified by looking at imagery and British survey maps from the early 20th century. The elevation contours have been digitized from Russian topographic maps made in 1991.