Post-doc opportunity

Check out this job posting (available here), dated June 27, 2006:

POST-DOC OPPORTUNITY at the USGS National Wetlands Research Center - Application of Remote-Sensing Imagery and Associated Models in the Recovery Planning for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker, long suspected to be extinct, is now known to persist in remnant lowlands of the Cache River, Arkansas. Planning efforts are in progress for extensive searches to find more birds in Arkansas and other river bottoms of the Southern US. Anecdotal reports of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in the southern US continue to this day. Geographic areas where potential ivory-bill habitat may exist is vast throughout the southeastern US and Gulf of Mexico coastal areas. Research opportunities are available to develop methods for the integration and operation of remote-sensing resources with ground data and other ivory-bill habitat analyses to identify and characterize a range of potential suitable habitat for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. A team of forest ecologists, ornithologists, and geographers at the National Wetlands Research Center conducts a variety of avian habitat investigations, and works cooperatively with the Lower Mississippi Valley and Gulf Coast Joint Ventures. Project activities will be conducted in collaboration with the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Recovery Plan--particularly, the Planning and Assessment Framework. The recovery team has identified several primary challenges: (1) how can we develop useful models of ivory-bill habitat relations, (2) how can the US Fish and Wildlife Service and others predict and evaluate the effects of forest management on potential ivory-bill habitat, and (3) the need to develop spatial models that integrate remotely sensed data bases to study the distribution of potential suitable habitat. Outcomes of meeting these challenges will include new knowledge of Ivory-billed Woodpecker habitat relations, facilitation of rapid and efficient search protocols for ivory-bills, contributions to useful forest inventory and monitoring procedures, and development of predictive models to inform decisions on forest management. The primary need is the development of methods to produce maps of forest structure, forest composition, and forest health (dead/dying trees) with GIS and remote sensing imagery/data at multiple scales and resolutions for regional, landscape, and local applications. Model output should be in the form of variables whose values can be measured in the field during forest inventories. Variables derived from digital imagery and data from LIDAR, ALI, Landsat, Hyperion, AVIRIS, and aerial photography will be provided by USGS. Interested applicants should contact WYLIE BARROW, USGS-National Wetlands Research Center, Lafayette, LA (PH: 337-266-8668; EM: wylie_barrow AT usgs.gov), or LARRY HANDLEY, USGS-National Wetlands Research Center, Lafayette, LA (PH: 337-266-8691, EM: larry_handley AT usgs.gov). For application details, see [this link].