index

Welcome to KAREN GAINES' Home Page!

"The Libella [dragonflies] do set forth

Nature's elegancy beyond the expression of Art."

Thomas Mouffet, 1658 - The Theater of Insects

=¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡=

About me: I am a 2^nd year graduate student in the UNM Department of Biology.

I am just beginning to conduct my dissertation research in southeastern New Mexico, in the Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

My research interests include:

Conservation biology (especially of wetlands)
Odonate (dragonfly and damselfly) species diversity
Aquatic community ecology

I am currently working for the New Mexico Natural Heritage Program to compile and map all odonate occurrence information for the state of New Mexico. I hope to complete statewide occurrence maps for all species by the end of this year – check this site for updates!

=¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡=

I belong to the following professional societies and interest groups.

Click on the name to go to the web page:

Ecological Society of America	Society for Conservation Biology	Entomological Society of America
North American Benthological Society		Dragonfly Society of the Americas
The Nature Conservancy		The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science

=¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡=

Contact information:

Via snail mail:

	KAREN GAINES
	UNM Department of Biology
	167 Castetter Hall
	Albuquerque, NM 87131
	(505) 277-4969, FAX: (505) 277-0304

Or e-mail me

Photos and links of interest to friends and relatives… coming soon!

=¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡= =¡=

This web page was created for a class, GIS for Water Resources Engineering.

My final project is an ArcView project that organizes and displays information about

sinkhole habitat characteristics at the Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern New Mexico. I’m attempting to determine what constitutes critical breeding habitat for the wide diversity of dragonflies found at Bitter Lake.

The Sinkholes

Each sinkhole is unique, and has its own suite of characteristics, including:

Geomorphology:

surface area, depth, substrate

Water chemistry:

salinity, conductivity, temperature, dissolved O₂

Fish species assemblages

Dragonfly assemblages

Project Goals

To organize and display several kinds of information relevant to my dissertation research

To share this information with Refuge biologists who manage the system, and other interested parties

To use these ArcView products to find the most promising subgroup of sinkholes to study

Step 1: Acquiring the Data

Abiotic and fish species distribution data:

Hoagstrom, C.W. and J.E. Brooks. 1999. Distribution, status, and conservation of the Pecos pupfish, Cyprinodon pecosensis. Tech Report No. 2. New Mexico Dept. of Game & Fish, Santa Fe.

Abiotic data included salinity, temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen concentration, surface area, maximum depth.

Average values were calculated for use in the Attribute Tables.

Dragonfly data:

Robert Larsen. 1999 and 1998 collection data.

Step 2: Acquiring Topographic Map Backgrounds

7.5’ (1:24,000 scale) USGS topographic maps

NAD27, UTM Zone 13 (measured in meters)

This projection works because the project area is very small

(about 4 square miles)

Map background contains no data ("Image Data Source")

Only a portion is needed, so I clipped that out

Step 3: Creating Initial Sinkhole Point Shapefile

"Heads-up Digitizing" = adding dots to the map by clicking on the right spot on a topographic map background

I used hand-drawn maps and marked-up topo maps to assign the "correct" sinkhole number to each image on the background

Digitizing the sinkhole locations:

Creating theme (a point theme)
Zoom in for increased accuracy in placing the points; then just click on the desired spot

First point has a record in the Attributes Table; now to add a field
Second point added to theme
Saving the points as a shapefile
Attribute Table of "Fishies.shp." This contains all of the data for every sinkhole.

I repeated these steps for the North Tract of the Refuge.

Step 5: Creating Additional Point Shapefiles based on various physical and biological characteristics

Using the "Manage Data Sources" utility, I copied and renamed the original point shapefile and associated files to create additional themes.

To save space, I deleted any unneeded fields from each new shapefile’s Attribute Table.

Wide variety of point shapefiles created

Step 6: Creating Useful Map Displays which can be used to show the relationships between different types of information

Adding the first point theme to the view

Selecting the desired point theme

Adding a second point theme: selecting the theme

After adding a second point theme, one can begin to look for a relationship between the data types.

Combining various types of abiotic and biotic information can lead to a better understanding of the system

Final layout: Self-explanatory visual display to share with interested parties

The relationship between salinity and temperature levels, and the presence of C. pecosensis

The relationship between conductivity and salinity in sinkholes

The Big Question: Was I able to achieve the stated goals for this project?

YES and... Not quite.

To organize and display several kinds of information relevant to my research project: YES.

To share this information with Refuge biologists who manage the system, and other interested parties: YES.

To use these products to find the most promising subgroup of sinkholes to study: Not quite.

Problems Encountered:

Lack of data on dragonfly occurrence at the sinkholes in the Middle Tract

Lack of complete abiotic data for every sinkhole, because only those sinkholes containing C. pecosensis were sampled for all characteristics.

Lack of data available for the North Tract. Of eleven sinkholes containing water, dragonflies have only been surveyed at one.

Future work

Collect additional data on:

Adult dragonfly species occurrence for ALL sinkholes

Abiotic data for ALL sinkholes

Larval dragonfly occurrence, to determine breeding sites

Create and add new themes, such as water table levels

Extend the area considered to look for larger-scale trends in dragonfly species distribution

Determine which sinkhole characteristics are important in defining critical breeding habitat for dragonflies

Acknowledgements

Teri Neville, NMNHP GIS guru

ArcView guidance and topo map themes

Robert Larsen, BLNWR dragonfly hunter

adult dragonfly collection data

Gordon Warrick, BLNWR biologist

providing sinkhole locations

Here are a few of my other class assignments:

Assignment #2: Pan Evaporation in New Mexico

Assignment #3: A View of the World

Assignment #4: Delineating Streams and Watersheds in GRID (Arc/INFO)

Assignment #6: Pecos Watershed Soil Types