Use Case 1b: Nitrogen Budget in Kelp Forest

Use Case 2: Nitrogen Budget for algae in Kelp forest systems for Pacific Coast

• Goal
• Use data on availability of Nitrogen from various sources (use case 1a) to construct a Nitrogen budget for 3 major groups of algae in various kelp systems.
  
• Summary
  
• Algae in the systems take up dissolved Nitrogen (nitrate and/or ammonium) and incorporate it into tissue.  The three major groups are Kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera), mixed phytoplankton, and mixed algal turf. Growth for all three groups is seasonal.  The scientist would like to know, on a monthly basis, how much of the nitrogen in the three algal groups could have come from terrestrial vs. oceanic sources.
  
• Queries
• Find distribution X of kelp beds on Pacific coast
• Find data that quantifies amount of nitrogen in kelp tissue at specified kelp beds during all times of year
  
• Find data that quantifies nitrogen in phytoplankton near these kelp beds
  
• Find data that quantifies nitrogen in turf algae in these kelp beds
  
• Find data that quantifies seasonal uptake of nitrogen in Kelp, turf algae, and phytoplankton
• Production rate at small scales may be extrapolated to whole bed and then region
• May involve experiments that estimate uptake rates under various conditions
  
• Possible validation of results: Find data that quantifies ratio of nitrogen isotopes in algae to determine source of N as ocean vs terrestrial
  
• Operations/Tasks
• Integrate stream output data accounting for protocol differences in sampling regime at stream mouths
• Determine if given data source can be used in particular method for estimating Nitrogen
• Transform data for use in particular model to calculate Nitrogen
  
• Data sets and associated metadata
• Data on nitrogen content in algae (macrocystis, turf, phytoplankton)
  
• Observations (e.g., water bottle samples from cruises, tissue samples), all datasets in KNB Metacat
  
• nitrogen in kelp tissue: knb-lter-sbc.24

  Site name	Metadata URL	Data URL
  See site column	http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/knb/metacat?docid=knb-lter-sbc.24	http://sbc.lternet.edu/external/Reef/Data/Kelp_NPP/CHN_all_years.csv

• nitrogen in phytoplankton from 16 Santa Barbara Channel cruises: knb-lter-sbc.1001 - 1016
• phytoplankton N-production , from 16 Santa Barbara Channel cruises: knb-lter-sbc.1001 - 1016

• Site name	Metadata URL	Data URL
  See stations 1:25 in site column	16 datasets, docid pattern knb-lter-sbc.10xx, where xx is the sequence [01:16] http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/knb/metacat?docid=knb-lter-sbc.10xx	16 datasets, docid pattern knb-lter-sbc.10xx, where xx is the sequence [01:16] http://sbc.lternet.edu/external/Ocean/Data/Channel_Wide_UNOLS_Cruise_Data/LTERxx/LTERxx_CTD_bottledata.txt

• nitrogen in phytoplankton from SBC nearshore stations: knb-lter-sbc.10 (entity 1)
  

  Site name	Metadata URL	Data URL
  See site column	http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/knb/metacat?docid=knb-lter-sbc.10	http://sbc.lternet.edu/external/Ocean/Data/Monthly_Water_Sampling/LTER_monthly_bottledata.txt

• primary production rates as N
  
• Modeled: nitrogen production estimate based Carbon uptake and C:N ratio (knb-lter-sbc.21)
  

• Site name	Metadata URL	Data URL
  See site column	http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/knb/metacat?docid=knb-lter-sbc.21	http://sbc.lternet.edu/external/Reef/Data/Kelp_NPP/M_pyrifera_net_primary_production_and_growth.txt

  
  
• 
  
• direct N-uptake measurements (nitrate and ammonium)
• datasets: unknown
  
• estimates of production from vicarious sources (Satellite biomass, kelp harvests)
• satellite biomass (as Carbon) datasets TBD
• historical kelp harvests (biomass): knb-lter-sbc.14
• 
  

  Site name	Metadata URL	Data URL
  Sites not yet geolocated	http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/knb/metacat?docid=knb-lter-sbc.14	http://sbc.lternet.edu/external/Reef/Data/Historical_Kelp/Data/Historical_Kelp_Data.csv

• Metrics of completion/success
• Ontologies
• SBC Ontology, based on OBOE: https://code.ecoinformatics.org/code/semtools/trunk/dev/oboe-ext/sbclter/sbc.1.0/oboe-sbc.owl