MegaTransect

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MegaTransect

A transect is a term in ecology, which is a survey of the natural vegetation through a particular area, between two points, and the species of plants noted at intervals. A Megatransect is a vegetation transect on a large scale, and is a tool used in recent years, to take an ecological census of the natural vegetation and ecosystems of an area.

MegaTransect was the name for a project conducted in Africa in 1999 by J. Michael Fay

J. Michael Fay

J. Michael Fay is an United States ecologist and conservationist notable for, among other things, the MegaTransect, in which he spent 455 days walking 2000 miles across Africa and the MegaFlyover in which he and pilot Peter Ragg spent months flying 70,000 miles in a small plane at low altitude, taking photographs every twenty seconds....
to spend 455 days on the expedition hike of 2000 km across the Congo Basin of Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
to survey the ecological and environmental status of the region.

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J. Michael Fay

Africa

Transect

A transect is a path along which one records and counts occurrences of the phenomenon of study .It requires an observer to move along a fixed path and to count occurrences along the path and, at the same time, obtain the distance of the object from the path....
methodology.

Shortly after the hike, Fay lobbied alongside the President of Gabon

Gabon

Gabon is a country in west central Africa sharing borders with the Gulf of Guinea to the west, Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, and Cameroon to the north, with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south....
to create 13 new national park

National park

A national park is a reserve of land, usually declared and owned by a national government, protected from most human development and pollution....
s, a project that was successful.

In 2002, US Secretary of State Colin Powell

Colin Powell

Colin Luther Powell, Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, Meritorious Service Decoration, is an American statesman and a former four-star General in the United States Army....
and other Bush Administration members gave 53 million dollars to help preserve the Congo Basin.

Mike Fay later went on to carry out the MegaFlyover

MegaFlyover

The MegaFlyover project was a seven month aerial survey from June 2004 to January 2005 by explorer/ecologist J. Michael Fay and pilot Peter Ragg sponsored by the National Geographic Society and others....
in 2004.

Madagascar
Madagascar

Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the List of islands by area, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are Endemism to Madagascar....
megatransect

Also in 2004, an international team conducted a "Megatransect" of the island of Madagascar

Madagascar

Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the List of islands by area, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are Endemism to Madagascar....
. Dubbed "Hike Madagascar", the journey covered the entire island. Members met with rural farmers to help them improve their agricultural techniques and discuss their impact on the environment.

History of USA megatransects

One of the first megatransects in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
, was conducted by Dr. Robert R. Humphrey when he rephotographed 535 miles of the natural vegetation along the United States and Mexico border at the 1890s permanent border monument locations, spaced about five miles apart, and published the work in "90 Years and 535 miles: Vegetation Changes along the Mexican Border" (1987, pub. Univ. of NM Press, 448 pages).

Craig C. Dremann, in 1997, conducted a megatransect surveying over 3,000 miles and at each mile-marker, noting the roadside vegetation, the perennial native grass

Grass

Grass is the common word that generally describes monocotyledonous green plants. The family Poaceae are the "true grasses" and include most plants grown as grains, for pasture, and for lawns ....
, and exotic grass

Invasive species

Invasive species is a phrase with several definitions. The first definition expresses the phrase in terms of non-indigenous species that adversely affect the habitats they invade economically, environmentally or ecologically....
status, through the Great Basin

Great Basin

The Great Basin is a large, arid region of the western United States. Its boundaries depend on how it is defined. Its most common definition is the contiguous drainage basin, roughly between the Wasatch Mountains, in Utah and the Sierra Nevada , that has no natural outlet to the sea....
ecosystem. The route was from Reno

Reno, Nevada

Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, Nevada, United States. A 2006 estimate indicated that the city's population had increased to 214,853, but ranked Reno as the third largest city in the state following Las Vegas, Nevada, and Henderson, Nevada....
, Nevada eastward to Hot Springs

Hot Springs, South Dakota

Hot Springs is a city in Fall River County, South Dakota, South Dakota, United States. As of the 2000 United States Census, the city population was 4,129....
, South Dakota, and from South Dakota, through Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada and returning westward to Bishop

Bishop, California

Bishop is a city in Inyo County, California, California, USA. The population was 3,575 at the 2000 census. The town was named after Bishop Creek , flowing out of the Sierra Nevada : the creek was named after Samuel Addison Bishop, a settler in the Owens Valley....
, California, and then north to Reno.

In 2005, Dremann conducted another megatransect, this time of the California portion of the Mojave desert

Mojave Desert

The Mojave Desert , , locally referred to as the High Desert, occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, and northwestern Arizona, in the United States....
, mapping over 1,000 miles on a mile-by-mile basis, for a fast-spreading exotic mustard

Mustard plant

Mustards are several plant species in the genera Brassica and Sinapis whose small mustard seeds are used as a spice and, by grinding and mixing them with water, vinegar or other liquids, are turned into the condiment known as Mustard ....
species, Brassica

Brassica

Brassica is a genus of plants in the mustard family . The members of the genus may be collectively known either as cabbages, or as mustards....
tournefortii

Brassica tournefortii

The mustard species Brassica tournefortii is known by the common names Asian mustard, African mustard, and Sahara mustard, and is well-known as an noxious weeds, especially in California....
, noting the locations and density of the Mojave desert Mustard infestation in California.

In 2007-2008 J. Michael Fay and Lindsey Holm completed a 1300 mile of 333 days. This was a transect that spanned from the southernmost to the northernmost redwood tree in California and Oregon. They walked extensively on private timberland and public land recording data on historical exploitation, current forest stand characteristics, silviculture and many other aspects of the redwood ecosystem. The results will be published in National Geographic in 2009.

MegaTransect future

For a rapidly-changing planet, megatransects establish baseline data

DATA

Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa is a multinational Non-governmental organization founded in January 2002 in London by U2's Bono along with Robert Sargent Shriver III and activists from the Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt campaign....
from which to draw future trends, and they can focus attention on particular ecosystems which are disappearing faster than others.

Establishing standard megatransects on specific region

Region

Region is a geographical term that is used in various ways among the different branches of geography. In general, a region is a medium-scale area of land or water, smaller than the whole areas of interest , and larger than a specific site A region may be seen as a collection of smaller units or as one part of a larger whole ....
s or throught various ecosystems of each continent, and periodic re–measurement of the ecological conditions along routes, every five to ten years, would provide very valuable measured data on environmental trends.

MegaTransect

History of USA megatransects

MegaTransect future

See also

External links