Pickering,_John.post..

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10-Year Plan Discover Life -- www.discoverlife.org  Mission -- to assemble and share knowledge in order to improve education, health, agriculture, economic development, and conservation throughout the world.  Overview -- In 1998 I founded Discover Life to help researchers, land managers, students, and others collect environmental data and ask questions in the historical and geographic context of natural experiments across multiple years and study sites. Discover Life now provides research protocols, identification guides, a global mapper, phenology graphs, and plots to understand species and their interactions. It integrates over 450 million species occurrence records and 1.7 million images with weather data. It serves 640,000 interactive species maps. Since 1998 its computers at the University of Georgia and University of New South Wales have served over 3 billion pages and images to 28 million IP addresses. In 2014, they averaged 50 million such hits to 637,000 IP addresses per month. o Goal -- to institutionalize Discover Life before my retirement. Discover Life's legal umbrella, the non-profit Polistes Foundation, and its International Center for Public Health and Environmental Research, a team of over 80 Ph.D.s, propose to add servers in Papua New Guinea and at North Carolina State University, University of California (Berkeley and Riverside), and University of Florida. (For recent funding, see Appendix 4 below.) Research  Overview -- My research focus is on long-term, large-scale studies of the impact of climate change, land use, pollution, and other environmental factors on species abundance, distribution, and life history parameters. My outreach teaches local communities to do science, empowers them to run study sites, and contribute data needed to solve environmental issues.  Mothing (discoverlife.org/moth) collects high-quality data on creatures attracted to lights. Since 2010 participants have uploaded 460,000 images from 20 study sites in the U.S. and Costa Rica, identified 250,000 images to species, and documented differences in the seasonal activity and abundance of 3,000 species. Discover Life's servers automatically update and present these data each night. For example, see http://pick18.pick.uga.edu/mp/20m?plot=3&la=33.9&lo=83.3 for an interactive accumulation graph of over 1,100 species photographed nightly since 2010 at one of our sites in Clarke County, Georgia. o Goal: With the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, National Audubon Society, National Geographic's Great Nature Project, Cooperative Extension, and other potential partners, I plan to develop additional research protocols (e. g., frogs, birds, mammals, plants, pollinators, lichens) and implement them at community-run study sites across the U.S. and elsewhere around the world. o Publicity: The mothing project has been featured in Audubon Magazine (http://www.audubonmagazine.org/articles/nature/come-over-dark-side-moth-loverurges-birders), UGA Columns (http://www.columns.uga.edu/news/article/nightwatchers/), the UGA homepage (http://www.uga.edu/about_uga/profile/moth-projectlights-the-way-to-discover-life/), the Orion Society, and SciStarter Citizen Science (http://scistarter.com/blog/2014/07/our-daily-moth-national-moth-weekmothing/#sthash.B3UCecAW.dpbs)  Pollinator+ (discoverlife.org/adbc) mobilizes museum data to examine how environmental changes affect insect life history parameters and pollination. o Goal: With 38 U.S. insect collections, Discover Life proposes to digitize 6 million specimens collected over the past century. Our target species are bees, moths,

butterflies, flies, and beetles with different biologies selected to understand and predict the impact of environmental changes. (See Appendix 4a below.)  Long-term insect monitoring -- From 1992 to 2013 Don Windsor and I collected weekly Malaise trap samples in Panama to study how El Niño weather patterns and tropical seasonality affect the biodiversity and abundance of insects, particularly beetles and parasitic wasps. o Goal: I intend to spend the last decade of my career further sorting our samples and analyzing the 20+ year time-series that we collected. Service  Identification tools -- Discover Life has over 600 taxonomic checklists and identification guides online, covering nearly 1.3 million valid species names. These include the world bee checklist with 20,000 species, identification guides to 78 genera of U.S. bees, and a guide to the 12,000 moth species of the U.S. that is customized by state. o Goal -- build additional identification guides, focusing on moths and selected pollinators, pollen, and host plants. Teaching and outreach  Web-based instruction -- We are developing Moth math (see discoverlife.org/moth/analysis.html) as a web tool to help 5th grade through college students learn how to analyze and graph data collected by Mothing. In addition to biological data on insect distribution, abundance, phenology, and size, Moth math enables web users to download daily data on precipitation, temperature, barometric pressure, and the phase of the moon. Thus, they can determine how these environmental factors affect species abundance and activity. o Goal: With Peter Burn at Suffolk University, Jonathan Lochamy at Georgia Perimeter College, and other partners, I plan to develop and integrate web tools and lesson plans to enable teachers and their classes to generate and test hypotheses using the large quantity of original data that Mothing makes available on-line.  Formal classroom instruction -- Since fall 2013, I have co-taught two sections of a service learning course with Marianne Shockley (ENTO 3300S) each Fall and Spring semesters to approximately 60 students per semester. o Goal: Each semester into the foreseeable future, we intend to keep teaching this course. I plan to integrate it more with Discover Life's study site at Sandy Creek Nature Center and teach its students to help develop and test Moth math at local schools. (See Appendices 2, 2a, 2b below)  Outreach – I plan to continue outreach to the scientific community and to citizen scientists. In 2014, I gave twenty-five invited presentations to colleagues and community groups throughout the nation. (See Appendix 3 below.)

Appendix 1: Previous Post-tenure Review

March 12, 2006 Dr. Alan Covich Director, Institute of Ecology University of Georgia RE: Post-tenure Review of John Pickering Dear Alan: A Post-tenure Review of Dr. John Pickering was conducted in February and March of 2006. The review committee consisted of Ron Pulliam (chair), Patty Gowaty, and Jim Porter, all Professors in the Institute of Ecology. The review committee met with Dr. Pickering and requested that he provide an updated curriculum vitae (attachment 1), and a statement of future plans (attachment 2) to the committee for review. The committee also requested and received copies of his annual evaluations from the Director of the Institute of Ecology. The review committee finds Dr. Pickering's overall performance for the past five years satisfactory. The purpose of post-tenure review is "to examine, recognize, develop, and enhance the performance of tenured faculty members at the University of Georgia." In reviewing Dr. Pickering's contributions, the committee concludes that many of Dr. Pickering's past contributions have not been fully recognized and appreciated by the University of Georgia, and we recommend a number of steps can be taken to further develop and enhance his contributions in the future. Below, we first review his teaching and scholarly contributions and then we offer some specific recommendations. Teaching: Dr. Pickering is a gifted teacher and a dedicated student mentor. However, the committee feels that his teaching talents are not currently being utilized to the full benefit of the students of the University of Georgia. To evaluate his teaching contributions the committee compared his teaching assignments in the past five years to his earlier teaching assignments at the University. The primary courses taught by Dr. Pickering since coming the University in 1986 and the number of times he has taught each course (in parentheses) are as follows: ECOL 3500 -- General Ecology, 1986-1999 (x20) ECOL 4110/6110 -- Insect Diversity, 1998-2004 (x5) ECOL 4130L -- Ecological Methodology, 2005 ECOL 8170 -- Natural History of the Hymenoptera, 1999-2005 (x4) FRES 1020-- Natural History seminar, 2001-2005 (x5) Dr. Pickering's teaching talents are attested to by numerous personal testimonies and by the official recognition of the UGA Sandy Beaver Award for Teaching Excellence (1994) and the Outstanding Upper Division Advisor Award (1996). From 1986 to 1999, Dr. Pickering taught the core ecology undergraduate course (ECOL 3500) 20 different times and to over 1500 students, in total. However, since 2000, his teaching has been restricted to teaching smaller, more specialized upper division and graduate courses. Among these, the Insect Diversity course (ECOL 4110/6110) is especially noteworthy since it is one of the few intensive

field courses offered to our undergraduates. Dr. Pickering has also taught numerous Independent Study courses providing students an opportunity to become involved in research during their undergraduate years. He has also supervised a large number of graduate and undergraduate theses. Finally, beyond his traditional teaching role at the University, he has conducted a number of Discover Life training workshops in locations around the world. Although the quality of Dr. Pickering course offerings remains high, the specialized courses he now teaches attract relatively few students. The committee feels that his teaching contributions at the University can be strengthened by re-engaging him in the core undergraduate course (ECOL 3500) and he has expressed a willingness to do so. Scholarship and Public Service: Dr. Pickering has made fundamentally important contributions to the study of biological diversity, albeit not always in the form typical of most academic scientists. Like other academics, he has conducted original research, published in peer-reviewed journals, and obtained competitive research funding. He has worked on a wide range of problems including the epidemiology and virulence of infectious diseases, and sex ratio theory. He is one of the world's leading experts on the natural history of the Hymenoptera (ants, bees, wasps, and sawflies) and has pioneered in the development of comparative inventories across tropical and temperate sites and the long-term monitoring of populations and communities in response to environmental and experimental changes. Since 1991, he has worked on an Insect Diversity Project to quantify how climate, biogeography, habitat type, disturbance, land-use, and landscape fragmentation affect species abundance, diversity, and trophic interactions of insects in terrestrial ecosystems. He has also been involved in a large-scale comparative study of insects in old-growth and secondary forests in Panama, Costa Rica, and eastern North America. The study has sought to quantify how seasonality, El Niño cycles, fire, and other largescale factors influence insect diversity in time and space. Dr. Pickering's most important contributions have not come through the traditional venues of academia but rather have involved using new technologies to distribute biodiversity information to a multitude of scientists, students, natural history enthusiasts, and decision makers around the world. He is the founder and moving force behind Discover Life, a web-based information source designed "to provide the technology to enable an army of scientists, students, and other citizens to work together, study biodiversity, and share information on a grand scale." Under his leadership, Discover Life has organized information technology centers at the University of Georgia and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, and has already gathered and organized information on 250,000 species. By adding information at a pace of 590 new species per day, Discover Life is on track to build an online Encyclopedia of Life of a million species by the year 2012. Each month, Discover Life serves approximately 3 million pages and images to 70,000 IP addresses. Its online tools include a global mapper that enables users to compare the distribution of taxa across geographic scales. In addition to Discover Life, Dr. Pickering has played a major role in establishing two other major biodiversity initiatives: the Great Smoky Mountains National Park's All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory and the Polistes Foundation. The All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory is a massive study involving scores of scientists and hundreds of park volunteers in a systematic effort to inventory all of the species in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. The Polistes Foundation was established in 2002 "to assemble and share knowledge about nature in order to improve education, health, agriculture, economic development, and conservation throughout the world."

Summary and Recommendations Judged strictly by the number of courses taught, student credit hours generated, peer-reviewed papers, and competitive research grants obtained in the past five years, one could wrongly conclude that Dr. Pickering has not been as productive in the past five years as in his previous years of service at the University. However, these traditional measures of academic success do not begin to quantify Dr. Pickering's overall contributions to science and education during the past five years. John Pickering is a truly remarkably scholar who marches to a different drummer than most academic scientists. Having reviewed his work in the past five years, the review committee concludes his scholarly contributions, though unconventional, will likely have more long-lasting impact on biodiversity science and education than the contributions of a dozen more traditional scholars. When asked about his long-term goals, Dr. Pickering provided the committee with a remarkable 20 year plan (attachment 2), that includes completing Discover Life's online Encyclopedia of Life and further developing a powerful new technology that will allow field researchers and laymen alike to identify, map, and record biodiversity information anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, Dr. Pickering's contributions, because of their unconventional nature, have been underappreciated by the University of Georgia. He has not been promoted to Full Professor despite his time in service and he has received substantially below average salary increases for many years. As a result, he has gotten the message that the University of Georgia does not appreciate his contributions and, accordingly, he has withdrawn from participation in faculty governance and has reduced his undergraduate course participation. He has indicated to the review committee that he would be willing to participate more in Institute activities and undergraduate instruction if his participation were recognized and rewarded. The post-tenure review committee makes the following four recommendations aimed at recognizing, developing, and enhancing Dr. Pickering's contributions to the University: 1) Recognize that Dr. Pickering's contributions to Discover Life and related activities are legitimate scholarly contributions that are appreciated and will be rewarded by the University; 2) Immediately initiate a review process and solicit outside letters of recommendation to consider promoting Dr. Pickering to the rank of Full Professor; 3) Make an immediate salary adjustment to bring his salary in line with other faculty with similar time in service in the Institute; 4) Engage Dr. Pickering more fully in the undergraduate course offerings of the Institute and ask him to renew his teaching role in Ecology 3500 making it clear that outstanding teaching contributions will be rewarded by the Institute.

The review committee feels that these are necessary steps not only to enhancing Dr. Pickering personal productivity and contributions to the University but also in sending the message to other faculty that outstanding contributions beyond the standard ones measured by number of publications and grants are appreciated and will be rewarded by the University of Georgia. Sincerely, H. Ronald Pulliam Chair, Post-tenure Review Committee

Appendix 2: Teaching Since Last Post-tenure Review

Course number Title Semester Enrollment

Percent effort

ECOL 3070 Environment and Humans 2009 Fall 24 100% 2010 Fall 23 100% 2011 Fall 22 100% 2012 Fall 15 100% ECOL 3500 General Ecology 2009 Spring 113

50%

ECOL 4110/6110 Insect Diversity 2007 Fall 7 2007 Spring 8

100% 100%

ECOL 4940 Internship in Ecology 2007 Spring 1 2008 Spring 9 2010 Spring 10 2011 Spring 5

100% 100% 100% 100%

ECOL 4950 Senior Seminar 2011 Fall 22

100%

ENTO 3900 2013 Fall

Special Problems in Entomology 62 25%

ENTO 3300S Outreach and Service-Learning in Entomology 2014 Spring 60 25% 2014 Fall 63 25% 2015 Spring 60 25% Additional teaching listed at http://www.discoverlife.org/who/CV/Pickering,_John.teaching.html Student evaluations: http://www.discoverlife.org/who/Pickering,_John.html

Appendix 2a: Syllabus for ENTO 3300S Entomology Outreach & Service-Learning ENTO 3300S Spring 2015 Dr. Marianne Shockley 706-542-1238 [email protected] Office: 460 BioSciences Bldg And Dr. John Pickering 706-254-7446 [email protected] COURSE DESCRIPTION This course provides an overview of entomology outreach and service-learning. Students will participate in a guided study and practice in developing sustainable entomological educational programs for the public (mostly children) in the Athens/Atlanta area, which includes identifying needs, establishing objectives, focusing on sustainability, as well as designing and evaluating entomological educational programs. Students will work closely with the H.O. Lund Entomology Club organizing and participating in outreaches with the Insect Zoo throughout the semester. www.ent.uga.edu/insectzoo COURSE OBJECTIVES This course is designed to facilitate a partnership between the community and the Department of Entomology. Students enrolled in this course will spend significant time in local schools and community organizations hosting entomological programs. From this, the following goals are sought:  Improve the science experiences and science content knowledge of UGA and Athens students through hands-on science programs in schools and community events.  Provide experiences for students and teachers that will bring about more positive attitudes about science.  Develop a sense of community involvement for UGA students that will continue after graduation.  Promote science knowledge in a positive way to the community, students, and teachers.  Enhance the communication and leadership skills of UGA students.  Emphasize sustainability as the relationship between environmental limits of pollinators and human values, decisions, and actions. COURSE EXPECTATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS Weekly Written Assignments (300 points) Students will submit weekly written assignments according to the schedule provided (roughly one/week) via ELC. It is expected to be thoughtful and reflective. There will be questions assigned to guide your weekly written entries. See ELC

Reflective Summary of Experience (100 points) You will submit a Reflective Summary of Experience at the end of the semester by answering the following questions: 1. Describe your outreach involvement this semester. 2. Describe what you feel you have learned about society. 3. Describe what you feel you have learned about the processes of learning and teaching–you can refer to your own learning or the communities’ learning. 4. Did you learn any entomology in this experience? This could be something you had never learned before this experience, or something you feel you understand better because you taught it. 5. Suggest some service-learning projects for future Entomology Outreach & Service-Learning Courses and explain what would be needed to carry them out (community partners, funds, students, time, etc.). 6. What have you learned about sustainability this semester and how can you incorporate concepts of sustainability into your everyday life? 7. Describe any other effect participation in Entomology Outreach & ServiceLearning, has had on you as an individual. In other words, will you do or think about things differently because of this experience? Spending time at outreaches and volunteering (200 points) Please note you are expected to have 30 “contact” outreach hours (hours outside of the classroom). This may include planning, preparing, commuting, and facilitating the outreaches. This does not include class-time. This may include volunteering with the Insect Zoo or other organizations in Athens. Quizzes (200 points) There will be quizzes throughout the semester about insects in general and more specifically about insects and arthropods in the insect zoo. Social Media (100 pints) Each student is required to share/post 15 pictures/images/articles on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. UGABugDawgs [email protected] password bugdawgs Service-Learning Project (50) Students will interface with Discover Life on various online projects. www.discoverlife.org/moth

GRADE APPORTIONMENT Summary Reflection Outreach Hours Quizzes Weekly Journals Social Media Discover Life Service-Learning Project Professionalism

100pts 200pts 225pts 300pts 75pts 50pts 50pts Total 1000pts

A = 945 – 1000 points, A- = 900 – 944 points, B+ = 855 – 899 points, B = 800 – 854 points, C+ = 755 – 799 points, C = 700 – 725 points, D = 600 – 699, F < 599 Insect Zoo Sign-up If you sign up for an outreach you MUST ATTEND. I will send out confirmations 2 weeks prior to the outreach. Everyone on the list at that time is required to attend. If you cannot or do not attend there will be an automatic 10 point deduction in your grade. Attendance Policy Attendance is expected. Notify the instructor prior to your excused absence. Withdrawal Policy If a grade of WP or I is requested, University policy will be followed. Students with disabilities If you have a disability and would like to request classroom accommodations please see me after class or make an appointment. If you plan to request accommodations for a disability, please register with the Disability Resource Center at (706) 542-8719, 114 Clark Howell Hall University Honor Code and Academic Honesty Policy As a University of Georgia student, you have agreed to abide by the University’s academic honesty policy, “A Culture of Honesty,” and the Student Honor Code. All academic work must meet the standards described in “A Culture of Honesty” found at: www.uga.edu/honesty. Lack of knowledge of the academic honesty policy is not a reasonable explanation for a violation. Questions related to course assignments and the academic honesty policy should be directed to the instructor. The course syllabus is a general plan for the course; deviations announced to the class by the instructor may be necessary.

Appendix 2b: Most Recent Course Evaluations

Appendix 3: Invited presentations 2014 27 January, 2014 Join the dark side -- study the fabulous diversity of local moths to understand environmental changes University of Georgia, Entomology, Athens, GA 17 March, 2014 "Moth communities as indicators of environmental changes: results from natural experiments along a latitudinal gradient." National Ecological Observatory Network; Boulder, CO 26 March, 2014 Moth Party at Winged Deer Park Winged Deer Park; Johnson City, TN 2 May, 2014 Mothing: the highlights from this year Sandy Creek Nature Center; Athens, GA 12 May, 2014 Moth communities as indicators of environmental changes: results from natural experiments along a latitudinal gradient SESYNC workshop; Annapolis, MD 14 May, 2014 Using Discover Life for crowd-sourcing aerial photographs to survey sea birds. Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, MD 15 May, 2014 Moth communities as indicators of environmental changes: results from natural experiments along a latitudinal gradient. The National Science Foundation; Arlington , VA 16 May, 2014 Moth communities as indicators of environmental changes: results from natural experiments along a latitudinal gradient. United States Geological Survey, Reston , VA 22 May, 2014 Moth communities as indicators of environmental changes: results from natural experiments along a latitudinal gradient. Audubon Society – Webinar 30 May, 2014 Moth communities as indicators of environmental changes: results from natural experiments along a latitudinal gradient. California Academy of Sciences; San Francisco, CA

5 June, 2014 Join the dark side -- study the fabulous diversity of local moths to understand environmental changes Highlands Biological Station, Highlands, NC 25 June, 2014 Presentation to Young Scholars: Discover Life and your cell phone Sandy Creek Nature Center; Athens, GA 22 July, 2014 Moths -- presentation to Thai Learning Science Summer School University of Georgia, Athens, GA 23 July, 2014 Moth photography Sandy Creek Nature Center, Athens, GA 24 July, 2014 Moth identification University of Georgia, Athens, GA 19-27 July, 2014 National Moth Week Sandy Creek Nature Center, Athens, GA 26 August, 2014 "Monitoring moth communities as indicators of environmental health and changes." Department of Ecosystem Science, Biodiversity Institute, & Program in Ecology University of Wyoming; Laramie, WY 27 August, 2014 "Monitoring moth communities as indicators of environmental health and changes." Department of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 28 August, 2014 "Monitoring moth communities as indicators of environmental health and changes." U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Fort Collins, CO 29 August, 2014 "Monitoring moth communities as indicators of environmental health and changes." University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 4 September, 2014 "Monitoring moth communities as indicators of environmental health and changes." McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity University of Florida, Gainesville, FL

17 September, 2014 "Monitoring moth communities as indicators of environmental health and changes." Department of Biological Sciences Eastern Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN 27 September, 2014 "Monitoring moth communities as indicators of environmental health and changes." Southern Lepidopterist's Society; Gainesville, FL 11 November, 2014 "Research opportunities to study moths in Georgia and Costa Rica." Junior Seminar, Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 8 December, 2014 "Monitoring moth communities as indicators of environmental health and changes." Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology University of Delaware; Newark, DE

Appendix 4: Support to the Polistes Foundation YEAR 2001-2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 TOTAL

POLISTES REVENUE $201,445.00 $75,000.00 $157,860.00 $234,469.71 $369,214.30 $618,705.53 $367,190.44 $307,439.89 $216,025.87 $223,410.04 $2,770,760.78

DISCOVER LIFE

TO ODUM UGA

$201,445.00 $75,000.00 $157,860.00 $234,469.71 $310,561.48 $278,223.10 $257,200.94 $251,428.18 $209,025.87 $199,166.59 $2,174,380.87

$24,632.04 $57,130.47 $55,951.75 $13,530.12 $151,244.38

Appendix 4a: NSF Pollinator+ Project. Status: pending

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