Clayton Ridenour and Andy Starostka of the Columbia NFWCO met at the Edward Zorinsky Federal Building in Omaha, Nebraska with partners to discuss data needs and the development of a report template for the 2008 HAMP field season data set.  Partners consisted of biologists and engineers from the Army Corps of Engineers, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and Missouri Department of Conservation.

A report template was developed by Nebraska Game and Parks Commission to standardize reporting efforts between upper and lower halves of the channelized river, yet acknowledge fundamental differences between these two “universes”; differences would be more apparent by summarizing each universe’s dataset in one format.  Currently, MDC is contracted for data entry and management of tables and figures populating the HAMP report template. 

Much of the meeting was centered around review of the 2007 report and ways to improve on this product.  Columbia NFWCO conducted additional data analyses beyond the scope of the template to investigate other important biological questions of HAMP not directly addressed by the template.  Several of these analyses included multivariate techniques to interpret complex community-ecosystem patterns to address long-term needs of the project.  Andy and Clayton carefully illustrated these non-traditional tools and provided the framework for others in the group to realize their utility and discuss whether they should be included as part of the template.

This, and other meetings like it, provide an avenue for information exchange among Missouri River monitoring projects and the development of better analysis to meet the specific goals and objectives of the projects.  These results will lead to our vision in leadership in science to recover an endangered species and protect sensitive communities.  This project will assist the Service’s Fishery Program with meeting its Partnership and Accountability goal of developing collaborative conservation strategies for aquatic resources.