Bruce K Wylie, PhD, MS
Bruce’s focuses on remote sensing, GIS, and machine learning to produce useful spatiotemporal products to aid natural resource management. This includes invasive species, permafrost and forage change relate to droughts. Recent applications of Landsat/Sentinel harmonized data and high-performance computing are facilitating the transition of several 250m MODIS products to 30m.
Biography
Dr. Bruce Wylie has been involved in remote sensing applications to support natural resource management for since 1985, both internationally (Niger, Kazakhstan, and China) and domestically (Alaska and the western U.S.). Dr. Wylie has applied data mining approaches to map rangeland and crop carbon fluxes, surface water, depth to the top of the permafrost, probability of land cover change in Alaska, soil organic layer thickness, invasive cheatgrass, switchgrass biofuels, livestock forage drought impacts, and leveraging harmonized Landsat and Sentinel data to allow invasive species mapping at a 30m resolution. He developed an approach that isolates vegetation dynamics associated with weather from management and disturbance dynamics to aid ecosystem monitoring and understanding. He has a long history of collecting field data for remote sensing applications. He was a member of the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium team contributing to the development of the 2001 National Land Cover Database data mining mapping approaches. Dr. Wylie’s service to his discipline includes involvement on multiple master’s and doctoral students’ graduate committees at multiple universities.
Education: Dr. Wylie has a BS in Range Management from the University of Montana (Range Management/Forestry) and a MS and PhD from the New Mexico State University in Range Science with a minor in Remote Sensing.
Science and Products
Near-Real-Time Cheatgrass Monitoring
The USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center produces near-real-time estimates of annual herbaceous land cover for the Great Basin, Snake River Plain, Wyoming, and contiguous areas in the United States.
Estimates are based on enhanced Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (eMODIS) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data at 250-meter resolution.
Monitoring Arctic and boreal ecosystems through the assimilation of field-based studies, remote sensing, and modelling
Northern high-latitude regions are experiencing climate warming at rates nearly double that of lower latitudes, leading to warming and thawing of permafrost-affected soils, decomposition of previously frozen organic matter and increases in the number of large fire years, which can substantially impact social and environmental systems. Monitoring Arctic and boreal ecosystems of northern...
Identifying Lands Suitable for Biofuel Feedstock Crops by Dynamic Modeling of Ecosystem Performance
Demand for biofuel products is expected to increase as the world seeks alternatives to fossil fuels. Currently, ethanol produced from Midwest corn is the most common biofuel product in the United States. The negative environmental effects caused by corn-based biofuel development include soil erosion, water quality impairment from pesticides and fertilizer, and demand for water for irrigation....
Cheatgrass Dieoff Time-series Dynamics (2000 – 2010)
Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) is a winter annual grass that has invaded and altered the shrub steppe ecosystem in the Great Basin for about 100 years. This highly competitive grass invades recently disturbed areas and then outcompetes most native vegetation by using requisite resources like soil water and nutrients in early spring before other native plants. It also can alter its phenotype...
Carbon Flux Quantification in the Great Plains
Gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (Re) are the fundamental environmental characteristics which drive carbon exchanges between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere (Chapin and others, 2009), although other exchanges of carbon, for example, export or direct oxidation (Lovett and others, 2006) can modify net ecosystem production (NEP).
Ecosystem Performance, Productivity and Sustainability
Remotely-sensed data forms the backbone of the large-scale maps, models and assessments created at EROS to advance the understanding of Ecosystem Performance, Productivity and Sustainability.
Modeling Effects of Climate Change on Cheatgrass Die-Off Areas in the Northern Great Basin
Cheatgrass began invading the Great Basin about 100 years ago, changing large parts of the landscape from a rich, diverse ecosystem to one where a single invasive species dominates. Cheatgrass dominated areas experience more fires that burn more land than in native ecosystems, resulting in economic and resource losses. Therefore, the reduced production, or absence, of cheatgrass in previously...
Characterizing land surface phenology and exotic annual grasses in dryland ecosystems using Landsat and Sentinel-2 data in harmony
Invasive annual grasses, such as cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.), have proliferated in dryland ecosystems of the western United States, promoting increased fire activity and reduced biodiversity that can be detrimental to socio-environmental systems. Monitoring exotic annual grass cover and dynamics over large areas requires the use of remote...
Pastick, Neal; Dahal, Devendra; Wylie, Bruce K.; Parajuli, Sujan; Boyte, Stephen P.; Wu, Zhuoting Validating a time series of annual grass percent cover in the sagebrush ecosystem
We mapped yearly (2000–2016) estimates of annual grass percent cover for much of the sagebrush ecosystem of the western United States using remotely sensed, climate, and geophysical data in regression-tree models. Annual grasses senesce and cure by early summer and then become beds of fine fuel that easily ignite and spread fire...
Boyte, Stephen P.; Wylie, Bruce K.; Major, Donald J. Spatiotemporal remote sensing of ecosystem change and causation across Alaska
Contemporary climate change in Alaska has resulted in amplified rates of press and pulse disturbances that drive ecosystem change with significant consequences for socio‐environmental systems. Despite the vulnerability of Arctic and boreal landscapes to change, little has been done to characterize landscape change and associated drivers across...
Pastick, Neal J.; Jorgenson, M. Torre; Goetz, Scott J.; Jones, Benjamin M.; Wylie, Bruce K.; Minsley, Burke J.; Genet, Hélène; Knight, Joseph F.; Swanson, David K.; Jorgenson, Janet C. Using remote sensing to quantify ecosystem site potential community structure and deviation in the Great Basin, United States
The semi-arid Great Basin region in the Northwest U.S. is impacted by a suite of change agents including fire, grazing, and climate variability to which native vegetation can have low resilience and resistance. Assessing ecosystem condition in relation to these change agents is difficult due to a lack of a consistent and objective Site Potential (...
Rigge, Matthew B.; Homer, Collin G.; Wylie, Bruce K.; Gu, Yingxin; Shi, Hua; Xian, George Z.; Meyer, Debra K.; Bunde, Brett Geospatial data mining for digital raster mapping
We performed an in-depth literature survey to identify the most popular data mining approaches that have been applied for raster mapping of ecological parameters through the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remotely sensed data. Popular data mining approaches included decision trees or “data mining” trees which consist of regression...
Wylie, Bruce K.; Pastick, Neal J.; Picotte, Joshua J.; Deering, Carol Assessing historical and projected carbon balance of Alaska: A synthesis of results and policy/management implications
We summarize the results of a recent interagency assessment of land carbon dynamics in Alaska, in which carbon dynamics were estimated for all major terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems for the historical period (1950–2009) and a projection period (2010–2099). Between 1950 and 2009, upland and wetland (i.e., terrestrial) ecosystems of the state...
McGuire, A. David; Genet, Hélène; Lyu, Zhou; Pastick, Neal J.; Stackpoole, Sarah M.; Birdsey, Richard; D'Amore, David; He, Yujie; Rupp, T. Scott; Striegl, Robert G.; Wylie, Bruce K.; Zhou, Xiaoping; Zhuang, Qianlai; Zhu, Zhiliang Rapid crop cover mapping for the conterminous United States
Timely crop cover maps with sufficient resolution are important components to various environmental planning and research applications. Through the modification and use of a previously developed crop classification model (CCM), which was originally developed to generate historical annual crop cover maps, we hypothesized that such crop cover maps...
Dahal, Devendra; Wylie, Bruce K.; Howard, Daniel Mapping cropland waterway buffers for switchgrass development in the eastern Great Plains, USA
Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), a highly productive perennial grass, has been recommended as one potential source for cellulosic biofuel feedstocks. Previous studies indicate that planting perennial grasses (e.g., switchgrass) in high‐topographic‐relief cropland waterway buffers can improve local environmental conditions and sustainability...
Gu, Yingxin; Wylie, Bruce K. The role of environmental driving factors in historical and projected carbon dynamics of wetland ecosystems in Alaska
Wetlands are critical terrestrial ecosystems in Alaska, covering ~177,000 km2, an area greater than all the wetlands in the remainder of the United States. To assess the relative influence of changing climate, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, and fire regime on carbon balance in wetland ecosystems of Alaska, a modeling...
Lyu, Zhou; Genet, Helene; He, Yujie; Zhuang, Qianlai; McGuire, A. David; Bennett, Alec; Breen, Amy; Clein, Joy; Euskirchen, Eugenie S.; Johnson, Kristofer; Kurkowski, Tom; Pastick, Neal J.; Rupp, T. Scott; Wylie, Bruce K.; Zhu, Zhiliang Spatiotemporal analysis of Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 data to support monitoring of dryland ecosystems
Drylands are the habitat and source of livelihood for about two fifths of the world’s population and are highly susceptible to climate and anthropogenic change. To understand the vulnerability of drylands to changing environmental conditions, land managers need to effectively monitor rates of past change and remote sensing offers a cost-effective...
Pastick, Neal J.; Wylie, Bruce K.; Wu, Zhuoting Fusing MODIS with Landsat 8 data to downscale weekly normalized difference vegetation index estimates for central Great Basin rangelands, USA
Data fused from distinct but complementary satellite sensors mitigate tradeoffs that researchers make when selecting between spatial and temporal resolutions of remotely sensed data. We integrated data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor aboard the Terra satellite and the Operational Land Imager sensor aboard the...
Boyte, Stephen P.; Wylie, Bruce K.; Rigge, Matthew B.; Dahal, Devendra Modeling wildfire-induced permafrost deformation in an Alaskan boreal forest using InSAR observations
The discontinuous permafrost zone is one of the world’s most sensitive areas to climate change. Alaskan boreal forest is underlain by discontinuous permafrost, and wildfires are one of the most influential agents negatively impacting the condition of permafrost in the arctic region. Using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) of...
Molan, Yusef Eshqi; Kim, Jin-Woo; Lu, Zhong; Wylie, Bruce K.; Zhu, Zhiliang
EROS Work Informs USGS Sagebrush Ecosystem Efforts
The case for sagebrush habitat as the iconic landscape of the American West is a fairly one easy to make.
New Study Provides the First Comprehensive, Long-term Look at Alaska’s Changing Ecosystems
New research has revealed significant changes to Alaska’s landscape in recent decades
USGS Projects Large Loss of Alaska Permafrost by 2100
Using statistically modeled maps drawn from satellite data and other sources, U.S. Geological Survey scientists have projected that the near-surface permafrost that presently underlies 38 percent of boreal and arctic Alaska would be reduced by 16 to 24 percent by the end of the 21st century under widely accepted climate scenarios.