Knowledge Neighborhoods

Explores long-term population ecology of yellow-bellied marmots through decades of mark-recapture and behavioral observation, examining how social structure, winter survival, and antipredator behavior shape individual fitness and population dynamics.

Explores how alpine Brassicaceae — particularly Cardamine cordifolia — respond to shifting climate conditions through phenotypic plasticity, phenological timing, and balancing selection, integrating field census protocols with evolutionary genetics to understand plant fitness across elevational gradients.

Explores how floral traits, scent chemistry, and genetic variation in subalpine wildflowers — especially Ipomopsis and related Polemoniaceae — shape pollination interactions, niche overlap, and evolutionary dynamics under changing climate and environmental conditions.

Integrates intensive field campaigns, remote sensing, and sensor networks to understand snowpack dynamics, evapotranspiration, and surface energy fluxes across high-elevation Upper Colorado River Basin watersheds.

Explores how bees, hummingbirds, and other pollinators interact with Rocky Mountain wildflowers through field sampling, pollen analysis, and behavioral observation across subalpine meadows near Gothic, Colorado.

Investigates how climate change alters the timing of flowering and bee activity, with consequences for pollen-specialist solitary bees, plant-pollinator interactions, and brood success in high-elevation communities.

Integrates hydrological modeling, groundwater sampling, and geochemical analysis to understand subsurface reactive transport, carbon and weathering cycles, and uranium contamination dynamics across the East River Watershed and legacy uranium mill sites in western Colorado.

Integrates high-resolution remote sensing, geophysical surveys, and biogeochemical modeling to understand how mountain watershed structure, fluvial dynamics, and elemental cycling interact across elevation gradients in the East River basin and beyond.

Investigates how Rocky Mountain butterflies — particularly Colias and related Pieridae — respond to climate change through physiological traits like flight metabolic rate, dispersal capacity, and nutritional ecology, using respirometry and transplant experiments to understand evolutionary and population-level consequences.

Integrates stable isotope tracing, snowpack sampling, and model-data approaches to understand how snowmelt, subsurface heterogeneity, and topography control water routing and nutrient dynamics in mountainous headwater catchments.

Integrates genomic, spectral, and trait-based methods to understand how chromosome variation, leaf economics, and climate shape aspen population dynamics and decline across western landscapes.

Investigates how aquatic invertebrates — especially caddisfly larvae — shape nutrient cycling, decomposition, and food web dynamics across subalpine ponds that vary in water permanence, from temporary snowmelt pools to permanent wetlands.

Investigates how nutrient limitation, predator-prey dynamics, and chemical cues shape invertebrate communities and algal growth in high-altitude streams and freshwater systems.

Integrates field measurements, remote sensing, and GIS protocols to investigate how alpine and subalpine ecosystems — from fescue meadows to aspen stands — respond to and feed back on climate change across elevation gradients near Gothic, Colorado.

Develops and applies maximum entropy theory (METE) and species-area relationships to predict biodiversity patterns, abundance, and productivity across elevation gradients in subalpine and montane ecosystems under climate change.

Integrates satellite remote sensing, LiDAR, and machine learning downscaling to track snowmelt timing, growing degree days, and conifer forest responses to climate variability in subalpine Colorado.

Investigates how mycorrhizal and dark septate fungal symbionts shape plant performance, soil nutrient dynamics, and community diversity across alpine gradients and under climate change.

Combines thermal imaging of alpine patterned ground, bumblebee and ant behavioral experiments, and long-term pollinator monitoring to understand how physical microenvironments and chemical cues shape invertebrate foraging strategies in mountain ecosystems.

Investigates how snowmelt timing, host plant phenology, and top-down predation pressure shape aphid colony dynamics in alpine meadows, linking climate-driven phenological change to cascading effects across trophic levels.

Integrates regional geologic mapping, geochronology, and floodplain hydrostratigraphy to characterize the sedimentary, volcanic, and groundwater systems of the Gunnison Basin and surrounding southern Colorado ranges.

Integrates vegetation monitoring, LiDAR-based canopy analysis, and climate data across a wide elevational range in the Gunnison Basin to understand how mountain plant communities and forest structure respond to warming and disturbance.

Combines radio telemetry studies of Gunnison Sage-Grouse nesting success and seasonal habitat suitability with tree-ring and land-survey methods for reconstructing historical fire regimes across sagebrush and forest landscapes.

Integrates population dynamics datasets, genomic protocols, and demographic sampling methods to study brook trout, mayflies, and parasitic nematodes in Rocky Mountain streams.

Investigates how iron speciation, redox conditions, and colloidal transport shape soil organic carbon cycling in subalpine and floodplain environments, using advanced analytical methods including X-ray imaging and electron microscopy.

Examines how undergraduate research experiences — both in-person field settings and remote formats developed during COVID-19 — support student learning, computational skill development, and retention in STEM fields.

Combines LiDAR-based vegetation mapping, arthropod surveys, and foundational sagebrush ecology to understand how big sagebrush structures communities of insects and parasitoid wasps in western landscapes.

Aggregates oceanographic monitoring datasets—including vessel traffic, sea surface conditions, and salinity—collected through automated and underway sampling systems in coastal and marine environments.

Connects foundational ecological research on hummingbird energetics, salamander bioaccumulation, and grasshopper population genetics to the broader significance of the Gothic, Colorado field station as a site for alpine wildlife and ecosystem science.

Investigates how mammals ranging from small rodents to large ungulates respond behaviorally and spatially to human recreational trail use in Rocky Mountain ecosystems, using camera traps, live-trapping, and acoustic localization methods.

Spans Proterozoic geology of the Black Canyon and Uncompahgre region alongside ecological studies of montane wildlife, reflecting a broad natural history research tradition at RMBL.

Integrates water quality datasets, statistical load modeling, and regulatory standards to assess selenium and salinity conditions in Colorado watersheds, with connections to ecological restoration of mine-affected stream systems.

Connects legal and policy debates over Colorado River Compact curtailment risks with climate science on aridity, drought, and long-term water availability in the American West.

Investigates how DNA methylation patterns across mammalian species serve as molecular clocks for biological aging, revealing epigenetic mechanisms underlying the vast diversity in mammalian life spans.

Investigates the fossil record, paleoenvironments, and geochemical signatures of Late Cretaceous deposits in the Williams Fork Formation of northwestern Colorado, combining microvertebrate paleontology with strontium isotope analysis to reconstruct ancient marine-estuarine conditions.

Examines how courtship song, morphology, and genomic variation diverge across isolated populations of Drosophila montana and related virilis-group flies, combining field sampling with laboratory behavioral and genetic methods.

Examines how plant communities and soils develop over time on high-elevation landslide and earthflow disturbances in the Gunnison Basin, tracing successional stages from pioneer species through mature vegetation.

Reconstructs the long-term erosion and uplift history of the Elk Mountains and upper Colorado River basin using apatite (U-Th)/He thermochronology to determine when and how fast rocks were exhumed to the surface.

Investigates the neuroendocrine and metabolic mechanisms controlling seasonal fattening, food intake, and hibernation in yellow-bellied marmots, with a focus on insulin signaling, melatonin rhythms, and lipid-processing gene expression in white adipose tissue.

Investigates how cuticular hydrocarbons vary across castes, life stages, and geographic populations in the facultatively eusocial sweat bee Halictus rubicundus, linking chemical communication to the regulation of reproductive division of labor.

Examines the ecology and behavioral strategies of the American pika (Ochotona princeps), including how slope orientation and temperature shape activity patterns, responses to terrestrial predators, and the adaptive logic behind two-litter reproductive tactics.

Examines late Pleistocene and early Holocene human occupation of Colorado through Folsom projectile point assemblages and their environmental setting.

Investigates early human occupation of the Upper Gunnison Basin through geochemical sourcing of quartzite stone tools, using LA-ICP-MS and pilot experiments to trace raw material origins across the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

Investigates how irrigation and soil biogeochemical processes mobilize selenium, nitrogen, and carbon from Mancos Shale into groundwater and surface water in the Uncompahgre River Basin of western Colorado.

Explores the diversity, host specificity, and competitive dynamics of specialized bacterial symbionts in honeybee and bumblebee gut microbiomes, including how these microbes metabolize toxic compounds and antagonize one another.

Documents the design, construction, and multi-year performance of biochemical reactor systems for passively treating metal-contaminated mine drainage at the Standard Mine Superfund Site near Crested Butte, Colorado.

Characterizes newly identified polyoxometalate and uranyl sulfate minerals from historic mines in the Colorado Plateau region, expanding the known mineralogy of vanadium, arsenic, and uranium deposits.

Applies topographic map evidence to investigate the origin and evolution of major drainage divides across Colorado's river systems, including the Continental Divide and connections between the Colorado, Yampa, North Platte, and South Platte watersheds.

Describes new fossil specimens of Mesozoic reptiles — a goniopholid crocodyliform and a freshwater turtle — recovered from the Morrison Formation at Dry Mesa Quarry in Colorado.

Examines wintertime cloud microphysics and the effects of silver iodide cloud seeding on supercooled liquid water over the Grand Mesa of western Colorado.

Documents rare and notable mineral occurrences across historic mining districts in Ouray County, Colorado, including the Leadville Limestone, the Ohio Mine, and the Red Mountain District.

Early taxonomic documentation of larval trematode parasites collected from Gunnison County, Colorado, contributing foundational parasitological records for the region.