Knowledge Neighborhoods

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Explores how surface runoff dynamics and hydrological mixing processes shape microbial and algal community succession across high-elevation watersheds in the Gunnison Basin.

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.