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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.