The effects of anthropogenic change on pollination in plant-pollinator communities - L. Xingwen (2021)
The effects of anthropogenic change on pollination in plant-pollinator communities by Loy Xingwen Pollinators facilitate reproduction in \ 80% of global plant species, making them integral to many agricultural and natural ecosystems. For over 200 years, western scientists have been fascinated by the intimate partnerships between pairs of plant and pollinator species. However, current pollinator declines and biodiversity loss have brought to attention the ecology of multi-species plant-pollinator communities. Now more than ever, we need to understand how diverse communities of plants and pollinators sustain one another, and how human activities threaten them. To this end, we must first have clarity on how pollinator diversity benefits plant pollination. Numerous studies have shown that increasing pollinator diversity improves pollination function. Yet this positive relationship is not always detectable, and even when it is, we are often unable to definitively explain why it manifests. In

Snow melt timing acts independently and in conjunction with temperature accumulation to drive subalpine plant phenology - Diana K Jerome; William K. Petry; Kailen A. Mooney; Amy M. Iler (Global Change Biology, 2021)
AbstractOrganisms use environmental cues to align their phenology—the timing of life events—with sets of abiotic and biotic conditions that favor the successful completion of their life cycle. Climate change has altered the environmental cues organisms use to track climate, leading to shifts in phenology with the potential to affect a variety of ecological processes. Understanding the drivers of phenological shifts is critical to predicting future responses, but disentangling the effects of temperature from precipitation on phenology is often challenging because they tend to covary. We addressed this knowledge gap in a high‐elevation environment where phenological shifts are associated with both the timing of spring snow melt and temperature. We factorially crossed early snow melt and passive warming treatments to (1) disentangle the effects of snow melt timing and warming on the phenology of flowering and fruiting and reproductive success in three subalpine plant species (Delphinium n

Effects of nestling begging behavior on parental food provisioning in the Mountain White-crowned Sparrow - O. Kardohely (2021)
Nestlings have evolved to communicate their status of need through visual and vocal begging displays. These behaviors allow nestlings to obtain resources, aiding in their chance of reproductive success. I predicted that increased intensity of nestling begging behavior would lead to increased rates of parental food provisioning. This was tested by monitoring Mountain White- crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys oriantha) nests with cameras to collect both nestling and parent behavioral data. Linear regression analyses showed a significant but weak positive correlation between both the average gape and feeding frequency (R2= 0.06021, F-statistic = 3.075, p-value= 0.08587) and between average height and feeding frequency (R2= 0.05924, F= 3.023, p-value =0.08851). Since there is variation among clutch size, a regression analysis of average feeding frequency in relation to the clutch size displayed a significant and strong negative correlation (R2= 0.1099, F-statistic= 5.927, p-value= 0.0

New age constraints on the Late Cretaceous lower Williams Fork Formation, Coal Canyon, Colorado - Jordan T. Walker; Andres Aslan; Matthew T. Heizler; Rebecca A. Cole (The Mountain Geologist, 2021)
The precise age of terrestrial sediments in the Late Cretaceous Williams Fork Formation of western Colorado is poorly constrained due to a paucity of radiometric data. Sanidine and zircon dating of a volcanic ash encased in coal (i.e., the Coal Canyon ash) within the Cameo-Wheeler coal zone of the lower Williams Fork Formation in Coal Canyon, Colorado provides an important new age constraint for the southwestern Piceance Basin. A 10-30 cm thick, light gray, clayey mudstone encased in coal was sampled for both zircon U-Pb and sanidine 40Ar/39Ar geochronology. The presence of numerous euhedral zircon crystals, a lenticular geometry, and a clayey texture suggest that the mudstone is a minimally reworked and slightly altered volcanic ash. Analysis of the euhedral zircon crystals (n=108) in the ash produced a statistically robust U-Pb date with 93 grains yielding a weighed mean age of 74.52 ±0.11 Ma (1σ analytical uncertainty). 40Ar/39Ar sanidine analyses yielded a younger weighted mean age

Plant–pollinator interaction niche broadens in response to severe drought perturbations - K. L. Endres; D. A. Picklum; W. A. Barr; C. N. Morozumi; Heather M. Briggs; Amy M. Iler; Paul J. CaraDonna (Oecologia, 2021)
The composition of plant–pollinator interactions—i.e., who interacts with whom in diverse communities—is highly dynamic, and we have a very limited understanding of how interaction identities change in response to perturbations in nature. One prediction from niche and diet theory is that resource niches will broaden to compensate for resource reductions driven by perturbations, yet this has not been empirically tested in plant–pollinator systems in response to real-world perturbations in the field. Here, we use a long-term dataset of floral visitation to Ipomopsis aggregata, a montane perennial herb, to test whether the breadth of its floral visitation niche (i.e., flower visitor richness) changed in response to naturally occurring drought perturbations. Fewer floral resources are available in drought years, which could drive pollinators to expand their foraging niches, thereby expanding plants’ floral visitation niches. We compared two drought years to three non-drought years to analy

Profiting from the Peak: Landscape and Liberty in Colorado Springs - John Harner (University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2021)
Events and socioeconomic conditions that formed Colorado Springs and analyzing the built landscape and spatial layout, focusing on historic architecture. Examines the cultural values that define the city, showing how military and political and economic institutions, cultural movements, individuals, and policies have created a singular urban personality.–Provided by publisher.

Experimental Test of the Combined Effects of Water Availability and Flowering Time on Pollinator Visitation and Seed Set - Michael Gallagher; Diane R. Campbell (Frontiers of Ecology & Evolution, 2021)
Climate change is likely to alter both flowering phenology and water availability for plants. Either of these changes alone can affect pollinator visitation and plant reproductive success. The relative impacts of phenology and water, and whether they interact in their impacts on plant reproductive success remain, however, largely unexplored. We manipulated flowering phenology and soil moisture in a factorial experiment with the subalpine perennial Mertensia ciliata (Boraginaceae). We examined responses of floral traits, floral abundance, pollinator visitation, and composition of visits by bumblebees vs. other pollinators. To determine the net effects on plant reproductive success, we also measured seed production and seed mass. Reduced water led to shorter, narrower flowers that produced less nectar. Late flowering plants produced fewer and shorter flowers. Both flowering phenology and water availability influenced pollination and reproductive success. Differences in flowering phenolog

Nowcasting the distribution of Valeriana edulis using climate driven population models - M. Zeh (2021)
Climate change poses a unique problem for sessile species because individuals are unable to move to track their optimal habitat. Instead, population turnover governed by population processes must occur in order for the species distribution to change. Current methods to predict current and future species distributions are limited in that they are based on presence vs. absence data and use only currently observable climate regimes that may not reflect novel future climates. The first step towards improving our framework for predicting future species distributions is to develop a mechanistic model of species performance that uses contemporary data to predict the current spatial distribution of a specific species, then validate the model against field observations. Here we develop a Demographic Distribution Model (DDM) for Valeriana edulis, a long-lived species with a broad climatic niche, that uses an Integral Projection Model (IPM) to predict the individual- and population-level impacts

From Insects to Frogs, Egg–Juvenile Recruitment Can Have Persistent Effects on Population Sizes - B. J. Downes; J. Lancaster; W. D. Bovill; M. Alp; B. L. Peckarsky (Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 2021)
Understanding what regulates population sizes of organisms with complex life cycles is challenging because limits on population sizes can occur at any stage or transition. We extend a conceptual framework to explore whether numbers of successfully laid eggs determine densities of later stages in insects, fish, amphibians, and snails inhabiting marine, freshwater, or terrestrial habitats. Our review suggests novel hypotheses, which propose characteristics of species or environments that create spatial variation in egg densities and predict when such patterns are maintained throughout subsequent life-cycle stages. Existing data, although limited, suggest that persistent, strong associations between egg and subsequent juvenile densities are likely for species where suitable egg-laying habitat is in short supply. Those associations are weakened in some environments and for some species by density-dependent losses of eggs or hatchlings. Such cross-ecosystem comparisons are fundamental to ge

Social position indirectly influences the traits yellow-bellied marmots use to solve problems - C. A. Wu; Dana M. Williams; Daniel T. Blumstein (Animal Cognition, 2021)
Animals adapt to changing environments by behaving flexibly when solving problems. Traits, such as sex and age, and spe- cifically behavioral traits like persistence–the amount of time spent attempting to solve a problem, are positively associated with successful problem-solving. However, individuals face social pressures, such as aggression, which may directly alter an individual’s behavior or interact with sex or age, when they attempt to problem-solve. We examined the direct and indirect effects of social position and individual behavioral traits on solving a novel puzzle box in facultatively social yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer), using both generalized linear mixed models and confirmatory path analysis. We found strong support that marmots who used a diversity of behaviors were more successful problem-solvers and weak support that those who received more aggression were less successful. Additionally, marmots who received more aggression were less behaviorally diverse,

Direct Observation of the Depth of Active Groundwater Circulation in an Alpine Watershed - R. B. Wanty; Lyndsay B Ball; Andrew H Manning; Kenneth Hurst Williams (Water Resources Research, 2021)
AbstractThe depth of active groundwater circulation is a fundamental control on stream flows and chemistry in mountain watersheds, yet it remains challenging to characterize and is rarely well constrained. We collected hydraulic conductivity, hydraulic head, temperature, chemical, noble gas, and 3H/3He groundwater age data from discrete levels in two boreholes 46 and 81 m deep in an alpine watershed, in combination with chemical and age data from shallow groundwater discharge, to discern groundwater flow rates at different depths and directly observe active and inactive groundwater. Vertical head gradients are steep (average of 0.4) and thermal profiles are consistent with typical linear conductive continental geotherms. Groundwater deeper than ∼20 m is distinct from shallow groundwater and creek water in its chemistry, noble gas signature, and age (dominantly >65 years compared to <9 years). Together these results suggest low vertical groundwater flow velocities and a relatively

Effects of high temperature and early snowmelt on floral morphology and volatile organic compounds in Ipomopsis aggregata - D. Hopp (2021)
Climate change is causing warmer temperatures and earlier snowmelt throughout the mountains of Western North America. This study was designed to investigate how these two factors of temperature and snowmelt date influence floral traits, using Ipomopsis aggregata as a model species. While phenological shifts caused by temperature and snowmelt date have been studied in depth, impacts on physical traits such as floral morphology and emitted volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are less well known. In this research, both floral morphology and VOC identity and quantity were measured over one summer to determine if manipulated temperature and date of snowmelt have any effect on these characteristics. I. aggregata individuals treated with higher temperature developed longer corollas and produced more nectar and sugar. Volatile emissions were not strongly impacted by either higher temperature or early snowmelt.

Metal - John Harner (University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2021)

Bedrock weathering contributes to subsurface reactive nitrogen and nitrous oxide emissions - N. Harvey-Costello; Amanda Henderson; Tetsu Tokunaga; Jiamin Wan; M. E. Conrad; Markus Bill; Nicholas J. Bouskill; W. S. Brown; Alexander W. Newman; Wenming Dong; S. S. Hubbard; Curtis A. Beutler; et al. (Nature Geoscience, 2021)

A Quantitative Test of Folsom Unifacial Tool Recycling in Block C - Katherine A. Cross; Metin I. Eren; David J. Meltzer; Brian N. Andrews (University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2021)
which, following Aldenderfer (2006), we define as locations at elevations greater than 2,500 meters above sea level (e.g.,

Comparing pollen distribution on pollinators to floral community composition in the East River Valley - A. E. M. Baker (2021)
While plant-pollinator networks are salient markers of biodiversity, their mechanisms remain poorly understood. One theory describing pollination interactions is the Neutral Theory of Biodiversity, which asserts that plant-pollinator interactions are neutral, random processes based on species’ abundances. Other theories emphasize the importance of niches and species’ identities and traits in the pollination process. This study explores whether plant-pollinator interactions over June and July 2021 across two sites in the East River Valley, CO, are neutral or non-neutral by comparing the pollen diversity on solitary bees to that of the local floral community. Solitary bees were caught in transects and vortexed in the lab to obtain their collected pollen. Pollen slides were made from the collected pollen, and the pollen was counted and identified under a microscope. From a two-sample t-test and a generalized linear mixed effects model run in R, the pollen diversity on the solitary bees wa

Using Remote Sensing Data Fusion Modeling to Track Seasonal Snow Cover in a Mountain Watershed - Allison N. Vincent (2021)
Seasonal snowfall is the largest component of the water budget in many mountain headwater regions around the world. In addition to sustaining biological water needs in drier, lower elevation areas throughout the year, mountain snowpack also provides essential water inputs to the Critical Zone (CZ) - the outer layer of the Earth’s surface, which hosts a variety of biogeochemical processes responsible for transforming inorganic matter into forms usable for life. Water is a known driver of CZ activity, but uncertainty exists in its spatial and temporal interactions with CZ processes, particularly in the complex terrain of heterogeneous mountain areas. Increasing pressure on the CZ due to climate change and human land use needs creates an urgency to better understand the CZ system and how it may change in the future. An important variable for water driven CZ behaviors in mountain areas is the spatial extent of snow, also known as snow-covered area (SCA). SCA in mountain areas can change qu

A community‐supported weather and soil moisture monitoring database of the Roaring Fork catchment of the Colorado River Headwaters - James C. Arnott (Hydrological Processes, 2021)
AbstractLocal community interest in better understanding regional climate change impacts has motivated the establishment of a long‐term soil moisture and weather observation network in the Roaring Fork catchment of the Colorado River Headwaters. This catchment‐wide suite of 10 stations, installed between 2012 and 2020, collects frequent, fixed‐interval data on soil moisture, soil temperature, rain, air temperature, relative humidity, and (at some stations) snow across an elevational gradient from 1800 to 3680 m. In this paper we provide a description of the data this network provides, how data are accessed, and how this community‐supported effort has resulted in data that support mountain hydrology research with applications for resource management and climate change adaptation decision making. All data from this network are publicly available.

Fun - John Harner (University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2021)

The effects of drought on subalpine floral community diversity - S. Dewey (2021)
Global climate change is a threat to ecosystems globally. In subalpine environments, one of the

The Effect of Climate Change on Two Primitively Eusocial Bees - M. Troutman (2021)
High altitude regions are likely to be highly affected by climate change. Pollinators such as bees in these regions may have to change life history traits to survive. Because eusociality is associated with reduced mortality and increased resilience to resource variation, primitively eusocial bees may become increasingly social. Using data from 2010-2017 in the Irwin bees dataset, I evaluated the hypothesis that a warming climate will increase the probability of sociality in primitively eusocial bees. Social bees form two broods: one of workers, and one of breeders. Solitary bees typically have one brood. Measuring the difference in male and female emergence over time will allow me to assess sociality, that can be used to draw conclusions about the social status of bees known to be primitively eusocial. I would expect that bees that are eusocial will only produce males near the end of the female flight season, whereas bees that are solitary will produce males and females throughout thei

Relationships matter: How the social environment affects individual fitness-related behaviors - Dana M. Williams (2021)
Individuals respond to predators through an array of anti-predator behaviors that can be influenced by their social environment, specifically through protection from predators or by altering risk-resource trade-offs through competitive exclusion from resources. While social effects like group size are well studied, the specific ways in which different types of relationships, such as number of interaction partners or centrality in their group, influence consistent anti-predator behaviors is less understood. However, the effects of social relationships on behavior are not uniform between species or even between individuals. Here, we examined how an individual’s affiliative and agonistic social relationships impacted two personality traits related to anti-predator behavior (boldness and docility) in yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer ), a facultatively social species with unusual negative impacts of affiliative relationships. We found that docile individuals were less involved in

Nectar addition changes pollinator behavior but not plant reproduction in pollen rewarding Lupinus argenteus - Jacob M. Heiling; Rebecca E. Irwin (American Journal of Botany, 2021)
The addition of nectar to pollen-rewarding plants resulted in modest increases in per-flower pollinator visit duration and pollen transfer, but had no effect on reproduction because, at the place and time the experiment was conducted, plants were not pollen-limited. These results suggest that a pollen-only reward strategy may allow plants that are visited by pollen foragers to minimize some costs of reproduction by eliminating investment in other rewards, such as nectar, without compromising female plant fitness.

The sensory and cognitive ecology of nectar robbing - J. L. Barker; M. Baek; D. R. Papaj; Rebecca E. Irwin (Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 2021)
Animals foraging from flowers must assess their environment and make critical decisions about which patches, plants, and flowers to exploit to obtain limiting resources. The cognitive ecology of plant-pollinator interactions explores not only the complex nature of pollinator foraging behavior and decision making, but also how cognition shapes pollination and plant fitness. Floral visitors sometimes depart from what we think of as typical pollinator behavior and instead exploit floral resources by robbing nectar (bypassing the floral opening and instead consuming nectar through holes or perforations made in floral tissue). The impacts of nectar robbing on plant fitness are well-studied; however, there is considerably less understanding, from the animal’s perspective, about the cognitive processes underlying nectar robbing. Examining nectar robbing from the standpoint of animal cognition is important for understanding the evolution of this behavior and its ecological and evolutionary con

Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes explain mass gain variation in an obligate hibernator - G. C. Johnson; S. Degregori; P. H. Barber; G. C. Johnson; Daniel T. Blumstein (bioRxiv, 2021)
Abstract Body condition is an important life history challenge that directly impacts individual fitness and is particularly important for hibernating animals, whose maintenance of adequate body fat and mass is essential for survival. It is well documented that symbiotic microorganisms play a vital role in animal physiology and behaviour. Recent work demonstrates that gut microbes are associated with fat accumulation and obesity; Firmicutes is consistently associated with obesity while Bacteroidetes is associated with leanness both in humans and other animals. The focus of most microbiome studies has been on human health or involved lab reared animals used as a model system. However, these microbes likely are important for individual fitness in wild populations and provide potential mechanistic insights into the adaptability and survival of wildlife. Here we test whether symbiotic microorganisms within the phyla of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes are associated with summer mass gain in an

Challenging problems of quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) of meteorological time series data - Gilberto Pastorello; Roelof Versteeg; Boris Faybishenko; Deb Agarwal; Charuleka Varadharajan; Dipankar Dwivedi (Stochastic environmental research and risk assessment, 2021)
Representativeness and quality of collected meteorological data impact accuracy and precision of climate, hydrological, and biogeochemical analyses and predictions. We developed a comprehensive Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) statistical framework, consisting of three major phases: Phase I—Preliminary data exploration, i.e., pro- cessing of raw datasets, with the challenging problems of time formatting and combining datasets of different lengths and different time intervals; Phase II—QA of the datasets, including detecting and flagging of duplicates, outliers, and extreme data; and Phase III—the development of time series of a desired frequency, imputation of missing values, visualization and a final statistical summary. The paper includes two use cases based on the time series data collected at the Billy Barr meteorological station (East River Watershed, Colorado), and the Barro Colorado Island (BCI, Panama) meteorological station. The developed statistical framework i

Cytotype and genotype predict mortality and recruitment in Colorado quaking aspen ( Populus tremuloides ) - Michael Clyne; Marco Castaneda; L. L. Iversen; Madison Lusk; G. Richard Strimbeck; P. Gauzere; Savannah Troy; K. E. Mock; K. Dana Chadwick; J. A. Walton; Benjamin Blonder (Ecological Applications, 2021)
Accepted Article Species responses to climate change depend on environment, genetics, and interactions among these factors. Intraspecific cytotype (ploidy level) variation is a common type of genetic variation in many species. However, the importance of intraspecific cytotype variation in determining demography across environments is poorly known. We studied the tree species quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), which occurs in diploid and triploid cytotypes. This widespread species is experiencing contractions in its western range, which could potentially be linked to cytotype- dependent drought tolerance. We found that interactions between cytotype and environment drive mortality and recruitment across 503 plots in Colorado. Triploids were more vulnerable to mortality relative to diploids and had reduced recruitment on more drought-prone and disturbed plots relative to diploids. Furthermore, there was substantial genotype-dependent variation in demography. Thus, cytotype and genotype

Place - John Harner (University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2021)

Diverse cressdnaviruses and an anellovirus identified in the fecal samples of yellow-bellied marmots - A. Khalifeh; R. S. Fontenele; K. Schmidlin; C. Richet; A. Varsani; S. Kraberger; Daniel T. Blumstein (Virology, 2021)
Over that last decade, coupling multiple strand displacement approaches with high throughput sequencing have resulted in the identification of genomes of diverse groups of small circular DNA viruses. Using a similar approach but with recovery of complete genomes by PCR, we identified a diverse group of single-stranded viruses in yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaviventer) fecal samples. From 13 fecal samples we identified viruses in the family Genomoviridae (n = 7) and Anelloviridae (n = 1), and several others that ware part of the larger Cressdnaviricota phylum but not within established families (n = 19). There were also circular DNA molecules identified (n = 4) that appear to encode one viral-like gene and have genomes of <1545 nts. This study gives a snapshot of viruses associated with marmots based on fecal sampling.

Blocks X and Y - Andrew R. Boehm; Richard J. Anderson (University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2021)
which, following Aldenderfer (2006), we define as locations at elevations greater than 2,500 meters above sea level (e.g.,

Balancing the needs of consumers and producers for scientific data collections - Lavanya Ramakrishnan; J. Damerow; Gilberto Pastorello; Y. Cheah; D. S. Christianson; Deb Agarwal; Charuleka Varadharajan (Ecological Informatics, 2021)
Recent emphasis and requirements for open data publication have led to significant increases in data availability in the Earth sciences, which is critical to long-tail data integration. Currently, data are often published in a repository with an identifier and citation, similar to those for papers. Subsequent publications that use the data are expected to provide a citation in the reference section of the paper. However, the format of the data citation is still evolving, particularly with regards to citing dynamic data, subsets, and collections of data. Considering the motivations of both data producers and consumers, the most pressing need is to create user-friendly solutions that provide credit for data producers and enable accurate citation of data, particularly integrated data. Providing easy-to-use data citations is a critical foundation that is required to address the socio-technical challenges around data integration. Studies that integrate data from dozens or hundreds of datase

Nectar Variation in Simple and Compound Flowers; and its Effects on Plant Pollinator Interactions - I. Steinmann (2021)
Pollinators play an important role within a variety of ecosystems but are experiencing declines. In recent years, climate change has been affecting the mutualistic relationship between these organisms and the corresponding plants they interact with. It is important to closely study interactions such as visitation patterns to predict future behaviors more accurately. Visitation patterns vary greatly based on a variety of different factors such as availability of resources, competition, and morphology. In this study, the quantity and concentration of sugar in nectar across a variety of both simple and compound flower species was assessed by comparing umbellets to flowers. Upon analyzing the initial data, significant variance across all species studied was found with higher concentrations of nectar sugar appearing in compound umbellets (likely due to smaller flower size) and overall higher nectar volume appearing in simple flowers. Flower counts were also conducted, separately, to scale u

Lagged and dormant season climate better predict plant vital rates than climate during the growing season - Aldo Compagnoni; T. M. Knight; S. M. Evers; Tom E. X. Miller; R. Salguero-Gomez; Amy M. Iler; David W. Inouye (Global Change Biology, 2021)
AbstractUnderstanding the effects of climate on the vital rates (e.g., survival, development, reproduction) and dynamics of natural populations is a long‐standing quest in ecology, with ever‐increasing relevance in the face of climate change. However, linking climate drivers to demographic processes requires identifying the appropriate time windows during which climate influences vital rates. Researchers often do not have access to the long‐term data required to test a large number of windows, and are thus forced to make a priori choices. In this study, we first synthesize the literature to assess current a priori choices employed in studies performed on 104 plant species that link climate drivers with demographic responses. Second, we use a sliding‐window approach to investigate which combination of climate drivers and temporal window have the best predictive ability for vital rates of four perennial plant species that each have over a decade of demographic data (Helianthella quinquen

Modeling the Impact of Riparian Hollows on River Corridor Nitrogen Exports - J. H. Raberg; David Brian Rogers; M. E. Conrad; Boris Faybishenko; Markus Bill; Eoin L. Brodie; Bhavna Arora; Michelle Newcomer; Nicholas J. Bouskill; Patricia Fox; Carl I. Steefel; S. S. Hubbard; et al. (Frontiers in Water, 2021)
Recent studies in snowmelt-dominated catchments have documented changes in nitrogen (N) retention over time, such as declines in watershed exports of N, though there is a limited understanding of the controlling processes driving these trends. Working in the mountainous headwater East River Colorado watershed, we explored the effects of riparian hollows as N-cycling hotspots and as important small-scale controls on observed watershed trends. Using a modeling-based approach informed by remote sensing and in situ observations, we simulated the N-retention capacity of riparian hollows with seasonal and yearly hydrobiogeochemical perturbations imposed as drivers. We then implemented a scaling approach to quantify the relative contribution of riparian hollows to the total river corridor N budget. We found that riparian hollows primarily serve as N sinks, with N-transformation rates significantly limited by periods of enhanced groundwater upwelling and promoted at the onset of rainfall event

Pollination Preferences of Geranium richardsonii Between Bee and Fly Species at High and Low Elevations - S. Cooley (2021)
Geranium richardsonii was studied at three different elevations to determine if there was a change in the type of pollinator species that visited it. The purpose of this experiment was to test the hypothesis that flies are more abundant at higher elevations and replace bee species found at lower observation sites. Transects at Virginia Basin (3,438m), Avery Picnic (2,969m), and Ohio Pass (2,790m) used for a pollination network study from 2016 to 2021 were divided into one by two meter segments and were monitored for floral visitors. Visitors being determined as insects that visited Geranium richardsonii were collected and later identified as bees, flies and other insects. Although flower abundance of Geranium richardsonii varied between sites, there was no significant difference in the number of bee or fly visits to flowers. The results of this study show that bee and fly abundance at the elevations tested is comparable despite a difference in site flower abundance. To further this exp

Massive DNA "BORG" Structures Perplex Scientists - A. Dance (Nature, 2021)

Effect of elevation, season and accelerated snowmelt on biogeochemical processes during isolated conifer needle litter decomposition - Laura T. Leonard; Jonathon O. Sharp; Eoin L. Brodie; Kenneth Hurst Williams (PeerJ, 2021)
Increased drought and temperatures associated with climate change have implications for ecosystem stress with risk for enhanced carbon release in sensitive biomes. Litter decomposition is a key component of biogeochemical cycling in terrestrial ecosystems, but questions remain regarding the local response of decomposition processes to climate change. This is particularly complex in mountain ecosystems where the variable nature of the slope, aspect, soil type, and snowmelt dynamics play a role. Hence, the goal of this study was to determine the role of elevation, soil type, seasonal shifts in soil moisture, and snowmelt timing on litter decomposition processes. Experimental plots containing replicate deployments of harvested lodgepole and spruce needle litter alongside needle-free controls were established in open meadows at three elevations ranging from 2,800-3,500 m in Crested Butte, Colorado. Soil biogeochemistry variables including gas flux, porewater chemistry, and microbial ecolog

Apendix - Mark Stiger; David J. Meltzer; Brian N. Andrews (University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2021)
which, following Aldenderfer (2006), we define as locations at elevations greater than 2,500 meters above sea level (e.g.,

Animal-Driven Nutrient Supply Declines Relative to Ecosystem Nutrient Demand Along a Pond Hydroperiod Gradient - E. Jameson; B. W. Taylor; J. A. Balik; S. A. Wissinger; Howard Whiteman (Ecosystems, 2021)

Block B - Mark Stiger (University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2021)
which, following Aldenderfer (2006), we define as locations at elevations greater than 2,500 meters above sea level (e.g.,

Mammalian herbivores restrict the altitudinal range limits of alpine plants - Tom E. X. Miller; Jennifer A. Rudgers; Joshua S. Lynn (Ecology Letters, 2021)
Abstract Although rarely experimentally tested, biotic interactions have long been hypothesised to limit low‐elevation range boundaries of species. We tested the effects of herbivory on three alpine‐restricted plant species by transplanting plants below (novel), at the edge (limit), or in the centre (core) of their current elevational range and factorially fencing‐out above‐ and belowground mammals. Herbivore damage was greater in range limit and novel habitats than in range cores. Exclosures increased plant biomass and reproduction more in novel habitats than in range cores, suggesting demographic costs of novel interactions with herbivores. We then used demographic models to project population growth rates, which increased 5–20% more under herbivore exclosure at range limit and novel sites than in core habitats. Our results identify mammalian herbivores as key drivers of the low‐elevation range limits of alpine plants and indicate that upward encroachment of herbivo

Air - John Harner (University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2021)

Bigger is not always better: Viability selection on body mass varies across life stages in a hibernating mammal - A. H. M. Jebb; P. Bize; Julien G. A. Martin; Daniel T. Blumstein (Ecology and Evolution, 2021)
Body mass is often viewed as a proxy of past access to resources and of future survival and reproductive success. Links between body mass and survival or reproduction are, however, likely to differ between age classes and sexes. Remarkably, this is rarely taken into account in selection analyses. Selection on body mass is likely to be the primary target accounting for juvenile survival until reproduction but may weaken after recruitment. Males and females also often differ in how they use resources for reproduction and survival. Using a long-term study on body mass and annual survival in yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer), we show that body mass was under stabilizing viability selection in the first years of life, before recruitment, which changed to positive directional selection as age increased and animals matured. We found no evidence that viability selection across age classes on body mass differed between sexes. By investigating the link between running speed and

On the structure and significance of ecological niche breadth - Kelly A Carscadden (2021)

Understanding Organismal Capacity to Respond to Anthropogenic Change: Barriers and Solutions - C. R. Gabor; N. Bickford; J. Hua; M. O. Burford Reiskind; T. F. Wright; Stephanie N. Kivlin (Integrative and Comparative Biology, 2021)
Global environmental changes induced by human activities are forcing organisms to respond at an unprecedented pace. At present we have only a limited understanding of why some species possess the capacity to respond to these changes while others do not. We introduce the concept of multidimensional phenospace as an organizing construct to understanding organismal evolutionary responses to environmental change. We then describe five barriers that currently challenge our ability to understand these responses: (1) Understanding the parameters of environmental change and their fitness effects, (2) Mapping and integrating phenotypic and genotypic variation, (3) Understanding whether changes in phenospace are heritable, (4) Predicting consistency of genotype to phenotype patterns across space and time, and (5) Determining which traits should be prioritized to understand organismal response to environmental change. For each we suggest one or more solutions that would help us surmount the barri

Expanding in-stream flow rights as a mechanism for water conservation and aquatic ecosystem preservation - M. C. Buckelew (2021)

The effect of cytotype on radial growth rate in quaking aspen ( Populus tremuloides ) across environmental gradients - I. Banka (2021)
Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) trees are a foundation species that is widely distributed across all North America. Since the early 2000s, high levels of mortality have been observed in these forests. In recent decades, many quaking aspen forests have been experiencing high mortality rates. This large-scale mortality has been the subject of many studies attempting to ascertain the cause and gather knowledge which could aid in future forest management efforts. There have been observed differences between aspen ramets’ (individual stems) drought-response at small spatial scales under similar environmental conditions, which suggests intraspecific (within species) variation in drought mortality risk. Aspen ramets grow in genetically identical clones (genets) that have either two (diploid) or three (triploid) copies of each chromosome. My project investigated the effect of ploidy level on drought response in quaking aspen and sought to gather data on aspen cytotype growth rate differenc

Temperature Selection in the Arizona Tiger Salamander ( Ambystoma mavortium nebulosum ) - C. Bohus (2021)
High-elevation ecosystems are experiencing rapid warming and severe impact of global climate change. The Arizona Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma mavortium nebulosum) occurs in high elevation ponds in the West Elk Mountains of Colorado and offers a compelling system to test context-dependent responses to climate change. Larval salamanders either metamorphose into terrestrial metamorphs or become gilled, aquatic paedomorphs, thus, the morphs may be differentially affected by climate change. To determine how the different thermal environments experienced by the morphs affects their physiology, we will compare the preferred temperature of metamorphic adult salamanders from high-elevation ponds. A comparison of paedomorphs and metamorphs was initially desired but due to not being able to find any this summer only metamoprhs were used. The first objective is to construct and test a water-filled thermal gradient runway. The thermal gradient design will be improved until we can establish a reliabl

Investigating the relationship between Bombus appositus abundance and its overlap with key floral resources - E. Gitter (2021)
Many species of bumble bees (Bombus spp.) are experiencing population declines. In subalpine ecosystems, climate change is altering floral phenology by causing an earlier blooming period, which creates a growing season with sparser resources. Since bumble bees and their floral resources depend on phenological overlap for their mutualistic relationship to function, it is possible that changing floral phenologies could negatively impact pollinators. Bombus appositus is a pollinator of concern due its relatively narrow diet breadth and variable population abundance in the past seven years of study in the subalpine ecosystems near the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL). In this study, we explored the relationship between B. appositus worker abundance and the number of weeks of phenological overlap between bees and floral resources from 2015 - 2020. We also compared B. appositus worker abundance with the total floral abundance of B. appositus’ four key floral resources. We found no

Wetter summers mitigated temperature stress on Rocky Mountain forests during the last interglacial warm period - I. Insel; Ioana Stefanescu; Max Berkelhammer (Geophysical Research Letters, e2021GL093678, 2021)
Abstract Recent droughts have highlighted concerns of how rising summer temperatures will increase tree mortality rates across the western United States. We analyzed subfossil wood samples from Colorado dating to the last interglacial to assess the response of two common conifers to a previous warm period. The trees experienced comparable growth rates and water use efficiency during the interglacial relative to modern despite evidence from model simulations of a 30% increase in evaporative demand during the peak of the growing season. High‐resolution isotopic analysis of the wood samples show an enrichment in the late season cellulosic O relative to modern samples, which we find was associated with increased reliance on summer rain. The data are consistent with model simulations showing the interglacial was associated with wetter summers across the western US. We propose enhanced summer rain during this period compensated for drought stress imposed by higher evaporative demand.

Effects of climate change on the elevational distribution of bumble bees near Crested Butte, CO: comparing data across 47 years - S. Gram (2021)
As climate change continues to alter the abiotic environment, many organisms must adapt to survive. In montane systems where changes in elevation can present noticeable changes in temperature and moisture, many organisms may adapt to climate change by migrating to higher elevations. Bumble bees, which are diverse and abundant in temperate montane ecosystems, may be vulnerable to climate change as changing environments alter the composition of plants. However, it’s unclear whether the elevational ranges of bumble bees have shifted over time. Here, we analyze a new survey in the context of a long-term project monitoring the elevational distributions of bumble bee communities near Crested Butte, Colorado. Our findings suggest that some species may be shifting to higher elevation, but many appear to be stable.

Effects of Native and Non-native Predators on Aquatic Communities - E. Kerr (2021)
Predators impact the ecosystem in a top-down manner; however, we are not sure how non-native predators differ from native ones. In Colorado beaver ponds, non-native trout can change aquatic communities by preying on macroinvertebrates and excluding the native predator, tiger salamanders. Beaver ponds have high macroinvertebrate density, provide habitat for tiger salamanders, and support introduced trout populations thus providing a system to study macroinvertebrate communities based on the predator present. I sampled the macroinvertebrates in 18 beaver ponds; 6 containing fish, 6 containing salamanders, and 6 with no predators within the Gunnison Valley. My analysis revealed that there is no significant difference in the aquatic invertebrate communities between beaver ponds with trout, salamanders, or no predators, although there may be differences in diversity among pond types. The other analyses are currently ongoing, but so far it appears that trout and salamanders may be complement

Effects of Climate Variation and Nesting Traits on Sex Ratios of Adult Solitary Bees - W. Lovecky (2021)
In the face of environmental change, including climate change, many organisms’ biological and ecological processes are being altered. Adult sex ratios are directly related to an organisms’ reproductive success and long-term viability. Understanding what influences sex ratios in the face of these changes may help us to predict the success of an organism. Here we investigated how climate variation influences the adult sex ratios of twelve species of solitary bees present in what is now the Gothic, Colorado area. We looked at how climate variation, specifically snowmelt timing, may influence their adult sex ratios. We also explored how nesting traits may provide protection or susceptibility to climatic influence. Using long-term data collected by Dr. Rebecca Irwin’s lab and billy barr, we ran generalized linear models to understand the relationship between snowmelt timing and the sex ratios of each of the twelve selected bee species. We also ran these same models, but categorized bee spec

Morph and Sex differences in prey selectivity of tiger salamanders ( Ambystoma mavortium nebulosum ) - G. Sánchez Ruiz (2021)
The tiger salamander is the top predator of the benthic invertebrate in the ponds at the Mexican Cut Nature Preserve, and hence, one of the main influential factors on the benthic invertebrate community structure. Recent phenomena observed at the MCP, like earlier snowmelt dates of some of the ponds in response to climate change, could potentially result in changes to the community structure by affecting the timeline of encounters between salamanders and their usual prey. To assess changes in predation selectivity of the tiger salamander in response to climate change and how sex and morph alter this feeding relationships, feeding trials were conducted at the MCP. The salamanders representing both morphs and sexes were starved for 24 hours before the trials and placed in 52 cm × 36 ½ cm plastic boxes with different types of their usual prey. The results did not support our hypothesis of shifting diet preferences, fairy shrimp is still the preferred food source for metamorphs, and unexpe

Shifting macroecological patterns and static theory failure in a stressed alpine plant community - J. Franzman; M. Brush; K. Umemura; John Harte; Benjamin Blonder (Ecosphere, 2021)
Abstract Accumulating evidence suggests that ecological communities undergoing change in response to either anthropogenic or natural disturbances exhibit macroecological patterns that differ from those observed in similar types of communities in relatively undisturbed sites. In contrast to such cross‐site comparisons, however, there are few empirical studies of shifts over time in the shapes of macroecological patterns. Here, we provide a dramatic example of a plant community in which the species–area relationship and the species‐abundance distribution change markedly over a period of six years. These patterns increasingly deviate from the predictions of the maximum entropy theory of ecology (METE), which successfully predicts macroecological patterns in relatively static systems. The error in the species–area relationship prediction additionally correlates over time with increased stress measured as mortality minus recruitment, providing a link between demography and the failure of ma

Trade-off mitigation: a conceptual framework for understanding floral adaptation in multispecies interactions - James D. Thomson; A. Jurgens; K. Ohashi (Biological Reviews, 2021)
ABSTRACTExplanations of floral adaptation to diverse pollinator faunas have often invoked visitor‐mediated trade‐offs in which no intermediate, generalized floral phenotype is optimal for pollination success, i.e. fitness valleys are created. In such cases, plant species are expected to specialize on particular groups of flower visitors. Contrary to this expectation, it is commonly observed that flowers interact with various groups of visitors, while at the same time maintaining distinct phenotypes among ecotypes, subspecies, or congeners. This apparent paradox may be due to a gap in our understanding of how visitor‐mediated trade‐offs could affect floral adaptation. Here we provide a conceptual framework for analysing visitor‐mediated trade‐offs with the hope of stimulating empirical and theoretical studies to fill this gap. We propose two types of visitor‐mediated trade‐offs to address negative correlations among fitness contributions of different visitors: visitor‐mediated phenotypi

Chronic, low-level nitrogen deposition enhances abundances of ant-protected herbivores inhabiting an imperiled foundation species - Joshua B. Grinath (Acta Oecologica, 2021)
Abstract Atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition is driving changes in plant assemblages worldwide, but animal responses are not well understood, especially in relation to current widespread rates of low-level N deposition. Big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) is a foundation species in steppe ecosystems of western North America, where elevated, but low-level N deposition is prevalent. Sagebrush hosts numerous herbivorous and predatory arthropods, some of which form mutualistic (i.e. mutually beneficial) herbivore-predator associations that may be harmful for sagebrush. Here, I evaluated the response of a sagebrush arthropod assemblage to four and nine years of low-level N enrichment in Colorado, USA. Though sagebrush cover and arthropod abundances were not different in the fourth year, by the ninth year, N additions increased arthropod abundances due to greater numbers of sap-feeding insects that are mutualist partners of predaceous ants. Ant and non-mutualist herbivore abundances did not

Testing Nutrient Limitation Status Along a Subalpine Pond Hydroperiod Gradient - M. Crow (2021)

Effects of soil moisture and temperature on plant palatability and herbivore plant preference - S. Pittman (2021)
Climate change is predicted to lead to increased water and temperature stress for plants. Reduced soil moisture and higher temperatures have the potential to impact plant growth, development, and survival. Changes in plant physiology due to climate change may also impact insect herbivores. Herbivores influence plant community composition and plant distribution, so changes in herbivore feeding with climate change could alter plant communities. To better understand the potential impacts of climate change on plant-insect interactions, this study investigates the combined and separate effects of soil moisture and increased temperature on leaf palatability and herbivore plant preference. Four treatment types, ambient precipitation + ambient temperature, watered + ambient temperature, ambient precipitation + warmed, and watered + warmed, were established in the field in plots containing five common plants growing near Gothic, Colorado, Erigeron speciosus, Helianthella quinquenervis, Potentil

Take only pictures, leave only… Cameras influence marmot vigilance but not perceptions of risk - A. Burkle (2021)
Ecotourism promotes conservation efforts while also allowing for low impact observation of

The spatial variation of leaf traits in Ipomopsis according to soil moisture and snow depth - F. Talaba (2021)
This study analyzed how soil moisture and snow depth correlates with leaf traits of Ipomopsis aggregata across and within populations in the Crested Butte and Gothic, Colorado area. Earlier snowmelt due to global warming is lessening soil moisture in early summer in the Rocky Mountains and potentially affecting leaf traits that aid in photosynthesis. We expected that I. aggregata plants with low water availability to have leaf traits that more efficiently photosynthesize and conserve water. Variation in soil moisture within sites had weak or no effects on the leaf traits, except that stomatal density increased with soil moisture in sites that also had low snowpack. Sites with lower snow depth had lower leaf water content, lower specific leaf area (SLA), and trichome density but showed no average change in stomatal density and diameter. The variation across sites in leaf water content, SLA, and trichome density could be attributed to aiding in efficient photosynthesis and less transpira

Impacts of brood parasites, floral abundance, and bee age on maternal investment in a solitary bee, Osmia iridis - L. Heinrich (2021)
Parents can adjust both the size and number of offspring they produce in order to maximize their own fitness payoff (Smith & Fretwell 1974). Optimal parental investment is dependent in part on likelihood of offspring survival, which is impacted by predation and parasitism. When risk of predation or parasitism is high, it may be adaptive for parents to reduce either the number of offspring they produce or their investment in individual offspring. Brood parasitism by sapygid wasps represents a significant fitness cost for Osmia bees. Sapygid wasps enter brood cells during the provisioning or brood cell construction stages, when mother bees are absent collecting pollen and nectar provisions for their larvae or materials for constructing brood cell walls. In order to avoid losing their investment in offspring, Osmia bees should reduce provisioning time when parasitism risk is high, providing pollen provisions smaller than what would be optimal for offspring development. Alternatively, inst

Automated Cloud Based Long Short-Term Memory Neural Network Based SWE Prediction - A. Y. Meyal; A. Rodzianko; Erek Alper; Maya Franklin; David W. Johnson; Roelof Versteeg; Haruko M. Wainwright (Frontiers in Water, 2020)
Snow derived water is a critical component of a large part of the US water supply. Measurements of the Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) and associated predictions of peak SWE and snowmelt onset are essential inputs for water management efforts. This paper aims to develop a data-driven approach for estimating and predicting SWE dynamics using the Long Short-Term Memory neural network (LSTM) method. Our approach uses historical datasets (precipitation, air temperature, SWE and snow thickness) collected at NRCS Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) stations to train the LSTM network and current year data to predict SWE behavior. The performance of our prediction was compared for different prediction dates and prediction training datasets. Our results suggest that the proposed LSTM network can be an efficient tool for forecasting the SWE timeseries, as well as Peak SWE and snowmelt timing. Results showed that the window size impacts the model performance (where the Nash Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) ranged from

Changing Climate Drives Divergent and Nonlinear Shifts in Flowering Phenology across Elevations - J. M. Diez; C. David Bertelsen; Nicole E. Rafferty (Current Biology, 2020)
Climate change is known to affect regional weather patterns and phenology; however, we lack understanding of how climate drives phenological change across local spatial gradients. This spatial variation is critical for determining whether subpopulations and metacommunities are changing in unison or diverging in phenology. Divergent responses could reduce synchrony both within species (disrupting gene flow among subpopulations) and among species (disrupting interspecific interactions in communities). We also lack understanding of phenological change in environments where life history events are frequently aseasonal, such as the tropical, arid, and semi-arid ecosystems that cover vast areas. Using a 33-year-long dataset spanning a 1,267-m semi-arid elevational gradient in the southwestern United States, we test whether flowering phenology diverged among subpopulations within species and among five communities comprising 590 species. Applying circular statistics to test for changes in yea

Bumble bees are constant to nectar-robbing behaviour despite low switching costs - Rebecca E. Irwin (Animal Behaviour, 2020)
Individuals sometimes exhibit striking constancy to a single behaviour even when they are capable of short-term behavioural flexibility. Constancy enables animals to avoid costs such as memory constraints, but can also inflict significant opportunity costs through behaviour–environment mismatch. It is unclear when individuals should exhibit behavioural constancy and which types of costs most strongly influence such behaviour. We use a case in which individuals within a population exhibit more than one handling tactic for a single food type to investigate whether costs associated with switching among tactics constrain expression of intra-individual variation. Using wild bumble bees (Bombus spp.) that feed on nectar through flower openings (legitimate visits) or through holes at the base of flowers (robbing), we asked three questions. (1) Do individual bees exhibit tactic constancy within and across foraging bouts? (2) Are individuals willing to switch their food-handling tactics? (3) Is

How Spatial Variation Affects Plant Phenology - Z. Madsen (2020)
Climate change effects the timing of phenology, which can have consequences on plants and their pollinators. A critical reason for this is due to early snowmelt. However, there are other variables that could affect phenology. In heterogenous environments, plants could be buffered by these variables, thus understanding them will help understand the different effects climate change has over space. This study aims to focus on environmental variability within the East River Watershed. The results of this observational study shows that environmental variability has an effect on the timing of phenology. Moreover, three variables were discovered to have a correlation with phenology timing; elevation, timing of snow melt, and maximum soil moisture. Further studies that observe other variables, along with previous ones that could be reperformed with more data, will help us further understand how landscape affects our ecosystems.

Efficiency of the Summer Monsoon in Generating Streamflow Within a Snow-Dominated Headwater Basin of the Colorado River - David Gochis; Kenneth Hurst Williams (Geophysical Research Letters. DOI 10.1029/2020GL090856, 2020)
Abstract The North American Monsoon occurs July–September in the central Rocky Mountains bringing significant rainfall to Colorado River headwater basins. This rain may buffer streamflow deficiencies caused by reductions in snow accumulation. Using a data‐modeling framework, we explore the importance of monsoon rain in streamflow generation over historical conditions in an alpine basin. Annually, monsoon rain contributes 18 ± 7% water inputs and generates 10 ± 6% streamflow. The bulk of rain supports evapotranspiration in lower subalpine forests. However, rains have the potential to produce appreciable streamflow at higher elevations where soil moisture storage, forest cover, and aridity are low and rebound late season streamflow 64 ± 13% from simulated reductions in spring snowpack as a function of monsoon strength. Interannual variability in monsoon efficiency to generate streamflow declines with low snowpack and high aridity, implying the ability of monsoons to replenish streamflow

Exploring effects of proliferation of Didymosphenia geminata on abundance and coexistence of Rhyacophila species (Trichoptera) in streams near the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory - A. Ruiz (2020)

Quantifying Nectar Trait Responses to Natural Variation in Water Availability in Subalpine Plant Communities - G. Kirschke (2020)
Floral rewards are crucial for plant reproductive success and pollinator survival. Although nectar volumes and sugar concentrations have been quantified for many species of flowering plants, many questions remain regarding sources of intraspecific and interspecific variation, including the effects of abiotic factors, such as temperature and precipitation, on community nectar production. Many of these abiotic factors are being altered under climate change, limiting our ability to predict the production of the important resource. To help address this knowledge gap, I quantified nectar traits (volume, sugar concentration, and total sugar content) for 24 pollinator-visited plant species in subalpine meadows varying in water availability. This allowed me to quantify interspecific variation in nectar traits, and to compare nectar traits at both the community and species levels, (1) between dry and wet meadow habitats, and (2) between a dry, early-snowmelt year and a wet, late-snowmelt year.

Flying by night: Comparing crepuscular pollinator networks across two sites in Western North America - Daria Syskine (2020)
Recently, declines among both honeybees and native pollinators have raised concerns about the impacts of habitat loss and climate change on pollinators; likewise, studies have revealed that non-honeybee pollinators, including various Lepidoptera, are more important than previously thought for both agriculture and the maintenance of biodiversity within native ecosystems. Such research generally focuses on diurnal pollinator networks, while crepuscular pollinator networks remain largely understudied. However, what is known about crepuscular pollinator networks is that moths account for many of the plant-pollinator interactions and thus occupy a crucial place in these networks. There is still a deficit of information on crepuscular pollinator networks – many of the existing studies are focused on a specific moth-plant interaction, or are geographically restricted to specific sites. This study aimed to contribute to the growing body of literature documenting crepuscular pollinator network

Climate Change and Parasitism: An Investigation into Parasitic Bees' Climate Responses as Compared to their Hosts - I. Rivera; B. Swift; N. Johle; S. Dartnell (2020)
✦ Bombus insularis With an increase of research into how climate change has ✦ Sphecodes sp. affected bees, only a fraction of that research has been ✦ Kleptoparasite conducted in relation to bees with parasitic life history strategies. Parasitic bees serve important ecological roles in the ✦ Social Parasite population management of their hosts, which comprise a variety ✦ Climate Change of bee families and groups, while also providing pollination services to a variety of plants. This study analyzes the social ✦ Parasite-Host parasitic bee species Bombus insularis and kleptoparasitic bee Abundance genus Sphecodes as well as their respective hosts near the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory located in Gothic, Colorado over an 11 year and nine year period, respectively, to determine (1) if hosts and their parasites respond similarly to climate change, (2) whether host and parasite abundances are affected by the same environmental cues, and (3) which abiotic environmental factor(s) are dr

Determining whether tourist abundance and reproductive status predispose golden-mantled ground squirrels (Callospermophilus lateralis) to vehicular accidents - K. Burgstahler (2020)
Roads are a significant cause of biodiversity loss around the world, impacting wildlife by disrupting natural environment, changing abundance patterns of wildlife, and destroying habitat (Garrah et al. 2015). One of the most direct effects that roads have on animals is mortality from vehicular collision. Roads may be threatening to hibernating small mammals who rely on foraging because they may function as an ecological trap or an ecological sink (Ruiz-Capillas et al. 2015). This study examines roadkills in a known population of golden-mantled ground squirrels, Callospermophilus lateralis, (GMGS) at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) in Gothic, CO in order to determine how timing and adult female reproductive phase predispose GMGS to vehicular collision. I hypothesize that (1) roadkill events involving GMGS peak in early to mid-July due to tourist abundance during the Wildflower Festival and late August due to pre-hibernation foraging and (2) reproducing adult female GMGS

Advanced phenology of intraguild predators shifts herbivore host plant preference and performance - E. Cruz; B. Davidson; S. Trail; James H Den Uyl; Emily H Mooney; M. L. Mullins; Diane R. Campbell (Ecological Entomology, 2020)
1. The abundance of insect herbivores is mediated by interactions with higher and lower trophic levels. This research asks (i) how phenological change across trophic levels affects host plant quality and selection for aphids, and (ii) what higher trophic level mechanisms drive aphid abundance. 2. Ligusticum porteri is a perennial host for the sap‐feeding aphid Aphis asclepiadis and intraguild mirid predators (chiefly Lygus hesperus ) in Colorado. We used long‐term observational data to discover that aphids and mirids respond differently to phenological cues. These unique responses can impact aphid abundance through changes to host plant selection and quality. 3. We used behavioural choice assays to assess how advanced mirid phenology influences aphid host plant selection. More alates landed an

Assessing the forecastability & forecast skill of models to predict sex ratios of Valeriana edulis - Y. J. Zhang; S. Peterson (2020)
Anthropogenic actions are rapidly changing ecological systems, and the species specific responses to this change are expected to have great impacts on ecological organization, natural resource abundance, and human health. Scientists urgently need accurate forecasts to help inform social, political, and environmental decisions. However, from past attempts at ecological forecasts, it is unclear whether existing data and approaches are sufficient to meet this challenge. This study addresses this knowledge gap by forecasting the population sex ratio of the long-lived, dioecious perennial ​Valeriana edulis in which biased sex ratios increase the likelihood of extinction​. ​We constructed forecasting models with varying biological complexity, trained each model with historic data, and assessed the forecast skill of each model in predicting the sex ratio observed in 16 populations in 2020. Despite the prior expectation that male frequency is increasing in populations over time, our linear tre

Climate change disrupts local adaptation and favours upslope migration - Susana M. Wadgymar (Ecology Letters, 2020)
Jill T. Anderson1,2* and Contemporary climate change is proceeding at an unprecedented rate. The question remains Susana M. Wadgymar3 whether populations adapted to historical conditions can persist under rapid environmental 1 change. We tested whether climate change will disrupt local adaptation and reduce population Department of Genetics and Odum growth rates using the perennial plant Boechera stricta (Brassicaceae). In a large-scale field experi- School of Ecology University of ment conducted over five years, we exposed > 106 000 transplants to historical, current, or future Georgia Athens, GA 30602, USA 2 climates and quantified fitness components. Low-elevation populations outperformed local popu- The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory Crested Butte, CO lations under simulated climate change (snow removal) across all five experimental gardens. Local 81224, USA maladaptation also emerged in control treatments, but it was less pronounced than under snow 3 Biology Department David

Ecological contexts of balancing selection in nature (2020)
How genetic variation is maintained in the face of persistent natural selection is a central question in evolutionary biology. Here, I leverage a focal polymorphism, leaf chemical profile in a perennial wildflower (Boechera stricta, Brassicaceae) to investigate the ecological and genetic mechanisms that may influence the maintenance of variation in this trait. In the first chapter, I present data from a suite of common garden and greenhouse experiments showing that the alleles underlying variation in chemical profile have contrasting fitness effects across environments. I identify two putative selective drivers on chemical profiles, and utilize phenotype-environment associations and molecular genetic analyses to test for additional evidence of past selection by these drivers. Together, these data are consistent with balancing selection on chemical profile, likely caused by pleiotropic effects of genes that influence secondary chemical biosynthesis on herbivore defense and drought respo

Soil Respiration Response to Rainfall Modulated by Plant Phenology in a Montane Meadow, East River, Colorado, USA - J. L. Druhan; Maeve McCormick; C. R. Lawrence; Matthew Winnick; Katharine Maher (Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 2020)
AbstractSoil respiration is a primary component of the terrestrial carbon cycle. However, predicting the response of soil respiration to climate change remains a challenge due to the complex interactions between environmental drivers, especially plant phenology, temperature, and soil moisture. In this study, we use a 1‐D diffusion‐reaction model to calculate depth‐resolved CO2 production rates from soil CO2 concentrations and surface efflux observations in a subalpine meadow in the East River watershed, CO. Modeled rates are compared to in situ soil temperature and moisture conditions and MODIS satellite enhanced vegetation index (EVI) representing plant phenology across three hydrologically distinct growing seasons from 2016–2018. While soil respiration correlated with temperature on diel timescales (p < 0.05), seasonal variability was dominated by soil moisture and plant phenology (p < 0.05). We observed significant respiration increases in response to precipitation events; how

Remote sensing of ploidy level in quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) - B. T. Greer; Bente J. Graae; D. Sapena; R. Strimbeck; K. Helsen; M. Haagsma; Christopher Still; Benjamin Blonder (Journal of Ecology, 2020)

Plastic rain in protected areas of the United States - M. Hahnenberger; E. Heim; Janice Brahney; M. Hallerud; S. Sukumaran (Science, 2020)
Here, there, and everywhere No place is safe from plastic pollution. Brahney et al. show that even the most isolated areas in the United States—national parks and national wilderness areas—accumulate microplastic particles after they are transported there by wind and rain (see the Perspective by Rochman and Hoellein). They estimate that more than 1000 metric tons per year fall within south and central western U.S. protected areas. Most of these plastic particles are synthetic microfibers used for making clothing. These findings should underline the importance of reducing pollution from such materials. Science , this issue p. 1257 ; see also p. 1184

Heritability of Maternal Investment in Golden Mantled Ground Squirrels (Callospermophilus lateralis) - T. Stack (2020)

Biogeochemical characteristics and hydroperiod affect carbon dioxide flux rates from exposed high-elevation pond sediments - A. G. DelVecchia; S. Gougherty; B. W. Taylor; S. A. Wissinger (Limnology and Oceanography, 2020)
While inundated, small ponds (< 1000 m2 area) account for disproportionately large contributions of CO2 efﬂux to the global carbon budget and also store carbon in anoxic sediments. However, pond hydrology is shifting toward increasingly dry conditions in alpine and temperate zones, which might lead to increased exposure of shallow pond sediments. We analyzed sediment CO2 efﬂux rates in dried sediments of multiple ponds of varying hydrology and sediment characteristics at montane and subalpine elevations near the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Col- orado. Average CO2 efﬂux rates from exposed sediments, 331.5 11.5 mmol m−2 d−1 at the montane sites and 142.8 45.1 mmol m−2 d−1 at the subalpine sites, were 10 times higher than average CO2 efﬂux rates from pond water. Principal components analysis to reduce dimensionality of sediment characteristics revealed that random inter-pond differences rather than exposure timing or hydroperiod drove variation among sediments. In linear m

Morph- and sex-specific differences in corticosterone of Arizona tiger salamanders (Ambystoma mavortium nebulosum) - M. Zerger (2020)
Chronic stress can have detrimental effects on long-term health of amphibians. Sex and morph may cause variation in stress within salamanders such as the Arizona tiger salamaders (​Ambystoma mavortium nebulosum)​ at the Mexican Cut Nature Preserve due to differences in biotic or abiotic conditions (e.g., resource availability and reproductive opportunities). Established methods of sampling for stress hormones, or glucocorticoids, are often not suitable for working with threatened or endangered species, or for field use. A newly developed non-invasive sampling method of using swabs to collect dermal secretions is a rapid and reliable alternative to sample hormones from amphibian species in the field. We swabbed Arizona tiger salamanders dorsally to collect resting and elevated stress samples. Samples will be assayed using ELISA to detect variation in stress. This study will provide a better understanding of population health and body condition. Future research utilizing this method coul

Are ants botanists? Ant associative learning of plant chemicals mediates foraging for carbohydrates - G. Zapata; K. Sentner; Annika S. Nelson; Kailen A. Mooney (Ecological Entomology, 2020)
Abstract 1. Although associative learning is widespread across animals, its ecological importance is difficult to assess because learning is rarely studied in the field, where informative cues are juxtaposed against complex backgrounds of uninformative noise. 2. Ants rely heavily on chemical cues for foraging and engage in many ecologically important interactions with plants. Nevertheless, little is known about the role of associative learning of plant chemicals in ant foraging for carbohydrates. 3. In a field setting, the present study investigated whether the distantly related ant species Formica podzolica (Formicinae subfamily) and Tapinoma sessile (Dolichoderinae subfamily) exhibited associative learning of the chemical cues from two co‐occurring plant species that are taxonomically and chemically distinct (Asteraceae: Helianthella quinquenervis and Apiaceae: Ligusticum porteri ). 4. For two consecutive summers, ants were trained to forage from artificial sugar‐rich baits associate

Colorado River Basin - Lawrence J. MacDonnell (SSRN Electronic Journal, 2020)

Predictors and Strength of Microclimate Buffering in the Gunnison Valley - S. Martineau (2020)
Microclimate is an incredibly important factor in understanding how organisms behave and interact with their environment. Microclimate is defined as climate on a very small spatial resolution, referring to areas that may have differing climates than their surrounding macroclimate. Depending on the context, microclimate can refer to areas of many sizes, but in this study, microclimate refers to areas on the order of magnitude of about 1 square kilometer. In order to truly understand the interplay between organisms and climate, accurate climate understanding is necessary. Unfortunately, the majority of climate models are created at coarse spatial resolution, and weather measurements don’t typically represent the near-surface environments where most organisms are found. Since an organism depends on the local microclimate in its specific area, understanding of microclimate behavior at small spatial scales is crucial for comprehending the interplay between climate and ecology. In this study

Age and location influence the costs of compensatory and accelerated growth in a hibernating mammal - G. Medeiros de Pinho; S. Heissenberger; Julien G. A. Martin; Daniel T. Blumstein (Behavioral Ecology, 2020)
Abstract The increase of structural growth rates to compensate for a poor initial body condition, defined as compensatory growth, may have physiological costs, but little is known about its effects on individual fitness in the wild. Yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) are obligate hibernators and depend on fat accumulation acquired during an approximately 4-month summer to survive overwinter. We investigated the costs of survival and longevity of rapid growth in a wild population of yellow-bellied marmots. We used trapping data collected from 2002 to 2014 to calculate individual relative seasonal growth and assess its effects on longevity and annual survival of juveniles, yearlings, and adults. Sites were distributed in two main areas, down-valley and up-valley; the latter has a higher elevation and is an overall harsher environment. We found that relative seasonal growth had no effect on individual longevity or on juvenile and adult annual survival. For yearlin

Is the propensity to emit alarm calls associated with health status? - A. L. Nash; A. H. M. Jebb; Daniel T. Blumstein (Current Zoology, 2020)
The production and structure of animal signals may depend on an individual’s health status and may provide more than one type of information to receivers. While alarm calls are not typically viewed as health condition dependent, recent studies have suggested that their structure, and pos- sibly their propensity to be emitted, depends on an individual’s health condition and state. We asked whether the propensity of yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) to emit calls is influ- enced by their immunological or parasite status, by quantifying both trap-elicited and natural call- ing rates as a function of their neutrophil-to-lymphocyte (NL) ratio, the presence of a blood borne trypanosome, and the presence of several intestinal parasites (Eimeria sp., Entamoeba sp., and Ascaris sp.). We fitted mixed effects models to determine if the health measures we collected were associated with the probability of calling in a trap and with annual rates of natural alarm calling. Marmots infected

Groundwater Resources of Colorado’s San Luis Basin - Eric J. Harmon (University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2020)

Differential C-Q Analysis: A New Approach to Inferring Lateral Transport and Hydrologic Transients Within Multiple Reaches of a Mountainous Headwater Catchment - Madison Burrus; Bhavna Arora; Michelle Newcomer; Carl I. Steefel; Wenming Dong; S. S. Hubbard; Dipankar Dwivedi; Kenneth Hurst Williams (Frontiers in Water, 2020)
Concentration-discharge (C-Q) relationships have been widely used as “hydrochemical tracers” to determine the variability in riverine solute exports across event, seasonal, annual, and decadal time scales. However, these C-Q relationships are limited to investigating solute transport dynamics at individual sampling stations, such that they create an incomplete understanding of the solute behavior upstream or downstream of the sampling station. Therefore, the objective of this study is to develop, apply and assess a differential C-Q approach that can characterize spatial variability in solute behavior across stations, as well as investigate their controls, by following a different spatial scheme and organizing the river into multiple sections. The differential C-Q approach captures the difference in concentration in a river segment over the difference in discharge, thereby accounting for gains, losses or fractional solute turnover between sampling stations. Using water quality data coll

Investigating alpine plant community responses to simulated warming and dominant species removal at a low and high elevation in the Colorado Rocky Mountains - S. Calhoun (2020)

Temporal flexibility in the structure of plant–pollinator interaction networks - Nickolas M. Waser; Paul J. CaraDonna (Oikos, 2020)
Ecological communities consist of species that are joined in complex networks of interspecific interaction. These interactions often form and dissolve rapidly, but this temporal variation is not well integrated into our understanding of the causes and consequences of network structure. If interspecific interactions exhibit temporal flexibility across time periods over which organisms co‐occur, then the emergent structure of the corresponding network may also be flexible, something that a temporally‐static perspective will miss. Here, we use an empirical plant–pollinator system to examine short‐term (week‐to‐week) flexibility in network structure (connectance, nestedness and specialization) and in the individual species interactions that contribute to that structure across three summer growing seasons in a subalpine ecosystem. We then compared the properties of weekly networks to the properties of cumulative networks that aggregate field observations over each full summer season. As a t

Small spaces, big impacts: contributions of micro-environmental variation to population persistence under climate change - M. E. Rochford; Jordan B. Bemmels; M. I. Jameel; D. A. Denney (AOB Plants, 2020)
Individuals within natural populations can experience very different abiotic and biotic conditions across small spatial scales owing to microtopography and other micro-environmental gradients. Ecological and evolutionary studies often ignore the effects of micro-environment on plant population and community dynamics. Here, we explore the extent to which fine-grained variation in abiotic and biotic conditions contributes to within-population variation in trait expression and genetic diversity in natural plant populations. Furthermore, we consider whether benign microhabitats could buffer local populations of some plant species from abiotic stresses imposed by rapid anthropogenic climate change. If microrefugia sustain local populations and communities in the short term, other eco-evolutionary processes, such as gene flow and adaptation, could enhance population stability in the longer term. We caution, however, that local populations may still decline in size as they contract into rare

Nonconsumptive effects of Brook Trout predators reduce secondary production of mayfly prey - B. J. Koch; B. L. Peckarsky (Freshwater Science, 2020)
The nonconsumptive effects of predators on prey include behavioral, physiological, and life-history changes that reduce the risk of predation but have associated energetic or fitness costs to prey individuals and populations. Biologists have documented such changes for a wide array of predator–prey interactions in a variety of ecosystems; however, the energetic cost of nonconsumptive effects to prey populations has rarely been measured directly. Using a reach-scale manipulation of a naturally-fishless stream, we added chemical cues produced by live Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis Mitchill, 1814) to simulate the presence of trout predation risk, and we quantified the impact of nonconsumptive effects on the secondary production of mayfly prey in the stream. The addition of trout chemical cues reduced the secondary production of larval Baetis mayflies in the treatment reach by 17% compared to an upstream, unmanipulated reference reach. This reduction was driven by smaller body size and

Reimagining the Colorado River by Exploring Extreme Events - Andrea Gerlak; Amy McCoy; Katharine Jacobs; Season Martin (Eos, 2020)
Workshops exploring environmental, social, and political scenarios to prepare for negotiating new Colorado River water management guidelines took on added realism when the COVID-19 pandemic started.

Impacts of snowmelt timing and precipitation on the expression of vegetative traits and floral traits in Ipomopsis aggregata - B. Vega; S. Truex; Ayaka Paul (2020)
This study investigated the impact of water availability and snowmelt timing on the species ​Ipomopsis aggregata. ​We looked to discover if ​I. aggregata’​ s traits were plastic, and if that plasticity was adaptive. The two questions we aimed to answer were: How does timing of snowmelt and level of precipitation influence the expression of vegetative and floral traits in Ipomopsis aggregata​? Are the plastic responses of vegetative traits adaptive? We hypothesized that the traits would be plastic, and that the plasticity of the vegetetative traits would be adaptive. In order to analyze these questions, we measured vegetative traits including specific leaf area and trichome density, in addition to floral traits which included flower number, corolla length and width, style and stamen length, sepal width, 48-hour nectar production and nectar concentration. The experimental design included 6 10x10m plots, each with 4 2x2m plots within them. For snowmelt treatment, 3 of the 6 plots were cov

Seasonal Manganese Transport in the Hyporheic Zone of a Snowmelt-Dominated River (East River, Colorado) - Audrey Sawyer; C. M. Saup; S. R. Bryant; Annika S. Nelson; Martin Briggs; Michael J. Wilkins; J. N. Christensen; Kenneth Hurst Williams (Hydrogeology Journal, 2020)
Manganese (Mn) plays a critical role in river-water quality because Mn-oxides serve as sorption sites for contaminant metals. The aim of this study is to understand the seasonal cycling of Mn in an alpine streambed that experiences large spring snowmelt events and the potential responses to changes in snowmelt timing and magnitude. To address this goal, annual variations in river- water/groundwater interaction and Mn(aq) transport were measured and modeled in the bed of East River, Colorado, USA. In observations and numerical models, oxygenated river water containing dissolved organic carbon (DOC) mixes with groundwater rich in Mn(aq) in the streambed. The mixing depth increases during spring snowmelt when river discharge increases, leading to a greater DOC supply to the hyporheic zone and net respiration of Mn-oxides, despite an enhanced supply of oxygen. As groundwater upwelling resumes during the subsequent baseflow period, Mn(aq)-rich groundwater mixes with oxygenated river water,

A comparison of lodgepole and spruce needle chemistry impacts on terrestrial biogeochemical processes during isolated decomposition - Kristin Mikkelson; Zhao Hao; Jonathon O. Sharp; Laura T. Leonard; Eoin L. Brodie; Kenneth Hurst Williams (PeerJ, 2020)
This study investigates the isolated decomposition of spruce and lodgepole conifer needles to enhance our understanding of how needle litter impacts near-surface terrestrial biogeochemical processes. Harvested needles were exported to a subalpine meadow to enable a discrete analysis of the decomposition processes over 2 years. Initial chemistry revealed the lodgepole needles to be less recalcitrant with a lower carbon to nitrogen (C:N) ratio. Total C and N fundamentally shifted within needle species over time with decreased C:N ratios for spruce and increased ratios for lodgepole. Differences in chemistry correlated with CO 2 production and soil microbial communities. The most pronounced trends were associated with lodgepole needles in comparison to the spruce and needle-free controls. Increased organic carbon and nitrogen concentrations associated with needle presence in soil extractions further corroborate the results with clear biogeochemical

The impact of elevational gradients on dark septate endophytes (DSE) and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in mountains - A. Lintner (2020)
The biogeography of soil microbial communities is changing in response to increased anthropogenic disturbance, such as climate change. However, the response patterns of microbes to these rapid and accelerating changes is poorly quantified, especially when compared with our understanding of macroscopic aboveground response. The aim of this experiment was to elucidate the colonization patterns of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and dark septate endophytes (DSE) along two mountain gradients in Colorado and New Zealand. I hypothesize that, consistent with the observation that DSE are more tolerant of extreme conditions than AMF, DSE colonization is higher at high elevation, and conversely, AMF colonization is higher at low elevation. I scored stained root samples for fungal structures—the sample roots were collected from high and low elevation sites in both the Gunnison Basin, Colorado and the Tongariro National Park, New Zealand between 2014 and 2019. We found a significantly higher pr

Locating the Eastern Edge of a Sixty Kilometer-Wide Bull’s Eye of Miocene-Age Exhumation Near Taylor Peak A in Colorado’s Elk Mountains with Apatite (U-Th)/He Thermochronology - R. Kelleher (2020)
This research aims to clarify the timing and mechanics behind a sixty kilometer- wide Bull’s Eye of exhumation in Colorado’s Elk and West Elk mountains that took place about 15-8 million years ago (Ma). To do this, I use the apatite (U-Th)/He low temperature thermochronology (AHe) technique to study the burial history and exhumation rates of granite outcrops that I collected along two vertical transects. My objective is to constrain the eastern perimeter of the Bull’s eye of exhumation and to compare erosion rates from the center towards the edge along a six-kilometer long, 1.2 km high vertical transect that connects from Taylor Peak A’s summit at 4,095m (Figure 1) to a site in Castle Creek at 2,891m with already analyzed AHe data. My data suggest that the eastern edge of the Bull’s Eye is a few kilometers east of the summit of Taylor Peak A, near the Grizzly Peak Caldera, and that the White Rock granodiorite at the summit was emplaced at about 500m depth 34 million years ago. AHe date

Effects of climate change on alpine plants and their pollinators - David W. Inouye (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2020)
Alpine environments are among the habitats most strongly affected by climate change, and consequently their unique plants and pollinators are faced with the challenge of adapting or going extinct. Changes in temperature and precipitation affect snowpack and snowmelt, resulting in changes in the growing season in this environment where plant growth and pollinator activity are constrained to the snow-free season, which can vary significantly across the landscape if there is significant topographic complexity. As in other ecosystems, the resulting changes in phenology are not uniform among species, creating the potential for altered and new interspecific interactions. New plant and animal species are arriving as lower altitude species move up with warming temperatures, introducing new competitors and generating changes in plant-pollinator interactions. Repeating historical surveys, taking advantage of museum collections, and using new technology will facilitate our understanding of how pl

The impact of </Didymosphenia geminata> on the community structures of invertebrates in streams around the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab - M. Brogan (2020)
The long-term relationships between animal and plant species and their relationships to their abiotic environment are closely tied to climate change. Stream macroinvertebrates are excellent indicators of freshwater conditions and respond measurably to environmental changes. Previous studies have observed that the Holarctic diatom Didymosphenia geminata (Didymo) exhibits nuisance growth patterns (putting out polysaccharide stalks, blanketing the bottoms of streams in thick algal mats), and proliferations vary with stream flow and nutrient composition (especially present in low-flow, low-phosphorus streams). As climate change accelerates weather extremes intensify and we see more low-flow years that exacerbate D. geminata blooms. D. geminata may affect the mobility and food acquisition of freshwater invertebrate indicator species. For 45 years a study of the streams around Rocky Mountain Biological Lab has recorded macroinvertebrate community composition as well as a number of abiotic fa

Accelerated snowmelt protocol to simulate climate change induced impacts on snowpack dependent ecosystems - Chelsea Wilmer; Heidi Steltzer; Jonathon O. Sharp; Laura T. Leonard; Kenneth Hurst Williams (Bio-protocol, 2020)
Field studies that simulate the effects of climate change are important for a predictive understanding of ecosystem responses to a changing environment. Among many concerns, regional warming can result in advanced timing of spring snowmelt in snowpack dependent ecosystems, which could lead to longer snow-free periods and drier summer soils. Past studies investigating these impacts of climate change have manipulated snowmelt with a variety of techniques that include manual snowpack alteration with a shovel, infrared radiation, black sand and fabric covers. Within these studies however, sufficient documentation of methods is limited, which can make experimental reproduction difficult. Here, we outline a detailed plot-scale protocol that utilizes a permeable black geotextile fabric deployed on top of an isothermal spring snowpack to induce advanced snowmelt. The method offers a reliable and cost-effective approach to induce snowmelt by passively increasing solar radiation absorption at th

Significant stream chemistry response to temperature variations in a high-elevation mountain watershed - Wei Zhi; D. Kerins; Langlang Li; W. S. Brown; Wenming Dong; Kenneth Hurst Williams (Communications Earth & Environment. DOI: 10.1038/s43247-020-00039-w, 2020)
Abstract High-elevation mountain regions, central to global freshwater supply, are experiencing more rapid warming than low-elevation locations. High-elevation streams are therefore potentially critical indicators for earth system and water chemistry response to warming. Here we present concerted hydroclimatic and biogeochemical data from Coal Creek, Colorado in the central Rocky Mountains at elevations of 2700 to 3700 m, where air temperatures have increased by about 2 °C since 1980. We analyzed water chemistry every other day from 2016 to 2019. Water chemistry data indicate distinct responses of different solutes to inter-annual hydroclimatic variations. Specifically, the concentrations of solutes from rock weathering are stable inter-annually. Solutes that are active in soils, including dissolved organic carbon, vary dramatically, with double to triple peak concentrations occurring during snowmelt and in warm years. We advocate for consistent and persistent monitoring of high elevat

More social female yellow-bellied marmots, Marmota flaviventer, have enhanced summer survival - A. Montero; Dana M. Williams; Julien G. A. Martin; Daniel T. Blumstein (Animal Behaviour, 2020)

Ocean warming can predict drought on Colorado river - Ian Morse (New Scientist, 2020)

Distant seas might predict Colorado River droughts - Warren Cornwall (Science, 2020)

Water quality in dynamic redox environments: Coupled hydrologic-biogeochemical controls on metal contaminant mobility - Christian Dewey (2020)
Rising population and changing climate threaten to increase the risks posed by anthropogenic and geogenic metal contaminants to our freshwater resources. Increased human demand for freshwater coupled with altered hydrologic cycles will shift (bio)geochemical conditions in soils and sediments, potentially driving transformations of metal contaminants from stationary (solid) phases to mobile forms subject to transport and human consumption. Understanding the fundamental controls on phase transformations of metal contaminants is thus essential for predicting the risk they impose. Often, redox processes control partitioning of metal contaminants in surface and subsurface environments, whether by changing the redox state of the metal itself, or by transforming the metal host(s). In the subsurface, redox processes are commonly driven by hydrologic conditions. My research seeks to understand how redox associated biogeochemical processes arising from and coupled to hydrologic conditions impact

Support early-career field researchers - N. C. Underwood; Brian D. Inouye; Rebecca E. Irwin; David W. Inouye (Science, 2020)
Pandemic-induced restrictions on research are now ubiquitous. We urge administrators and policy-makers to recognize that field researchers—especially those early in their careers—face unique challenges, even if restrictions last only a month or two. Bans on travel, hiring, and facility use are forcing many researchers to abandon the entire field season, losing a full year of irreplaceable data and research-training opportunities. The loss of data is most damaging for multi-year projects, which are common in the case of field research. For example, a lost year in a demographic study renders multiple years of data uninterpretable because data on growth and survival between years are required for analysis. Similarly, in any system with lagging effects, the loss of a single season can have multi-year consequences on analyses. For long-term studies, the loss of a single year may seem less damaging, but increasing climate variance means that each season brings new insights. The impact of l

TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access - Sandra Diaz; J. Kattge; P. Leadley; I. C. Prentice; G. Bonisch; S. Lavorel; Benjamin Blonder (Global Change Biology, 2020)
Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development

Older mothers produce more successful daughters. - Jane M. Reid; Svenja B. Kroeger; Kenneth B. Armitage; Julien G. A. Martin; Daniel T. Blumstein (Proceedings of the National Academy of the United States, 2020)
Annual reproductive success and senescence patterns vary substantially among individuals in the wild. However, it is still seldom considered that senescence may not only affect an individual but also affect age-specific reproductive success in its offspring, generating transgenerational reproductive senescence. We used long-term data from wild yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) living in two different elevational environments to quantify age-specific reproductive success of daughters born to mothers differing in age. Contrary to prediction, daughters born to older mothers had greater annual reproductive success on average than daughters born to younger mothers, and this translated into greater lifetime reproductive success. However, in the favorable lower elevation environment, daughters born to older mothers also had greater age-specific decreases in annual reproductive success. In the harsher higher elevation environment on the other hand, daughters born to older mothers te

Temporal Variation of Thermal Microhabitat Use of Tiger Salamanders - J. Hlivko; J. A. Sanchez (2020)
Climate change is increasing global temperatures, which forces many species to experience environments that they have not been previously exposed to. Ectotherms are particularly sensitive to temperature shifts, and previous research suggests that changes in phenology and habitat use can help species mitigate climate change. Arizona Tiger salamanders (Ambystoma mavortium nebulosum) are polymorphic amphibians that often live at high elevations, making them particularly susceptible to climatic shifts. In this study, we explored the temporal variation of thermal microhabitat use of tiger salamanders at the Mexican Cut Nature Preserve. By using quadrats placed in the thermal areas of permanent and semi-permanent ponds, we tested whether salamanders are using different microhabitats throughout the day based on temperature. We also used remote detection of PIT-tagged animals and temperature recordings to compare the use of vegetated and non-vegetated microhabitats based on water temperature i

Heritable variation in the timing of emergence from hibernation - M. N. Edic; Julien G. A. Martin; Daniel T. Blumstein (Evolutionary Ecology, 2020)
Global climate change is shifting many species’ phenology and has created a number of key mismatches that threaten population persistence. Phenotypically plastic individuals have the ability to adjust their behaviour in response to environmental change. While phe- notypic plasticity may serve as a buffer, it is generally not known whether in case this plas- ticity is insufficient there is additive genetic variation in the phenological trait so that popu- lations’ may also show an evolutionary response. We show that hibernation emergence date of yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer), a trait that has been significantly advanc- ing in recent years and is associated with increased spring temperature, is phenotypically plastic. Furthermore, we used the quantitative genetic ‘animal model’ to decompose vari- ation in emergence date and show there is significant heritable variation. We infer that so far phenotypic plasticity has allowed marmots to track the environmental changes leadin

Temporal scale-dependence of plant–pollinator networks - N. P. Chacoff; L. A. Burkle; C. F. Dormann; Theodora Petanidou; C. Rasmussen; E. Motivans; B. Gauzens; D. P. Vázquez; J. Fründ; M. MacLeod; R. Alarcón; S. Q. Huang; et al. (Oikos, 2020)
The study of mutualistic interaction networks has led to valuable insights into ecological and evolutionary processes. However, our understanding of network structure may depend upon the temporal scale at which we sample and analyze network data. To date, we lack a comprehensive assessment of the temporal scale‐dependence of network structure across a wide range of temporal scales and geographic locations. If network structure is temporally scale‐dependent, networks constructed over different temporal scales may provide very different perspectives on the structure and composition of species interactions. Furthermore, it remains unclear how various factors – including species richness, species turnover, link rewiring and sampling effort – act in concert to shape network structure across different temporal scales. To address these issues, we used a large database of temporally‐resolved plant–pollinator networks to investigate how temporal aggregation from the scale of one day to multiple

Wild hummingbirds discriminate nonspectral colors - E. R. Soucy; M. C. Stoddard; H. N. Eyster; B. G. Hogan; D. H. Morris; David W. Inouye (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020)
Many animals have the potential to discriminate nonspectral colors. For humans, purple is the clearest example of a nonspectral color. It is perceived when two color cone types in the retina (blue and red) with nonadjacent spectral sensitivity curves are predominantly stimulated. Purple is considered nonspectral because no monochromatic light (such as from a rainbow) can evoke this simultaneous stimulation. Except in primates and bees, few behavioral experiments have directly examined nonspectral color discrimination, and little is known about nonspectral color perception in animals with more than three types of color photoreceptors. Birds have four color cone types (compared to three in humans) and might perceive additional nonspectral colors such as UV+red and UV+green. Can birds discriminate nonspectral colors, and are these colors behaviorally and ecologically relevant? Here, using comprehensive behavioral experiments, we show that wild hummingbirds can discriminate a variety of no

Pollinator visitation rate and effectiveness vary with flowering phenology - Michael Gallagher; Diane R. Campbell (American Journal of Botany, 2020)
PremiseFlowering time may influence pollination success and seed set through a variety of mechanisms, including seasonal changes in total pollinator visitation or the composition and effectiveness of pollinator visitors.MethodsWe investigated mechanisms by which changes in flowering phenology influence pollination and reproductive success of Mertensia ciliata (Boraginaceae). We manipulated flowering onset of potted plants and assessed the frequency and composition of pollinator visitors, as well as seed set. We tested whether floral visitors differed in their effectiveness as pollinators by measuring pollen receipt and seed set resulting from single visits to virgin flowers.ResultsDespite a five‐fold decrease in pollinator visitation over four weeks, we detected no significant difference in seed set among plants blooming at different times. On a per‐visit basis, each bumblebee transferred more conspecific pollen than did a solitary bee or a fly. The proportion of visits by bumblebees i

Behavioral and spatial dynamics in a fluctuating population of golden-mantled ground squirrels (Callospermophilus lateralis) - J. R. Aliperti (2020)
Investigating individual-based habitat settlement and space use decisions (i.e., how

Baseflow Age Distributions and Depth of Active Groundwater Flow in a Snow Dominated Mountain Headwater Basin - David W. Marchetti; Richard Niswonger; Andrew H Manning; Kenneth Hurst Williams (Water Resource Research doi 10.1029/2020WR028161, 2020)
Abstract Deeper flows through bedrock in mountain watersheds could be important, but lack of data to characterize bedrock properties limits understanding. To address data scarcity, we combine a previously published integrated hydrologic model of a snow‐dominated, headwater basin of the Colorado River with a new method for dating baseflow age using dissolved gas tracers SF 6 , CFC‐113, N 2 , and Ar. The original flow model predicts the majority of groundwater flow through shallow alluvium (<8 m) sitting on top of less permeable bedrock. The water moves too quickly and is unable to reproduce observed SF 6 concentrations. To match gas data, bedrock permeability is increased to allow a larger fraction of deeper and older groundwater flow (median 112 m). The updated hydrologic model indicates interannual variability in baseflow age (3–12 years) is controlled by the volume of seasonal interflow and tightly coupled to snow accumulation and monsoon rain. Deeper groundwater flow remains stab

Peter J. Golas Professor of History, University of Denver, Colorado (1937-2019) - Hans Ulrich Vogel (East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, 2020)

The Return of the Native: Northern Ute Removal from and Return to Colorado Ancestral Homelands - S. A. L. L. Y. McBETH (University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2020)

Complete Genome Sequences for Pseudomonas sp. Strains 29A and 43A - Martyn Clark; D. A. Baltrus; Parris T Humphrey; Noah K Whiteman (Microbiology Resource Announcements DOI: 10.1128/MRA.00845-20, 2020)
Pseudomonas sp. strains 29A and 43A were originally isolated from the phyllosphere of individual plants of Cardamine cordifolia (Brassicaceae). Here, we report complete genome sequences for these two closely related strains, assembled using a hybrid approach combining Illumina paired-end reads and longer reads sequenced on an Oxford Nanopore MinION flow cell.

The East River Community Observatory Data Collection: Diverse, multiscale data from a mountainous watershed in the East River, Colorado - David W. Johnson; M. Henderson; Erek Alper; Zarine Kakalia; Valerie Hendrix; D. S. Christianson; Madison Burrus; Roelof Versteeg; Deb Agarwal; Eoin L. Brodie; Charuleka Varadharajan; S. S. Hubbard; et al. (Authorea, 2020)
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) East River community observatory (ER) in the Upper Colorado River Basin was established in 2015 as a representative mountainous, snow-dominated watershed to study hydrobiogeochemical responses to hydrological perturbations in headwater systems. Led by the Watershed Function Science Focus Area (SFA), the ER has both long-term and spatially-extensive observations paired with experimental campaigns. The Watershed Function SFA, led by Berkeley Laboratory, includes researchers from over 30 organizations who conduct cross-disciplinary process-based investigations and mechanistic modeling of watershed behavior in the ER. The data generated at the ER are extremely heterogeneous, and include hydrological, biogeochemical, climate, vegetation, geological, remote sensing, and model data that together comprise an unprecedented collection of data and value-added products within a mountainous watershed, across multiple spatiotemporal scales, compartments, and lif

Contrasting effects of climate change on seasonal survival of a hibernating mammal. - B. D. Gerber; L. S. Cordes; D. Z. Childs; Kenneth B. Armitage; Paul J. CaraDonna; Julien G. A. Martin; Daniel T. Blumstein (Proceedings of the National Academy of the United States, 2020)
Significance Climate change is altering the seasonal environmental conditions to which animals have adapted, but the outcome may differ between seasons for a particular species. Demographic responses therefore need disentangling on a seasonal basis to make accurate forecasts. Our study shows that climate change is causing seasonally divergent demographic responses in a hibernating mammal. Continued climate change will likely have a positive effect on summer survival but a negative effect on winter survival. This potentially has wide-ranging consequences across other species occupying temperate to more extreme arctic and alpine habitats, which are also where the most rapid changes in climate are observed.

The role of non-caddisfly taxa on detrital processing in montane ponds - A. Stogsdill; B. Cleveland (2020)
Understanding the processing of detritus by different macroinvertebrates in montane ponds is important because either directly or indirectly most energy and nutrients flow through the detrital pathway. Understanding the degree to which macroinvertebrate species vary in detrital processing is central to predicting how climate- or other environmentally-induced shifts in species abundance and distribution will effect detritus processing and subsequent energy flow and nutrient cycling. Thus, our main question is, what is the role of non-caddisfly taxa on detrital processing in montane ponds? We tested three hypotheses 1) Compared to ​L. externus, chironomids (non-biting midges) effects may be small because of their small body size. Alternatively, because metabolic activity is inversely related to body size, midge per unit body mass effects may be equal or greater than ​L. externus​. Size can play a large factor in how much an animal can consume. Next, we hypothesize that 2) non-caddisfly t

Low predictability of energy balance traits and leaf temperature metrics in desert, montane and alpine plant communities - S. T. Michaletz; Sabastian Escobar; Benjamin Blonder (Functional Ecology, 2020)
Abstract Leaf energy balance may influence plant performance and community composition. While biophysical theory can link leaf energy balance to many traits and environment variables, predicting leaf temperature and key driver traits with incomplete parameterizations remains challenging. Predicting thermal offsets (δ, Tleaf − Tair difference) or thermal coupling strengths (β, Tleaf vs. Tair slope) is challenging. We ask: (a) whether environmental gradients predict variation in energy balance traits (absorptance, leaf angle, stomatal distribution, maximum stomatal conductance, leaf area, leaf height); (b) whether commonly measured leaf functional traits (dry matter content, mass per area, nitrogen fraction, δ13C, height above ground) predict energy balance traits; and (c) how traits and environmental variables predict δ and β among species. We address these questions with diurnal measurements of 41 species co‐occurring along a 1,100 m elevation gradient spanning desert to alpine bio

Density effects on juvenile female dispersal in a population of golden-mantled ground squirrels - N. T. Nguyen; J. Isidro (2020)
Dispersal, the movement of individual from their natal site to breeding sites or between breeding sites, is one of many mechanisms that species establish to increase the gene flow among population. Population density, which associates with competition, can have a great effect on the dispersal rate through increasing resource competition and agonistic interaction between individuals. Observation on an asocial species, the golden-mantled ground squirrel, shows that despite being a species with male-biased dispersal, many females exhibit natal dispersal. In this study, we looked at whether total and local density have any effect of female natal dispersal. We used 25 years of collected data on female juvenile location and activity at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory to test our hypotheses: density has a positive effect on female juvenile golden-mantled ground squirrel dispersal. Our result shown that neither total nor local density have significant effect on dispersal. Thus, it is

Changes at treeline within the San Juan Mountains of Colorado - Steven J. Cardinal (2020)
Repeat photography is a field method to study landscape change over time, yet most studies use a single pair of photographs spanning upwards of a century or more to ascertain change. In this study, I used repeat photography to study vegetation change across high-elevation environments within the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado on decadal time scales. At five photo sites, I compared present conditions to both a historical photograph (ca. 1875-1910) and one from 2002 to determine if climate-induced thresholds have impacted high-elevation forests. Results from this research suggest that (1) tree establishment is increasing at 80 percent of photo sites and (2) spruce beetle-induced mortality is evident at 60 percent of sites. To increase the temporal resolution of when the spruce beetle outbreak occurred, I used remote sensing change detection analysis for the periods 2003-2011 and 2011-2019., Given the level of change detected between 2011-2019, spruce beetle-induced mortality

Optimal multisensory integration - Nathalie Munoz; Daniel T. Blumstein (Behavioral Ecology, 2020)

Competition for nectar resources does not affect bee foraging tactic constancy - Rebecca E. Irwin (Ecological Entomology, 2020)
1. Competition alters animal foraging, including promoting the use of alternative resources. It may also impact how animals feed when they are able to handle the same food with more than one tactic. Competition likely impacts both consumers and their resources through its effects on food handling, but this topic has received little attention. 2. Bees often use two tactics for extracting nectar from flowers: they can visit at the flower opening, or rob nectar from holes at the base of flowers. Exploitative competition for nectar is thought to promote nectar robbing. If so, higher competition among floral visitors should reduce constancy to a single foraging tactic as foragers will seek food using all possible tactics. To test this prediction, field observations and two experiments involving bumble bees visiting three montane Colorado plant species ( Mertensia ciliata

The Snowmelt Niche Differentiates Three Microbial Life Strategies That Influence Soil Nitrogen Availability During and After Winter - Harry Beller; Shi Wang; Alexander Polussa; Ulas Karaoz; Patrick O. Sorensen; Heidi Steltzer; Yuxin Wu; Nicholas J. Bouskill; Eoin L. Brodie; Markus Bill; S. S. Hubbard; Kenneth Hurst Williams (Frontiers in Microbiology. doi 10.3389/fmicb.2020.00871, 2020)
Soil microbial biomass can reach its annual maximum pool size beneath the winter snowpack and is known to decline abruptly following snowmelt in seasonally snow-covered ecosystems. Observed differences in winter versus summer microbial taxonomic composition also suggests that phylogenetically conserved traits may permit winter- versus summer-adapted microorganisms to occupy distinct niches. In this study, we sought to identify archaea, bacteria, and fungi that are associated with the soil microbial bloom overwinter and the subsequent biomass collapse following snowmelt at a high-altitude watershed in central Colorado, United States. Archaea, bacteria, and fungi were categorized into three life strategies (Winter-Adapted, Snowmelt-Specialist, Spring-Adapted) based upon changes in abundance during winter, the snowmelt period, and after snowmelt in spring. We calculated indices of phylogenetic relatedness (archaea and bacteria) or assigned functional attributes (fungi) to organisms within

Testing trade-offs and the dominance–impoverishment rule among ant communities - Robert R. Dunn; Raphael Boulay; J. D. Berggreen; Annika S. Nelson; Nathan J. Sanders (Journal of Biogeography, 2020)
AbstractAimAnt communities are believed to be structured by competition, with dominant species competitively excluding subordinates (the dominance–impoverishment rule). However, a high number of seemingly similar species coexist, possibly due to interspecific trade‐offs. Here, we examine the evidence for the dominance–impoverishment rule across a broad latitudinal gradient and explore whether trade‐offs explain coexistence within and among ant communities.Location40 sites in 19 countries across Europe, western North America and northern South America.TaxonFormicidae.MethodsWe conducted 2‐hr baiting experiments at each site. Three dominance scores were calculated for each species at each site where it occurred. We then examined the relationship between ant dominance and diversity and tested for the generality of three trade‐offs (dominance–discovery, dominance–thermal tolerance and dominance–generalism) within and among ant communities along with the possible effects of environmental va

Geochemical Controls on Release and Speciation of Fe(II) and Mn(II) From Hyporheic Sediments of East River, Colorado - Amrita Bhattacharyya; M. E. Conrad; Sergio Carrero; Markus Bill; Patricia Fox; Wenming Dong; P. S. Nico; Dipankar Dwivedi (Frontiers in Water, 2020)
Hyporheic zones act as critical ecological links between terrestrial and aquatic systems where redox-sensitive metals of iron (Fe) and manganese (Mn) significantly impact nutrient cycling and water quality. However, the geochemical controls on the release and speciation of Fe(II) and Mn(II) in these biogeochemical hotspots are still poorly understood. Here we conducted batch incubation experiments and analyzed Fe K-edge extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy data using sediment samples from a hyporheic zone of the East River floodplain in Colorado to understand the production, release and speciation of Fe(II) and Mn(II) in groundwater. Our results indicate that the production and release of Fe(II) and Mn(II) vary with sediment reducing conditions and subsurface positions, and the rates were determined either by a zero- or first-order rate equation. The sediments with higher Fe(II) production did not necessarily result in higher release of dissolved Fe(II), and ≥9

Experience may outweigh cue similarity in maintaining a persistent host plant-based evolutionary trap. - Rachel A Steward; Carol L. Boggs (Ecological Monographs. doi 10.1002/ecm.1412, 2020)
Abstract Rapid environmental change can decouple previously reliable cues from important resources, causing specialized recognition systems to result in maladaptive behaviors. For native herbivorous insects, such evolutionary traps are often imposed by attractive invasive plants that prove harmful to their offspring. Despite the costs of ovipositing on a poor‐quality host, evolutionary traps are expected to persist when overlapping cue sets (cue similarity) link decreased preference for the novel, unsuitable plant with decreased preference for the historical or native resource. We evaluated the role of cue similarity in the persistence of maladaptive oviposition by a native butterfly on a lethal, invasive mustard. While the novel plant shares glucosinolate cues with at least one of the native hosts and the most abundant cue is a strong oviposition stimulant, we found that this cue was not a major driver of preference for either plant. Nor was preference for the two plants correlated, m

Integrating airborne remote sensing and field campaigns for ecology and Earth system science - John Musinsky; Harmukh Singh; Andea Scott; Kathleen Grant; Alexander Polussa; Tristan Goulden; Maeve McCormick; A. Khurram; B. Whitney; Maceo Hastings Porro; C.F. (Rick) Williams; M. Hancher; et al. (Methods in Ecology, 2020)
Accepted Article Point 1: In recent years the availability of airborne imaging spectroscopy (hyperspectral) data has expanded dramatically. The high spatial and spectral resolution of these data uniquely enable spatially explicit ecological studies including species mapping, assessment of drought mortality, and foliar trait distributions. However, we have barely begun to unlock the potential of these data to use direct mapping of vegetation characteristics to infer subsurface properties of the critical zone. To assess their utility for Earth systems research, imaging spectroscopy data acquisitions require integration with large, coincident ground-based datasets collected by experts in ecology and environmental and Earth science. Without coordinated, well-planned field campaigns, potential knowledge leveraged from advanced airborne data collections could be lost. Despite the growing importance of this field, documented methods to couple such a wide variety of disciplines remain sparse.

The Impact of Warming and Species Removal on Soil Respiration at Low and High Elevations - B. Sharon (2020)
Warming temperatures are altering ecosystems, including the plants and soil communities that regulate the carbon cycle. Warming can directly alter the carbon cycle by altering plant and soil community respiration; however, altering plant communities can also have impacts on the carbon cycle. The dominant species in ecosystems also play a large role in ecosystem carbon dynamics because of the unique plant traits present in the ecosystem and plant and soil communities being formed by plant interactions. Soil respiration (carbon efflux) is produced by plant roots as well as soil community respiration and thus is a good integrator of how the soil and plant system may respond to warming and species removal. This study is a part of a long term (6+ year) warming and species removal in Mountains (WaRM) experiment to explore how warming (+2°C) and species removal altered soil respiration. Open-top chambers increased the overall air and soil temperatures and species were removed by cutting all d

Ritual Places and Sacred Pathways of Ute Spiritual/ Mundane Landscapes in the Southern Colorado Rockies - Robert H. Brunswig (University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2020)

An investigation into the effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) to dark septate endophytes (DSE) ratio on the coarse root to fine root ratio at varying elevation in the rocky mountains - A. Silver (2020)
Belowground systems are crucial for sustaining ecosystem function, but often remain unseen. Not very much is known about these systems and improving knowledge of them can aid understanding of ecosystems. Elevational gradients can be good places to test how above- and belowground systems respond to changes in climate. In this study I wanted to see how the relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and plants changes in response to elevation by observing changes in root and shoot biomass. I sampled from three sites of varying elevation and collected aboveground biomass and root biomass. The latter was divided into coarse root and fine root biomass. I then compared changes in biomass across the elevation gradient. I found that both fine and coarse root biomass tended to increase with elevation. The ratio of fine to coarse root biomass decreased with increasing elevation. Therefore, plants at high elevation produce fewer fine roots relative to coarse roots. This indicates a greater reliance on

Early snowmelt and warming independently drive the reproductive phenology of subalpine wildflowers - Diana K Jerome (2020)

Using Apatite (U-Th)/He Thermochronology to Determine Exhumation Rates and the Topographical History of the Elk Mountains Ph.D - H. Camm (2020)
Low temperature AHe thermochronology shows that Gothic Mountain, at the center of a bull's-

Persistence and Plasticity in Conifer Water-Use Strategies - Francois Ritter; Lesleigh Anderson; Christopher Still; Mariah Carbone; Matthew Winnick; Max Berkelhammer; Kenneth Hurst Williams (JGR Biogeosciences, 2020)
AbstractThe selective use of seasonal precipitation by vegetation is critical to understanding the residence time and flow path of water in watersheds, yet there are limited datasets to test how climate alters these dynamics. Here, we use measurements of the seasonal cycle of tree ring O for two widespread conifer species in the Rocky Mountains of North America to provide a multi‐decadal depiction of the seasonal origins of forest water use. The results show that while the conifer tree stands had a dominant preference for use of snowmelt, there were multi‐annual periods over the last four decades when use of summer precipitation was preferential. Utilization of summer rain emerged during years with increased snowfall and tree growth, suggesting that summer rain enhanced the transpiration stream only during the periods of highest water use. We hypothesize this could be explained through shallowing of the root profile during wetter periods and/or through the influence of changing water

Tracing phenology trends in time and space using herbarium data and citizen science observations in western Colorado - K. Alvarado (2020)

The effects of recreational trail use on small mammal species richness and abundance - A. Bermudez; V. Rodriguez; D. Novoa (2020)
RMBL is a prominent field station in Colorado containing native plants and animals of Western Colorado. The recreational trails near the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) are an important resource for the community. They generate touristic income for the surrounding cities and are an important place for scientific research and education. However, human activity can lead to behavioral and ecological changes in wildlife and communities. Knowing whether the regulations currently being implemented to regulate the trails are sufficient to protect the wildlife is imperative. Utilizing triggered camera traps for small mammals implemented from a study conducted in 2019 and trail cameras, we looked into the effects of recreational trails on small mammals. This three-part study compared rodent activity from bucket camera trapping to the live trapping census; measured human activity by trail game cameras on trails with different levels of pedestrian and biker activity; and, determined t

Elevation alters outcome of competition between resident and range shifting species - I. D. Shepard; H. S. Greig; S. A. Wissinger (Global Change Biology. doi 10.1111/gcb.15401, 2020)
Species' geographic range shifts toward higher latitudes and elevations are among the most frequently reported consequences of climate change. However, the role of species interactions in setting range margins remains poorly understood. We used cage experiments in ponds to test competing hypotheses about the role of abiotic and biotic mechanisms for structuring range boundaries of an upslope range-shifting caddisfly Limnephilus picturatus. We found that competition with a ubiquitous species Limnephilus externus significantly decreased L. picturatus survival and emergence at subalpine elevations supporting the notion that species interactions play a critical role in determining upslope range limits. However, without competitors, L. picturatus survival was greater at high-elevation than low-elevation sites. This was contrary to decreases in body mass (a proxy for fecundity) with elevation regardless of the presence of competitors. We ultimately show that species interactions can be impor

Remote Sensing-Informed Zonation for Understanding Snow, Plant and Soil Moisture Dynamics within a Mountain Ecosystem - J. Devadoss; A. Hermes; E. S. Hinckley; Maya Franklin; Yuxin Wu; Nicola Falco; Haruko M. Wainwright; Baptiste Dafflon (Remote Sensing, 2020)
In the headwater catchments of the Rocky Mountains, plant productivity and its dynamics are largely dependent upon water availability, which is influenced by changing snowmelt dynamics associated with climate change. Understanding and quantifying the interactions between snow, plants and soil moisture is challenging, since these interactions are highly heterogeneous in mountainous terrain, particularly as they are influenced by microtopography within a hillslope. Recent advances in satellite remote sensing have created an opportunity for monitoring snow and plant dynamics at high spatiotemporal resolutions that can capture microtopographic effects. In this study, we investigate the relationships among topography, snowmelt, soil moisture and plant dynamics in the East River watershed, Crested Butte, Colorado, based on a time series of 3-meter resolution PlanetScope normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) images. To make use of a large volume of high-resolution time-lapse images (1

Assessing seasonal demographic covariation to understand environmental-change impacts on a hibernating mammal - D. Z. Childs; Maria Paniw; Kenneth B. Armitage; Julien G. A. Martin; Daniel T. Blumstein (Ecological Letters, 2020)
Maria Paniw,1,2* Dylan Z. Natural populations are exposed to seasonal variation in environmental factors that simultane- Childs,3 Kenneth B. Armitage,4 ously affect several demographic rates (survival, development and reproduction). The resulting Daniel T. Blumstein,5,6 Julien covariation in these rates determines population dynamics, but accounting for its numerous biotic G. A. Martin,7,8 Madan K. and abiotic drivers is a significant challenge. Here, we use a factor-analytic approach to capture Oli9 and Arpat Ozgul1 partially unobserved drivers of seasonal population dynamics. We use 40 years of individual-based demography from yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) to fit and project population The peer review history for this arti- models that account for seasonal demographic covariation using a latent variable. We show that cle is available at https://publons.c this latent variable, by producing positive covariation among winter demographic rates, depicts a om/publon/10.1111/

Satellite-derived foresummer drought sensitivity of plant productivity in Rocky Mountain headwater catchments: spatial heterogeneity and geological-geomorphological control - E. I. Nikolopoulos; S. D. Trutner; K. B. Schaettle; Brian J. Enquist; J. B. Brown; Chelsea Wilmer; Heidi Steltzer; Amanda Henderson; K. Dana Chadwick; Carl I. Steefel; Nicola Falco; Haruko M. Wainwright; et al. (Environmental Research Letters, 2020)
Abstract Long-term plot-scale studies have found water limitation to be a key factor driving ecosystem productivity in the Rocky Mountains. Specifically, the intensity of early summer (the ‘foresummer’ period from May to June) drought conditions appears to impose critical controls on peak ecosystem productivity. This study aims to (1) assess the importance of early snowmelt and foresummer drought in controlling peak plant productivity, based on the historical Landsat normalized-difference vegetation index (NDVI) and climate data; (2) map the spatial heterogeneity of foresummer drought sensitivity; and (3) identify the environmental controls (e.g. geomorphology, elevation, geology, plant types) on drought sensitivity. Our domain (15 × 15 km) includes four drainages within the East Water watershed near Gothic, Colorado, USA. We define foresummer drought sensitivity based on the regression slopes of the annual peak NDVI against the June Palmer Drought Severity Index between 1992 and 2010.

Insect herbivory reshapes a native leaf microbiome - Parris T Humphrey; Noah K Whiteman (Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2020)
Insect herbivory is pervasive in plant communities, but its impact on microbial plant colonizers is not well-studied in natural systems. By calibrating sequencing-based bacterial detection to absolute bacterial load, we find that the within-host abundance of most leaf microbiome (phyllosphere) taxa colonizing a native forb is amplified within leaves impacted by insect herbivory. Herbivore-associated bacterial ampli- fication reflects community-wide compositional shifts towards lower ecological diversity, but the extent and direction of such compositional shifts can be interpreted only by quantifying absolute abundance. Experimentally eliciting anti-herbivore defenses reshaped within-host fitness ranks among Pseudomonas spp. field isolates and amplified a subset of putative P. syringae phytopathogens in a manner causally consistent with observed field-scale patterns. Herbivore damage was inversely correlated with plant reproductive success and was highly clustered across plants, which p

Insights Regarding the Dating of Ute Occupation in West Central and Northwest Colorado: A Perspective from the Colorado Wickiup Project - Curtis Martin (University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2020)

Effects of frost and neighborhood on Tephritid fly herbivory of Erigeron speciosus - H. Stouter (2020)
With earlier snowmelt, the impacts of a late frost in the Rocky Mountains have been more consequential for the production of flowers in species such as Erigeron speciosus. Several species of Tephritid flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) are pre-dispersal seed herbivores of E. speciosus. The neighborhood around an individual plant has been shown to play an important role in plant fitness/life history of an individual. In addition, plant neighborhoods have been found to have an impact on Tephritid fly behavior. This study examined the direct and indirect impacts of frost and neighborhood on Tephritid fly herbivory of Erigeron speciosus. In addition, it investigated how frost affects adult Tephritid fly abundance. This study was conducted by establishing plots at sites with different levels of frost. Data were analyzed in RStudio using ANOVA, linear models and a structural equation model. Result suggest that frost and neighborhood have a significant impact of Erigeron herbivory. In addition, the

Resolution matters when modeling climate change in headwaters of the Colorado River - L. M. Foster; Reed M. Maxwell; Kenneth Hurst Williams (Environmental Research Letters, 2020)
Abstract The continued growth of Southwestern cities depends on reliable water export from Rocky Mountain headwaters, which provide ∼85% of Colorado River Basin (CRB) streamflow. Despite being more sensitive to warming temperatures, alpine systems are simplified in the regional-scale models currently in use to plan for future water supply. We used an integrated hydrologic model that couples groundwater and surface water with snow and vegetation processes to examine the effect of topographic simplifications as a result of grid coarsening in a representative CRB headwater basin. High-resolution (100 m) simulations predicted headwater streamflow losses of 16% by 2050 while coarse-resolution (1 km) simulations predict only 12%, suggesting that regional-scale models (coarser than 1 km) likely overestimate future Colorado River Basin water supplies.

Birds Perceive More Intraspecific Color Variation in Bird-Pollinated Than Bee-Pollinated Flowers - Kenneth D. Whitney; T. E. White; C.F. (Rick) Williams; Arthur E. Smith (Frontiers in Plant Science. doi 10.3389/fpls.2020.590347, 2020)
Pollinator-mediated selection is expected to constrain floral color variation within plant populations. Here, we test for patterns of constraint on floral color variation in 38 bee- and/or hummingbird-pollinated plant species from Colorado, United States. We collected reflectance spectra for at least 15 individuals in each of 1-3 populations of each species (total 78 populations) and modeled perceived color variation in both bee and bird visual spaces. We hypothesized that bees would perceive less intraspecific color variation in bee-pollinated species (vs. bird-pollinated species), and reciprocally, birds would perceive less color variation in bird-pollinated species (vs. bee-pollinated species). In keeping with the higher dimensionality of the bird visual system, birds typically perceived much more color variation than bees, regardless of plant pollination system. Contrary to our hypothesis, bees perceived equal color variation within plant species from the two pollination systems, a

What are the bees' needs? Analyzing the diet breadth for three Rocky Mountain Bumble Bees - A. Tash; P. Lopez Estrella (2020)
Bumble bees are crucial pollinators in both natural and agricultural ecosystems. For effective conservation of this important group of pollinators, it is essential to understand their basic ecology, such as their interactions with floral food resources. In this study, we used a long-term dataset (5 year) of season-long bumble bee floral resource use to investigate the floral diets of three common bumble bee species native to the Colorado Rocky Mountains (​Bombus bifarius, B. flavifrons, a​ nd ​B. appositus​). We compared the floral diet richness among the three species overall and also among the castes (queens, workers, males) within each species. Our analyses revealed that floral diet richness differs among the three focal bumble bee species, which we hypothesize is due to variation in species phenology and morphology. When comparing the floral diet richness within species and across the different bumble bee life stages (i.e. castes), we found a clear distinction between workers and r

Five years in: a status review of conservation actions from the rare plant addendum to the 2015 Colorado state wildlife action plan (SWAP) - Jessica A. Smith (Digital Collections of Colorado (Colorado State University), 2020)
17th annual symposium held virtually from several locations and Colorado on September 18, 2020.

Plant size and allocation to reproduction for plant demography - E. Proietti; M. Sweeney; E. Smith (2020)
Stage-based population models are an important tool for quantifying the influence of biotic and abiotic factors on populations. Within studies of plant demography and life history, measuring and predicting biomass is an essential tool used to better understand a plant’s health and reproductive success. However, measuring biomass is inherently destructive. This study assessed multiple nondestructive measures of plant size to determine which best predicted plant biomass for four species of subalpine wildflowers. We also examined whether allocation to reproductive biomass varied across these species. The four species, Delphinium nuttallianum, Hydrophyllum fendleri, Potentilla pulcherrima, and Erigeron speciosus, each chosen for their different life history strategies, were used to study possible predictors of plant biomass in subalpine meadows around the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado. As each plant has a slightly different morphology, different measures of plant

Shale as a Source of Organic Carbon in Floodplain Sediments of a Mountainous Watershed - K. Heckman; Marco Keiluweit; C. G. Anderson; M. E. Conrad; Markus Bill; Patricia Fox; P. S. Nico (JGR Biogeosciences, 2020)
Abstract Shales contain high levels of organic carbon (OC) and represent a large fraction of the Earth's reduced carbon stocks. While recent evidence suggests that shale‐derived OC may be actively cycled in riverine systems, this process is poorly understood and not currently considered in global C models. Through the use of sediment density fractionations, extractions, radiocarbon measurements, and chemical characterization, we provide information on the abundance, chemistry, and mobility of shale‐derived OC in floodplain sediments of a shale‐rich mountainous watershed. The heavy fraction of the sediment, representing mineral‐associated OC, is the largest (84 ± 6% of TOC) and oldest (Δ 14 C values −224 to −853‰) OC pool. Evidence of shale‐derived OC is observed in all sediment C pools (i.e., occluded light fraction, water‐soluble, and pyrophosphate‐extractable) except the free light fraction, which is entirely modern. Relatively consistent chemistry was observed across samples for ext

The Financial Viability and Sustainability Benefits of Converting Slash Into Biochar Instead of Open-Burning Following Fuel Treatments in the White River National Forest - Timothy Borden (Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University), 2020)
The state of Colorado has 22.49 million acres of forestland, a growing proportion of which is under threat from disease, insects, drought and wildfire. The severity of these threats originates from a long history of misguided forest management practices that have decreased the overall health of Colorado forests. Federal, state, and local land management agencies have evolved to recognize and correct for past management mistakes, but a lot of damage has been done. These agencies need to continue with practices that will restore Colorado forests to a healthier state but are faced with financial and social barriers to doing so. The aim of this study was to determine if the production of biochar from slash can be used to improve the health of Colorado’s forests. Slash is the organic material left over following forestry projects. Biochar is the solid product leftover after combusting slash in an oxygen diminished environment and is used to improve soils and sequester carbon from the atmosp

Lumsdenite, NaCa3Mg2(As3+V4+2V5+10As5+6O51)·45H2O, a new polyoxometalate mineral from the Packrat mine, Mesa County, Colorado, USA - Joe Marty; Timothy P. Rose; Barbara P. Nash; Anthony R. Kampf; John M. Hughes (The Canadian Mineralogist, 2020)
ABSTRACT Lumsdenite (IMA 2018–092), ideally NaCa3Mg2(As3+V4+2V5+10As5+6O51)·45H2O, is a rare new polyoxometalate mineral from the Packrat mine, Gateway district, Mesa County, Colorado, USA. Crystals of lumsdenite occur as blades up to 0.2 mm in length, commonly growing in sprays. The crystals are dark green blue, with a green-blue streak. The mineral occurs on asphaltum, associated with montroseite- and corvusite-bearing sandstone. Other secondary minerals found in close association with lumsdenite are gypsum, huemulite, rösslerite, and at least two other potentially new minerals. Lumsdenite is optically biaxial (–), with α 1.617(2), β 1.651(5), and γ 1.675(5) in white light. The pleochroism scheme for lumsdenite is X = greenish yellow, Y = dark greenish blue, Z = greenish blue; X << Z < Y. The mineral is triclinic, , with a 10.3490(5), b 17.6263(9), c 23.2556(16) Å, α 82.208(6), β 88.351(6), γ 81.702(6)°, V 4158.8(4) Å3, and Z = 2. The strongest fou

A Brief Escape to Normalcy: A Summer at RMBL - S. Hettema; M. T. Powell; Thomas Powell; L. M. Kueppers; H. Marshall Worsham (Mountain Views Chronicle, 2020)

Bee phenology is predicted by climatic variation and functional traits - J. L. Neff; T. Griswold; M. Rightmyer; R. Oram; Josiah F. Gibbs; C. S. Sheffield; K. W. Wright; Pearse W.D.; Sean R. Griffin; Pardee G.; M. Stemkovski; Brian D. Inouye; et al. (Ecology Letters, 2020)
Michael Stemkovski,1,2* Climate change is shifting the environmental cues that determine the phenology of interacting spe- William D. Pearse,1,3 cies. Plant–pollinator systems may be susceptible to temporal mismatch if bees and ﬂowering Sean R. Grifﬁn,2,4 plants differ in their phenological responses to warming temperatures. While the cues that trigger Gabriella L. Pardee,2,4 ﬂowering are well-understood, little is known about what determines bee phenology. Using gener- Jason Gibbs,5 alised additive models, we analyzed time-series data representing 67 bee species collected over Terry Griswold,6 9 years in the Colorado Rocky Mountains to perform the ﬁrst community-wide quantiﬁcation of John L. Neff,7 the drivers of bee phenology. Bee emergence was sensitive to climatic variation, advancing with Ryan Oram,8 earlier snowmelt timing, whereas later phenophases were best explained by functional traits including overwintering stage and nest location. Comparison of these ﬁndings to a long-term

How demographic factors affect ground squirrel susceptibility to motor vehicle collisions - J. Isidro (2020)
Roadkill or Motor Vehicle Collisions are highly studied amongst larger species. This research will solely focus on a smaller species, specifically Golden Mantled-Ground Squirrels (​Callospermophilus lateralis)​ in Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) Gothic, Colorado. Percentages of adult male, adult female, male juvenile, and female juvenile ground squirrels killed by vehicle collisions will be collected using a master list dating from 1995 to 2019 (24 years). In all, the data collected suggest that about 5% (1/20) of GMGS are found to be killed in vehicle collision. Adult males were killed in vehicle collisions more often than adult females (Figure 1).

Untangling the seasonal dynamics of plant-pollinator communities - D. B. Stouffer; B. B. Mora; E. Shin; Paul J. CaraDonna (Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17894-y, 2020)
Abstract Ecological communities often show changes in populations and their interactions over time. To date, however, it has been challenging to effectively untangle the mechanisms shaping such dynamics. One approach that has yet to be fully explored is to treat the varying structure of empirical communities—i.e. their network of interactions—as time series. Here, we follow this approach by applying a network-comparison technique to study the seasonal dynamics of plant-pollinator networks. We find that the structure of these networks is extremely variable, where species constantly change how they interact with each other within seasons. Most importantly, we find the holistic dynamic of plants and pollinators to be remarkably coherent across years, allowing us to reveal general rules by which species first enter, then change their roles, and finally leave the networks. Overall, our results disentangle key aspects of species’ interaction turnover, phenology, and seasonal assembly/disasse

Colorado’s Hispanic Frontier: Spanish Exploration and the Early Settlement of the Conejos and Sangre de Cristo Land Grants - Charles Nicholas Saenz (University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2020)

Towards a U.S. national program for monitoring native bees - H. M. C. Moylett; E. C. Evans; S. Federman; K. K. Graham; K. Hackett; K. T. Huntzinger; R. R. James; S. Jha; S. Lawson; C. Liang; M. M. Lopez-Uribe; Q. S. McFrederick; et al. (Biological Conservation doi 10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108821, 2020)
Abstract North America has more than 4000 bee species, yet we have little information on the health, distribution, and population trends of most of these species. In the United States, what information is available is distributed across multiple institutions, and efforts to track bee populations are largely uncoordinated on a national scale. An overarching framework for monitoring U.S. native bees could provide a system that is responsive to national needs, resources, and capacities. Five major action areas and priorities for structuring a coordinated effort include: (1) Defining the scope, aims, and cost of a national native bee monitoring program; (2) Improving the national capacity in bee taxonomy and systematics; (3) Gathering and cataloging data that are standardized, accessible, and sustainable; (4) Identifying survey methods and prioritizing taxa to monitor; and (5) Prioritizing geographic areas to be monitored. Here, we detail the needs, challenges, and opportunities associated

Species Composition and Hybridization among Native and Nonnative Catostomid Fishes in Two Streams of the Gunnison River Basin, Colorado - Megan J. Osborne; Evan W. Carson; Michael R. Schwemm; Thomas F. Turner; Kathryn S. Thompson (Western North American Naturalist, 2020)
We report results from a 3-year field investigation to limit hybridization between native and nonnative suckers in 2 small tributaries of the Gunnison River basin, Delta County, Colorado. Upstream movement to spawning habitat was selectively impeded by picket weir in intermittent Cottonwood Creek. There, native suckers were identified based on morphological characters in the field and were transferred upstream of the weir, whereas nonnative fishes were excluded from upstream movement. Another stream, Potter Creek, was not impeded by weir. Genetic identification of adult fishes in both streams was consistent with morphological identification in the field. Larval genetic identification was consistent with probable spawning species in Potter Creek. However, in Cottonwood Creek, larval fish proportions differed significantly from likely spawners. Proportions of nonnative suckers were high in Cottonwood Creek because exclusion structures were compromised by flooding during the spawning seas

A Case Study of Novel Landslide Activity Recognition Using ALOS-1 InSAR within the Ragged Mountain Western Hillslope in Gunnison County, Colorado, USA - Benjamin W Lowry; Scott Baker (Remote Sensing, 2020)
The “East Muddy Creek Landslide Complex” in Gunnison County, Colorado, USA destroyed Colorado State Highway 133 from 1986 to 1987 and has been investigated over decades during different periods of reactivation. This paper presents a case study of novel landslide activity recognition related to the landslide complex using Advanced Land Observing Satellite-1 (ALOS-1) Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) analysis. We compare the result from ALOS-1 InSAR analysis to landslide recognition investigations from traditional field methods for ground motions at a watershed scale. Line of Sight (LOS) velocity mapping is used to characterize displacement zonation, failure modes, and hazard assessment activities. Mass wasting estimates using existing geological modeling are discussed in terms of potential of landslide element dynamics. ALOS-1 InSAR analysis reveals newly detected ground displacement at very slow to extremely slow velocities with a significantly increased spatial extent.

Post-Depositional Fluid Flow in Jurassic Sandstones of the Uncompahgre Uplift: Insights From Magnetic Fabrics - John I. Ejembi; Sarah A. Friedman; Sara Satolli; Eric C. Ferré (Frontiers in Earth Science, 2020)
The anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) in sedimentary rocks results from depositional, diagenetic, syn- and post-sedimentary processes that affect magnetic grains. Some studies have also shown the potential role played by post-depositional fluid flow in detrital and carbonate formations. Here we present a new case study of Middle-Upper Jurassic sandstones where secondary iron oxides, precipitated from fluids that migrated through pores, give rise to the AMS. These sandstones are well exposed in the Uncompahgre Uplift region of the Central Colorado Trough, Colorado. The magnetic foliation of these undeformed, subhorizontal strata consistently strike NE-SW over a large distance with an average 45° dip to the SE. This steep AMS fabric is oblique with respect to the regional subhorizontal bedding and therefore does not reflect the primary sedimentary fabric. Also, outcrop-scale and microscopic observations show a lack of post-depositional plastic (undulose extinction) or pressure-

RMBL Research in the time of Covid-19: Magical Realism? - Ian Billick (Mountain Views Chronicle, 2020)

Hematite beads from the Frost Clovis site, Logan County, Colorado - Steven R. Holen; Jack L. Hofman; Brendon P. Asher (Plains Anthropologist, 2020)
In the early 1890s, Logan County, Colorado farmer John Frost was digging a lateral line from an irrigation ditch to his field when he encountered probable human bones. Associated with these skeletal remains were three large Clovis chipped stone preforms or projectile points, and at minimum five hematite beads. We report on the portion of the private collection that was available for study over a century later in 1999, including four hematite beads and one large projectile point preform. The history and significance of the discovery are outlined, and comparisons are made with other Paleoindian localities containing beads or hematite.

Field Research in the Time of the Pandemic - David W. Inouye (Mountain Views Chronicle, 2020)

The Thermal History of Mount Lamborn in Colorado’s West Elk Mountains using Apatite (U-Th)/He Thermochronology - M. Ramba (2020)
Mount Lamborn, a granodiorite laccolith in the West Elk Mountains, provides a useful

Didymosphenia geminata blooms are not exclusively driven by low phosphorus under experimental conditions - M. C. Owens; D. C. West; B. W. Taylor; J. A. Balik (Hydrobiologia, 2020)

Topographic Map Analysis of Mountain Passes Crossing the Continental Divide Between Colorado River Headwaters and North and South Platte River Headwaters to Test a New Geomorphology Paradigm, Colorado, USA - Eric Clausen (Journal of Geography and Geology, 2020)
Detailed topographic maps are used to identify and briefly describe named (and a few unnamed) mountain passes crossing high elevation east-west continental divide segments encircling south- and southwest-oriented Colorado River headwaters and linking the Colorado River drainage basin (draining to the Pacific Ocean) with the North and South Platte River drainage basins (draining to the Platte, Missouri, and Mississippi Rivers and Gulf of Mexico). Previous researchers following commonly accepted geomorphology paradigm rules have not explained how most, if any of these mountain passes originated. A recently proposed geomorphology paradigm requires all Missouri River drainage basin valleys to have eroded headward across massive south- and southeast-oriented floods, which implies south- and southeast-oriented floods flowed from what are today north-oriented North Platte River headwaters across the continental divide, the present-day south- and southwest-oriented Colorado River headwaters va

Butterfly foraging and the dispersal of microbes among & within flowers - M. Olson (2020)
Dispersal is integral to the ecology and evolution of communities. Dispersal affects bacterial communities by impacting bacterial composition and diversity in many environments. One such environment is floral organs. Flowers are nutrient-rich environments for diverse and abundant microbes. Floral microbe community composition is important to pollinator visitation and plant reproduction because microbes alter nectar quality thus changing pollinator visitation. Pollinator visitation to flowers can change the composition and diversity of the floral microbial community and can also impact the spread of disease among plants and pollinators. There is a paucity of studies of rate at which pollinators acquire and disperse microbes among and within flowers. We asked how butterfly foraging affects dispersal of microbes and what factors contribute to microbe abundance on butterflies’ bodies. We used Pyrrocoma crocea (Asteraceae), Glaucopsyche lygdamus (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae), and Speyeria mormo

Mountain Ute and Earliest Numic Colonization of the Southern Rocky Mountains: A New Perspective from the Sue Site (5JA421), North Park, Colorado - Robert H. Brunswig (University Press of Colorado eBooks, 2020)

Color preference of Speyeria mormonia - S. A. Hernandez (2020)

Resource availability alters fitness trade-offs: implications for evolution in stressful environments - Rachel M. MacTavish (American Journal of Botany, 2020)
PremiseIndustrialization and human activities have elevated temperatures and caused novel precipitation patterns, altering soil moisture and nutrient availability. Predicting evolutionary responses to climate change requires information on the agents of selection that drive local adaptation and influence resource acquisition and allocation. Here, we examined the contribution of nutrient and drought stress to local adaptation, and we tested whether trade‐offs across fitness components constrain or facilitate adaptation under resource stress.MethodsWe exposed 35 families of Boechera stricta (Brassicaceae) to three levels of water and two levels of nutrient supply in a factorial design in the greenhouse. We sourced maternal families from a broad elevational gradient (2499–3530 m a.s.l.), representing disparate soil moisture and nutrient availability.ResultsConcordant with local adaptation, maternal families from arid, low‐elevation populations had enhanced fecundity under severe drought o

Snow Depth Distribution Patterns and Consistency from Airborne Lidar Time Series - Megan Mason (2020)
Snow provides fresh meltwater to over a billion people worldwide. Snow dominated watersheds drive western US water supply and are increasingly important as demand depletes reservoir and groundwater recharge capabilities. This motivates our inter- and intra-annual investigation of snow distribution patterns, leveraging the most comprehensive airborne lidar survey (ALS) dataset for snow. Validation results for ALS from both the NASA SnowEx 2017 campaign in Grand Mesa, Colorado and the time series dataset from the Tuolumne River Basin in the Sierra Nevada, in California, are presented. We then assess the consistency in the snow depth patterns for the entire basin (at 20-m resolution) and for subbasin regions (at 3-m resolution) from a collection of 51 ALS that span a six-year period (2013-2018) in the Tuolumne Basin. Strong correlations between ALS from different years near peak SWE confirm that spatial patterns exist between snow seasons. Year-to-year snow depth differs in absolute magni

2000-2019 in the Colorado River Basin and Beyond - Lawrence J. MacDonnell (SSRN Electronic Journal, 2020)
In the first two decades of the 21st century the Colorado River Basin suffered a prolonged drought. Remarkably this period turned out to be arguably the most innovative and collaborative in the basin's modern human history. This working paper reviews the major events of the period, highlights some of the important policy and management achievements, and identifies some of the biggest remaining challenges as basin interests begin renegotiating the Interim Shortage Guidelines.

Threatening the vigor of the Colorado River - Mike Hobbins; Joseph Barsugli (Science, 2020)
Loss of sunlight-reflecting snow spurs evaporation and ebbs river flow

Early snowmelt reduces aphid abundance Aphis asclepiadis by creating water stressed host plants Ligusticum porteri and altering interactions with ants - J. Owens; P. Nguyen; S. Trail; E. Godtfredson; S. Heschel; James H Den Uyl; Emily H Mooney; M. L. Mullins (Arthropod-Plant Interactions, 2020)
Declining snow cover is reshaping ecological communities. Early loss of snow cover initiates changes in key interactions that mediate herbivore abundance, i.e., top-down and bottom-up effects. In this study, we used a field experiment to test the effects of host plant water stress and phenology on the multitrophic interactions that determine aphid abundance. The aphid, Aphis asclepiadis, in our study system colonizes the flowering stalks of the host plant Ligusticum porteri and relies on a protection mutualism with ants. We added snow and water to replicate host plants and tested for a variety of phenological and physiological responses to these treatments. Relative to host plants in ambient conditions, both water and snow addition reduced key signals of water stress (senescence and abscisic acid levels) and increased seed set. While aphid colonies were generally larger with reduced host plant water stress, the ant–aphid mutualism interacted with plant quality in complex ways. Without

Phosphorus Speciation in Atmospherically Deposited Particulate Matter and Implications for Terrestrial Ecosystem Productivity - M. Barnes; S. C. Hart; A. A. Berhe; P. A. O'Day; Ugwumsinachi Nwosu; J. N. Christensen; Kenneth Hurst Williams (Environmental Science & Technology, 2020)

Elevated temperatures alter an ant aphid mutualism - E. Medina; J. Owens; B. Davidson; P. Nguyen; M. L. Mullins; Emily H Mooney; James H Den Uyl (Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, 2019)

Progressive deterioration of pollination service detected in a 17-year study vanishes in a 26-year study (New Phytologist, 2019)

Surveying historical patterns in vegetation change (1929-2019) in the upper East River Valley using RMBL's archival herbarium records - K. Alvarado (2019)
One of the ongoing challenges in studying the effects of global change on biodiversity is finding credible baseline data of prior conditions. The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado is located in a valley with a wide range of plant species and communities due to its diversity of microclimates, and sharp gradients of precipitation and elevation (ca. 8000 – 14000 feet ASL). There have been a number of studies conducted near Gothic documenting changes in plant community composition, population distributions and flowering phenology, but the herbarium has been little used by researchers as a source of historical plant distribution and phenology data. Herbarium data provide a novel tool to assist biologists when conducting floristic studies to trace vegetation distribution patterns and studies of long-term phenological change. With the data available in the RMBL’s online herbarium database, potential study sites can be located, and target species lists can be generated f

Early snowmelt projected to cause population decline in a subalpine plant - Diane R. Campbell (PNAS, 2019)
How climate change influences the dynamics of plant populations is not well understood, as few plant studies have measured responses of vital rates to climatic variables and modeled the impact on population growth. The present study used 25 y of demographic data to analyze how survival, growth, and fecundity respond to date of spring snowmelt for a subalpine plant. Fecundity was estimated by seed production (over 15 y) and also divided into flower number, fruit set, seeds per fruit, and escape from seed predation. Despite no apparent effects on flower number, plants produced more seeds in years with later snowmelt. Survival and probability of flowering were reduced by early snowmelt in the previous year. Based on demographic models, earlier snowmelt with warming is expected to lead to negative population growth, driven especially by changes in seedling establishment and seed production. These results provide a rare example of how climate change is expected to influence the dynamics of

Immersive Co-production to Inform Ranch Management in Gunnison, Colorado, USA - Bruce Allen; Jacob S. Courkamp; Corrine N. Knapp (Rangelands, 2019)
On the Ground To be successful, producers must interpret environmental stimuli and respond with management actions that help match their production operations to the ecosystem services they depend on. Climate change, and the increased variability that will likely result, may lessen the relevance of historical rules of thumb and management heuristics by altering environmental conditions and giving rise to novel systems that feature more frequent and intense periods of stress. Sustaining livestock production in the face of climate change depends on the rapid production of knowledge to inform adaptation to novel systems. Involving producers in research is often discussed as a strategy to help accomplish this goal. We propose immersive co-production, wherein a student researcher is embedded within the production operations of a working ranch while studying and conducting research, as one method of quickly developing the knowledge resources necessary to sustain livestock production in the c

The Gothic Muse and Meta-Gothic Moment: Afterword to Russian Gothic Forum - Caryl Emerson (Russian Literature, 2019)
Abstract The afterword offers an additional discussion related to the initial debate posed by the new developments in Russian Gothic as a special kind of literary genre. This article reviews, contextualizes and traces connections between the essays on Russian Gothic in this edition by Jeffrey Brooks, Kevin Platt, Mark Lipovetsky, and Dina Khapaeva.

The Effects of Exclusion Bags and Open-Top Chambers on Pollinator Activity - C. Adamson (Student paper, 2019)
It’s common for scientists to apply experimental practices that have worked well in another study to their own studies without a complete consideration of how that manipulation may impact their system. Open-top warming chambers and pollinator exclusion bags are two such common experimental manipulations that scientists may employ with unintended side effects. This study aims to understand the potential side effects that the presence of open-top chambers (OTCs) and exclusion bags may have on the pollination of open flowers at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, CO. Pollinator observations were conducted at three sites on two plant species (Delphinium nuttallianum and Potentilla pulcherrima). Treatment plots were manipulated either by placing an OTC around the plants or placing exclusion bags over 50-75% of the flowers per plant. Control plots were left unmanipulated during the observations. Bags did not significantly impact pollinator activity on open flowers on bagged p

Re-engineering the Colorado River - Heather Hansman (Scientific American, 2019)

Collector's Note: Colorado Quartz Mine Does It Again, Mariposa County, California - Robert B. Cook (Rocks & Minerals, 2019)

King of the hill? How biotic interactions affect biogeographical pattern and species responses to climate change - Joshua S. Lynn (2019)
As climate has warmed, many species have moved up mountains as physiological limits to their distributions have ameliorated. These distribution shifts are creating novel communities, begging the question: What happens to species at the tops of mountains as potential antagonists encroach upwards? Theory predicts that upward migrations will cause range contractions for high-elevation species because of novel interactions with encroaching antagonists. My dissertation work is one of the most comprehensive tests of this question to date, using a combination of ecological niche modeling (ENM), experiments, and demographic and trait-based modeling approaches. I created novel ENMs that suggest context-dependency of biotic interactions, where predictions of biotic interactions change from positive to negative over environmental gradients, is common over elevation gradients. Additionally, ENMs suggested the current focus on plant-plant interactions in niche modeling targets the most important bi

Predicting sedimentary bedrock subsurface weathering fronts and weathering rates - Tetsu Tokunaga; Jiamin Wan; Amanda Henderson; Alexander W. Newman; W. S. Brown; Wenming Dong; S. S. Hubbard; Kenneth Hurst Williams (Scientific Reports, 2019)
AbstractAlthough bedrock weathering strongly influences water quality and global carbon and nitrogen budgets, the weathering depths and rates within subsurface are not well understood nor predictable. Determination of both porewater chemistry and subsurface water flow are needed in order to develop more complete understanding and obtain weathering rates. In a long-term field study, we applied a multiphase approach along a mountainous watershed hillslope transect underlain by marine shale. Here we report three findings. First, the deepest extent of the water table determines the weathering front, and the range of annually water table oscillations determines the thickness of the weathering zone. Below the lowest water table, permanently water-saturated bedrock remains reducing, preventing deeper pyrite oxidation. Secondly, carbonate minerals and potentially rock organic matter share the same weathering front depth with pyrite, contrary to models where weathering fronts are stratified. Th

Challenges in Building an End-to-End System for Acquisition, Management, and Integration of Diverse Data From Sensor Networks in Watersheds: Lessons From a Mountainous Community Observatory in East River, Colorado - Benjamin Potter; Brian J. Enquist; Zarine Kakalia; M. Henderson; Valerie Hendrix; Madison Burrus; D. S. Christianson; Chelsea Wilmer; Amanda Henderson; Deb Agarwal; Roelof Versteeg; Boris Faybishenko; et al. (IEEE Access, 2019)
The U.S. Department of Energy's Watershed Function Scientific Focus Area (SFA), centered in the East River, Colorado, generates diverse datasets including hydrological, geological, geochemical, geophysical, ecological, microbiological and remote sensing data. The project has deployed extensive field infrastructure involving hundreds of sensors that measure highly diverse phenomena (e.g. stream and groundwater hydrology, water quality, soil moisture, weather) across the watershed. Data from the sensor network are telemetered and automatically ingested into a queryable database. The data are subsequently quality checked, integrated with the United States Geological Survey's stream monitoring network using a custom data integration broker, and published to a portal with interactive visualizations. The resulting data products are used in a variety of scientific modeling and analytical efforts. This paper describes the SFA's end-to-end infrastructure and services that support the generation

Mixed support for state maintaining risky personality traits in yellow-bellied marmots - M. B. Petelle; Julien G. A. Martin; Daniel T. Blumstein (Animal Behaviour, 2019)
In a variety of taxa, individuals behave in consistently different ways. However, there are relatively few studies that empirically test the potential mechanisms underlying the causes and maintenance of these personality differences. Several hypotheses for the causes and maintenance of risky personality traits have been suggested but all have received mixed support. Both the pace-of-life hypothesis and state-dependent safety hypothesis propose that differences in internal state cause and maintain personality traits. Formally, the pace-of-life hypothesis states that differences in life-history traits including productivity (growth) and residual reproductive value (age) create initial differences in individual behaviour that is later maintained by positive feedback, while the state-dependent safety hypothesis suggests that body condition (mass) is responsible for causing and maintaining behavioural differences. We tested and evaluated whether either of these two hypotheses explained the

Sensitivity analysis of hydraulic conductivity and Manning’s n parameters lead to new method to scale effective hydraulic conductivity across model resolutions. - L. M. Foster; Reed M. Maxwell (Hydrological Processes, 2019)
Hydrological modeling is an important tool for research, policy, and management, but uncertainty remains about parameters transferability from field observations made at small scale to models at the catchment scale and larger. This uncertainty compels the need to develop parameter relationships that are translatable across scale. In this study we compare the changes to modeled processes as resolution is coarsened from 100m to 1km in a topographically-complex, 255km2 Colorado River headwater catchment. We conducted a sensitivity analysis for hydraulic conductivity (K) and Manning’s n parameters across 4 orders of magnitude. Results showed that K acts as a moderator between surface and subsurface contributions to streamflow, while n moderates the duration of high intensity, infiltration-excess flow. The parametric sensitivity analysis informed development of a new method to scale effective hydraulic conductivity across modeling resolutions in order to compensate for the loss of topograph

Mayflies avoid sweets: fish skin mucus amino sugars stimulate predator avoidance behaviour of Baetis larvae - M. Alvarez; A. Landeira-Dabarca; B. L. Peckarsky (Animal Behaviour, 2019)
Nonconsumptive effects of predators can have knock-on effects on prey fitness, life history and population dynamics. However, the origin of cues stimulating predator avoidance behaviour and the mechanisms underlying prey responses need further investigation. Previous studies revealed that nonconsumptive effects of predatory fish on Baetis mayfly larvae are mediated by water-borne chemical cues released from fish mucus. However, there are conflicting results regarding the nature of these cues and the specific role of the activity of fish mucus-dwelling bacteria in stimulating predator avoidance by prey. To address those conflicting results, we investigated whether bacteria dwelling in fish mucus and/or chemical components present in fish mucus are responsible for the predator avoidance response by Baetis mayflies to salmonids. Results of five bioassays conducted in microcosms revealed that to stimulate Baetis predator avoidance behaviour: (1) bacteria do not need to be present in salmon

The importance of interflow to groundwater recharge in a snowmelt-dominated headwater basin - Rina Schumer; Jeffrey Deems; Richard Niswonger; Kenneth Hurst Williams (Geophysical Research, 2019)
AbstractUnderstanding the sensitivity of groundwater generation to climate in a mountain system is complicated by the tight coupling of snow dynamics to vegetation and topography. To address these feedbacks, we combine light detection and ranging (LiDAR)‐derived snow observations with an integrated hydrologic model to quantify spatially and temporally distributed water fluxes across varying climate conditions in a Colorado River headwater basin. Results indicate that annual groundwater flow is an important and stable source of stream water. However, interflow decreases during drought as a function increased plant water use and the relative fraction of groundwater to streams increases. Seasonal snowmelt and vegetation water use regulate small recharge rates in the lower portions of the basin, but snowmelt transported via interflow from high mountain ridges toward convergent topographic zones defines preferential recharge in the upper subalpine. Recharge in this zone appears decoupled fr

Challenges and opportunities for collaborative adaptive management in forest landscape restoration - Antony S. Cheng; Gregory H. Aplet; Amy E. M. Waltz (2019)
The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) created the conditions for translating the idea of collaborative adaptive management (CAM) into practice. In theory, CAM engages stakeholders to collectively ‘learn by doing’ through a continuous cycle of goal-setting, implementing, monitoring, interpreting, and adjusting goals and actions. Our chapter examines the factors affecting how CAM was applied in practice in three CFLRP projects: the Colorado Front Range, the Four Forest Restoration Initiative, and the Uncompahgre Plateau. We identified three sets of factors: challenges associated with organizing a multi-stakeholder collaborative process vis-à-vis the US Forest Service; challenges arising from spatial and temporal scale incompatibilities between monitoring and restoration activities; and challenges associated with data incompatibilities and data stewardship across the multiple organizations conducting the monitoring. We present four recommendations to overcome thes

The Personhood of the Therapist: Effect on Systems - Virginia Satir (2019)
EDITOR’S NOTE. In the following excerpts from the beginning of Virginia Satir’s first Process Community (Avanta Process Community I, Crested Butte, Colorado, August 1981), and some of her writings, we can see the reason for this theme on personhood. It was Virginia’s conviction that therapy actually revolves around personhood-the use of the essential self of the therapist for change in couples, the model for couples to learn to engage, authentic self to authentic self.

Foraging efficiency and size matching in a plant-pollinator communitiy: the importance of sugar content and tongue length - Martina Stang; Saskia G.T. Klumpers; Peter G.L. Klinkhamer (Ecology letters, 2019)
A long-standing question in ecology is how species interactions are structured within communities. Although evolutionary theory predicts close size matching between floral nectar tube depth and pollinator proboscis length of interacting species, such size matching has seldom been shown and explained in multispecies assemblages. Here, we investigated the degree of size matching among Asteraceae and their pollinators and its relationship with foraging efficiency. The majority of pollinators, especially Hymenoptera, choose plant species on which they had high foraging efficiencies. When proboscides were shorter than nectar tubes, foraging efficiency rapidly decreased because of increased handling time. When proboscides were longer than nectar tubes, a decreased nectar reward rather than an increased handling time made shallow flowers more inefficient to visit. Altogether, this led to close size matching. Overall, our results show the importance of nectar reward and handling time as driver

Does road dust have an effect on nectar production in pomopsis aggregata ? - D. Zuver (2019)
Road dust has potential impacts on plant metabolism and reproduction even in small amounts. Dust is everywhere and is increasing due to human influence, this has the potential to reduce overall plant pollination worldwide. Since dust is roughly the size of a grain of pollen, it might possibly clog the stigma of plants. It appears that there is already a correlation between road dust and flower life span as well as pollination success (Mary Price personal communication 2019; Waser et al. 2017). For these reasons it is an interesting question to determine whether road dust affects nectar production in Ipomopsis aggregata. In order to explore this question, we located 30 pairs of flowering I. aggregata plants. We simulated roadside dust levels with 5 puffs of sieved dust from a garden duster to one half of the plants, while the other half received a controlled 5 puffs of normal air from another garden duster. Treatment was assigned at random within each pair. Elongated flower buds on thes