A windy winter workshop at the Sevilleta

Amber Churchill is a PhD student working at the Niwot Ridge LTER in Colorado. During her master’s work she conducted research at Bonanza Creek LTER, and her introduction to ecology was through an REU position at Harvard Forest. Having seen these northern LTER sites, she was most excited to experience a desert/grassland system at the Sevilleta LTER for the WEWoG meeting.

Winter ecology working group (WEWoG) meeting at Sevilleta LTER

Day 1: Arrival and introductions

Participants of the winter ecology working group, organized at the All-Scientist Meeting in September 2012 and funded to meet again via a synthesis grant from the LTER Network Office,, gathered in March for the first of two meetings in preparation for a cross site comparison looking at the ecological effects of winter at LTER sites across the US. Our group came from diverse backgrounds, ranging from statisticians to plant ecologists, and included one post doc and nine graduate students. Things started off quickly with a fabulous dinner, and then sharing background information about our respective LTER sites in the context of a paper on winter ecology that inspired our thinking on the subject (Kreyling, 2010). As the wind whistled around us (and the sand storms made for a hazy sunset) we started our schedule for the weekend.

Fostering cross-site interaction and collaboration.

CCE-MCR-SBC LTER Graduate Symposium held in at La Jolla, CA
by: Daniel K. Okamoto, Santa Barbara Coastal LTER

Socio-emotive interactions can yield high-powered collaborations in ecology [1].  Specifically, organic formation of collaboration or sharing of ideas between scientists often takes place over a casual meal or a drink that can fertilize unrealized and potentially powerful growth of shared ideas. 

For graduate students yet to make a name for themselves, initiation of such networking requires a forum and the provision of time and space for social and scientific interaction.    To provide a forum for imbibing interaction and the sharing of research, the CCE LTER hosted the SBC and MCR graduate students for a full day graduate symposium on marine LTER research at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, CA.  Participants included nearly all affiliated graduate students from three universities on March 16, 2013.   Geographic coverage of research included Antarctica, Moorea (French Polynesia), and Southern California marine ecosystems and universities represented included UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, and CSU Northridge. 

The importance of "thinking bigger"

 

by Laura Ladwig (SEV)

My first summer conducting dissertation research at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge I was determined to figure out the germination patterns of the dominant shrub, Larrea tridentata (creosote bush). It currently invades some grasslands at the Sevilleta, while it remains completely absent from others and I wanted to know why. Part of the investigation involved planting L. tridentata seeds in a variety of grass- and shrubland sites, then watering and monitoring them throughout the season to understand where L. tridentata could germinate.

Going into the project, I knew my freshly planted seeds would have a formidable opponent. Rodents. Abundant and diverse throughout my sites, rodents are known to eat both seeds and seedlings of L. tridentata. Always keeping these furry little critters in mind, I designed specialized seed collars to keep the rodents away from my seeds and hopeful seedlings.

The “Pristine” Tallgrass Prairie

When I first visited Konza Prairie Biological Station (KNZ) I imagined that I was looking out over the same tallgrass prairie that early pioneers traversed in their Conestoga wagons. Day after day, they travelled through waves of grass stretching to the horizons, with few trees and wide, open sky (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Waves of grass stretching to the horizons at Konza Prairie.

Of course, I knew that some parts of Konza were not pristine. The nature trails that I frequently hiked on Konza passed the Hokanson Homestead and provided excellent views of the limestone barn and house of the Dewey Ranch. Immigrants and wealthy land prospectors established and actively farmed or ranched the area since the 1870s. But the waving grass still convinced me that my site had been little altered by humans.

Hosting friends from abroad at HBR

by Matthew A. Vadeboncoeur

A few weeks ago, I hosted Dr. Zhiqun Huang and his forest ecosystem and soil science research group from Fujian Normal University in China, for a visit to the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (HBR).  It was a great opportunity to meet with Dr. Huang and his colleagues again, after visiting their lab and research sites in Fujian last year.  The experience was a good deal of fun, and I hope the group learned a lot about the way we approach ecology and research at HBR, some of which might be helpful as they invest in building long-term research facilities and projects in Fujian province.  I was lucky, despite the visit happening in the “quiet season”, to be able to include meetings and meals with many people at HBR and UNH, including David Sleeper and Geoff Wilson from the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation, Ian Halm and Amey Bailey from the US Forest Service Northern Research Station, Pam Templer from Boston University, and several members of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Analysis group who met with us at UNH.

Photo 1:  Huang lab group at HBR in November 2012, Photo by Pam Templer

Backyard Ecology

Worldwide, populations have been moving from farms and rural areas to cities and suburbs. The shopping malls, Starbucks and parking lots that people build in these urban and suburban areas all create impermeable surfaces that alter how water drains from the land. Combined with pollution from fertilizers, human waste and fossil fuel combustion, urbanization often has direct impacts on surrounding ecosystems, which can be transferred to downstream ecosystems by the flow of rivers.

Figure 1. Plum Island Ecosystems LTER located on the suburban North Shore of Boston.

The temps are low, but the research is on FIRE!

Greetings from the Dry Valleys of Antarctica! The McMurdo (MCM) Long-Term Ecological Research site is located in the middle of an extreme polar desert, and is regarded as the end-member of the LTER program. The Dry Valleys are representative of the 2% of Antarctica that is ice-free, and are also considered one of the harshest environments on the planet because of low temperatures, scarce precipitation, and 24-hour darkness over the winter months. However, the terrain is not completely barren, and for the past 20 years the MCM LTER has been monitoring lake levels, streamflow, soil transects, and glacial melt in order to better understand this harsh environment.