NREL NEWS NOTES

NATURAL RESOURCE ECOLOGY LABORATORY
Colorado State University

No. 2 December 1993

Announcements

Bill Parton has been nominated by Dr. Al Yates & CSU for consideration for a Pew Scholars Program in Conservation and the Environment Award in 1994.

Mike Coughenour will be serving on the NREL Executive Committee during Bill Parton's absence.

Diana Freckman, Laura Powers, and Ericha Courtright from CSU leave for Antarctica on December 11 and will return in late January. Other members of the Freckman research team are: Drs. Ross Virginia and Megchi Ho of Dartmouth College, Dr. Rusty Rodriguez, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and John Freckman, State Lands Commission, California.

Osvaldo Sala was recently nominated as a member of the Scientific Committee for the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme: A Study of Global Change. This is an international committee of approximately 20 scientists representing different disciplines from atmospheric science to ecology. The committee leads the international global change research effort. IGBP has different projects (e.g., IGAC and GCTE) that deal with atmospheric processes and terrestrial ecosystems.

Barbara Berg retired from her position as secretary for the LTER project on Nov. 19. Barbara had been with the project since its inception in 1982. She will be replaced by Edna Bobbit (moving from Atmos. Sci.) who will begin Dec. 6.

NOTE: University policy states that any scientist (including postdocs) who does consulting is required to submit a new consulting form to Diana Freckman and Al Dyer. This applies whether or not payment will be received, and must be done prior to consulting. Please see Arlene in Room 148 for forms.

NOTE: The University also requires an "Approval of Outside Employment" form be completed for any outside employment by full-time university employees. Such employment must be signed by the department head and the dean. Please see Arlene in Room 148 for forms.

Meetings

Jill Baron was invited to attend a workshop on "Climate-Hydrology-Ecology Interrelations in Mountain Areas," sponsored by the Biospheric Aspects of the Hydrologic Cycle Core Project office of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme. The objective was to develop research strategies for an internationally-coordinated research program in mountainous regions, including field investigations and measurements, modeling, and use of remote sensing data. At the workshop, held in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Dec. 1-5, Baron also presented the results of modeling snowmelt/hydrologic dynamics that she is conducting with colleagues Larry Band, U of Toronto, and Steve Running, U of MT. Jill presented an invited talk in a special American Geophysical Union session on Snowmelt Processes. Co-authors of the paper were Larry Band, Steve Running, and Don Cline. Baron was co-author of two other presentations at the fall AGU meeting.

Diana Freckman was elected to the Executive Board of the Assoc. of Ecosystem Research Centers at the annual meeting held in Washington, DC, Nov. 1-2, 1993.

The shortgrass steppe LTER project held a retreat on Nov. 13 with 30+ members attending to discuss and reformulate the conceptual framework for the project.

The annual meeting of the American Phytopathological Soc. and the Soc. of Nematologists was held in Nashville, TN, Nov. 6- 10. Bob Niles presented an invited paper on Nematode Biodiversity & Sustainability, co- authored with Diana Freckman. Other papers were presented by Laura Powers, Ericha Courtright.

The annual NADP Tech Committee meeting was held in Nashville, TN, Nov. 13-18. Participants were: D. Bigelow, C. Simmons, S. Pletschet, G. Lear, M. Welker and L. Bandhauer.

The Grassland Ecosystems of the Mongolian Steppe meeting was held at Racine, WI. A large contingent of NREL scientists attended this meeting and presented papers on summer research studies conducted in Mongolia and China. Jim Ellis flew in from Nairobi to attend the meeting in Wisconsin.

T. Elliott, K. Paustian, P. Motavalli, S. Huffman and S. Frey presented papers at the American Society of Agronomy meetings in Cincinnati, OH, Nov. 6-11.

Visitors

Steven Frolking, Inst. for Study of Earth, Oceans and Space, U of NH presented a Special

Seminar on "Modelling N2O Flux from Denitrification: The DNDC model and the role of the soil environment" and visited with NREL scientists on Dec. 1, 1993.

Lex Bouwman, National Inst. of Public Health & Environ. Protection, Bilthoven, The Netherlands visited with Dennis Ojima on Nov. 27, 28 & 29 and worked on global data sets for trace gas studies.

Dr. Ann Marie Odasz, Inst. Biol. & Geol., U of Tromso, Tromse, Norway will be visiting 15 Dec. 1993 to 30 Mar. 1994 and 1 Aug. 1994 to 31 Jul. 1995 with Mike Coughenour to collaborate on research into effects of reindeer grazing on plants at Svalbard and Norway. Coughenour will assist Odasz in modeling the reindeer grazing ecosystem. She also works on topics that Jeff Welker has been involved in at Svalbard and the high arctic.

Fu Congbin, Prof. of Meteorol. & Dir., Climate Research Lab, Chinese Acad. Sci. Inst. of Atmos. Physics will be at NREL Dec. 16 & 17 to visit with D. Ojima and discuss Chinese global change studies dealing with biosphere/atmosphere interactions.

Proposals Submitted

A preproposal to USAID/U of GA submitted by David Swift titled "SANREM CRSP Annual Workplan- NREL-Modeling Activity and Related Topics.

Jeff Welker, Dave Valentine and Diana Freckman submitted a proposal titled "Responses to Anthropogenic and Natural Disturbances by Maritime Antarctic Terrestrial Ecosystems: Processes Controlling Recovery" to NSF.

Deb Coffin, Bill Lauenroth and Larry Rittenhouse are PI's on a proposal submitted to NSF titled "Spatial Interactions Among Large Herbivores, Individual Plants, and Ecosystem Processes".

Manscripts Published

Aguilera, M.O. and W.K. Lauenroth. 1993. Seedling establishment in adult neighborhoods: Intraspecific constraints in the regeneration of the bunchgrass Bouteloua gracilis. J. Ecol. 81:283-261.

Aguilera, M.O. and W.K. Lauenroth. 1993. Neighborhood interactions in a natural population of the perennial bunchgrass Bouteloua gracilis. Oecologia 94:595-602.

Baron, J. and A.S. Denning. 1993. The influence of mountain meteorology on precipitation chemistry at low and high elevations of the Colorado Front Range, USA. Atmos. Environ. 27A:2337-2349.

Burke, I.C. and W.K. Lauenroth. 1993. What do LTER results mean? Extrapolating from site to region and decade to century. Ecol. Model. 67:19-35.

Cambardella, C.A. and E.T. Elliott. 1993. Carbon and nitrogen distribution in aggregates from cultivated and native grassland soils. SSSAJ 57:1071-1076.

Dyer, M.I., D.C. Coleman, D.W. Freckman and S.J. McNaughton. 1993. Measuring heterotroph-induced source-sink relationships in Panicum coloratum with 11C technology. Ecol. Appl. 3:654-665.

Freckman, D.W. and R.A. Virginia. 1993. Extraction of nematodes from Dry Valley Antarctic soils. Polar Biol. 13:483-487.

Lauenroth, W.K., D.L. Urban, D.P. Coffin, W.J. Parton, H.H. Shugart, T.B. Kirchner, and T.M. Smith. 1993. Modeling vegetation structure-ecosystem process interactions across sites and ecosystems. Ecol. Model. 67:49-80.

Milchunas, D.G. and W.K. Lauenroth. 1993. A quantitative assessment of the effects of grazing on vegetation and soils over a global range of environments. Ecol. Monogr. 63:327- 366.

Motavalli, P.P., J.M. Duxbury and D.M.G. de Souza. 1993. The influence of organic soil amendments on sulfate adsorption and sulfur availability in a Brazilian Oxisol. Plant and Soil 154:301-308.

Wookey, P.A., A.N. Parsons, J.M. Welker, J.A. Potter, T.V. Callaghan, J.A. Lee and M.C. Press. 1993. Comparative responses of phenology and reproductive development to simulated environmental change in sub-arctic and high arctic plants. Oikos 67:490-502.

Fellowship/Grant Opportunities

DOE/NSF/USDA Joint Program on Collaborative Research in Plant Biology has issued a RFP for Feb. 14, 1994. Focus is on fundamental plant biology, but draws on research approaches from a broad range of scientific disciplines. Of particular interest are research topics not currently receiving sufficient attention or those considered difficult to resolve because of technical or conceptual impediments. More information can be obtained from the VP for Research, CSU.

Personals

Vern Cole had back surgery on Nov. 15 and is slowly recouperating.

Helena Marie Brendel-Niles was born Nov. 21 to very proud parents Dee Brendel and Bob Niles.

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