NREL NEWS NOTES
NATURAL RESOURCE ECOLOGY LABORATORY
Colorado State University
No.21 February and March 1997
Spotlight on Science
Featuring: David Swift, Research Scientist - Natural
Resource Ecology Laboratory
Dave Swift is one of the truly veteran members of the NREL. He
began working here in the early 1970's when the NREL was the Grassland
Biome Study of the International Biological Program. At that time,
he had just completed an M.S. degree in forest hydrology, and was
hired by George Van Dyne to direct the computer programming/data
analysis group at the Laboratory.
In the late 1970's, he was called upon to develop simulation models
of energy and nitrogen relationships of large grazing animals to
assist in the analysis of the productivity and stability of grazing
systems. This required some additional education on his part, and
in 1983 he received his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Animal
Sciences at CSU.
Through the 1980's he was active with Jim Ellis, Mike Coughenour,
Kathy Galvin and others in the South Turkana Ecosystem Project,
a study of the ecology of a subsistence pastoral people in Northwest
Kenya. This was perhaps the first attempt at an ecosystem analysis
which treated the human component as an interacting part of the
system and not as an external driver.
Currently, Dave is "more or less, sort of semi-retired,"
but is having a little trouble breaking away from the Lab. He is
still teaching one semester per year and advising graduate students.
Two of his current Ph.D. students, Andres Cibils and Adnan Beker,
are studying the ecology of four-wing saltbush, and its defensive
chemistry on the shortgrass steppe.
He has recently worked in the People's Republic of China, as a
consultant to the Asian Development Bank, advising on the efficacy
of a loan being considered for the improvement of North China grasslands
and livestock production systems - an involvement which has given
him the opportunity to work with another NREL old timer, Jerry Dodd.
Dave is directing a project in Morocco, funded by USAID, designed
at developing sustainable agricultural systems in the mountainous,
and very erodible, Rif Mountain region in the northern part of that
country.
Dave's two children from his first marriage, Melissa and Ethan,
are grown and living in Denver. He is now married to Liliana Castro,
a professor of spanish at the University of Northern Colorado, and
is helping her raise two more children, Nicolas (14) and Luciana
(12). Most of his leisure activities revolve around the mountains
of Colorado and the Canyons of Utah.
Remember When???
Celebrating 30 Years of NREL: 1967-1997
At an early meeting of the grassland biome, representatives of
several major disciplines were asked to speak on the importance
of their component in the ecosystem. Following presentations by
a mammologist, an entomologist, an ornithologist and other biologists,
a microbiologist took the floor and emphasized that the microbial
biomass far exceeded the combined biomass of the insects, birds,
mammals, etc. The next speaker, a soil physicist, gleefully pointed
out that the water component of grassland greatly outweighed the
microbial biomass. The microbiological response: "Please note
that the data for our component were given on an oven-dry basis.
We suggest that you do likewise."
Biome Trivia Questions
(Answers)
1. Name the species (common name) that was given telemetric monitoring
at the Pawnee site.
2. What Biome product was occasionally served in the Biome mess
hall?
3. What was the name of the waterless lake?
4. Name the lady who was the cook at the Biome mess hall.
(Trivia submitted by an early Biome Participant)
Announcements
The NREL recently established several categories of giving which
include the NREL Graduate Student Fund, the NREL Scientific Equipment
Fund, Financial Support for NREL Scientists and Visiting Scientists,
the Van Dyne Distinguished Ecosystem Scientist Award, and the NREL
General Fund. We would like to thank the following people for their
gifts, which were received in February, 1997:
Dr. Jill Baron
Dr. Dennis Ojima
Roel Merckx has returned home to Heverlee, Belgium after working
with Ted Elliott and Keith Paustian for six months on the KTSOM
project. He made considerable progress in isolating a SOM fraction
hypothesized to be microbially derived. Roel will be resuming his
position at the Soil Fertility and Soil Biology Lab at the Katholieke
Universiteit, but will be returning to NREL this summer to collaborate
on manuscript preparation.
Tim Kittel has been appointed to the NASA, Earth Observing System
(EOS), Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD) Review Panel.
Congratulations to Bill Parton!! Bill was nominated for and won
the Gamma Sigma Delta Faculty Award of Merit. Up to two awards are
given annually to faculty who have distinguished themselves in research,
teaching, extension, or a combination thereof. A nominee must be
a faculty member in agricultural sciences or a related field at
Colorado State University. The award was presented to Bill at the
Chapter's Annual Initiation and Awards Banquet on Feb. 23 at the
Lory Student Center.
Mohammed Kalkhan received an appointment to Affiliate Faculty in
the Forest Sciences Department of Colorado State University. This
position will allow Mohammed to have graduate students and to serve
on their graduate committee.
On March 25, Indy Burke traveled to Richmond, Virginia, to receive
the 18th Distinguished Women Scholar Award from Delta Kappa Gamma
and Virginia Commonwealth University. She gave a public lecture
at The Virginia Museum entitled "Global Change: Past, Present
and Future."
Cynthia Melcher has accepted a 3-year term as editor for the Journal
of the Colorado Field Ornithologists. Cynthia's activities began
in early January when she and several other volunteers led a group
of 36 professional and amateur ornithologists from Colorado, New
Mexico, Arizona and Mexico to northern Chihuahua, Mexico, to conduct
the first "Ejido San Pedro" Christmas Bird Count (CBC).
The CBC is a continent-wide effort to monitor winter bird populations.
The period begins about one and one-half weeks before Christmas
Day and ends in the first week of January. It started at the turn
of the century as an effort to counteract the previous tradition
of going out at Christmas time to shoot as many birds as possible.
The counters recorded 117 species and nearly 22,000 individual birds
in approximately 10 hours. Among the count were almost every species
of endangered or at-risk species of grassland bird known to occur
in western North America. Cynthia's goal is to eventually turn the
entire CBC over to the Mexican scientists, who will use these data
to help promote conservation of this incredible natural resource
area.
Kathy Galvin is a member of the NAS/NRC panel on Human Dimensions
of Seasonal-to-Interannual Climate Variability to provide scientific
input to the NOAA Office of Global Programs on research needs and
programs focused on the human dimensions of short-term climatic
variability.
Meetings
COLORADO
Tom Hobbs gave a presentation entitled "Habitat Protection
for Wildlife" at the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute, University
of Denver Law School, on March 14.
NATIONAL
Jill Baron was part of a team that met in Seattle, WA, on Feb.
3-4 to plan future global change research in mountains of the western
United States. Jill then traveled to Wisconsin to participate in
a NSF Long-term Ecological Research Intersite Comparison Workshop
for intercomparison of Lake Districts at Trout Lake Biological Station
on Feb. 4-8.
Tom Hobbs, Dave Theobald, and Tammy Bearly gave a demonstration
of the SCoP information system to Colorado Legislators on February
20 at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC. The SCoP
project has been designated as a Beta Test Site for Arc View for
the Internet produced by the Environmental Systems Research Institute.
Molly Welker led an audit team on March 5-7, for a technical review
of the Mercury Analytical Lab (HAL) at Frontier Geosciences in Seattle,
WA. The HAL is contracted by CSU to provide the analytical services
and site support services for the NADP/MDN. The laboratory audit
was divided into the following categories: (1) organization &
management, (2) shipping and receiving, (3) field site support,
(4) analysis procedures, (5) quality assurance/quality control,
and (6) data processing.
Tim Kittel attended a NASA, EOS Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document
(ATBD) Review Panel meeting on Mar. 10-11 in Columbia, MD.
Dave Schimel (NTAC Chair) and Tim Kittel attended the National
Technical Advisory Committee (NTAC), Department of Energy, National
Institute for Global Environmental Change (NIGEC) on Mar. 12-14
in Phoenix, AZ.
Dave Theobald authored a poster entitled "Forecasting Rural
Land Use Change: An Evaluation of Approaches" and co-authored
a poster entitled "Characterization of Urban-Rural Gradients
and Effects on Avian Assemblages" with Jim Miller (Biology
and GDPE) and N.T. Hobbs for the 12th Annual Symposium of the US-International
Association for Landscape Ecology, Durham, NC, March 16-19. He presented
"Collaborative Design of Information Systems for Conservation
Planning," authored by N.T. Hobbs, D.M. Theobald, J.A. Zack,
T.L. Bearly, T. Shenk, and W.E. Riebsame.
Jeff Welker attended the annual NSF-ARCSS/LAII spring meeting on
Mar. 26-29 in Seattle, WA. The winter CO2 flux studies in Alaska
that Jeff, Michael Jones, Jace Fahnestock and Paul Brooks have been
conducting will be presented as a poster. Kathy Galvin gave a poster
presentation titled "Biological Conservation and Human Nutrition
in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania," at the Human
Biology Association meeting Mar. 31-Apr. 2 in St. Louis, MO.
INTERNATIONAL
Bill Parton and Robin Kelly attended the African-GAIM Modeling
Workhsop which was held in Mombasa, Kenya, March 3-12. They introduced
scientists from across the African continent to the Century model
and concepts of ecosystem modeling. The also met with Cheryl Palm
and Pedro Sanchez (Nairobi) about ongoing TSBF activities involving
Century.
Visitors
Keith Paustian, Ted Elliott, Vern Cole, Jan Cipra, and Kendrick
Killian met with George Bluhm, USDA/NRCS on Nov. 21 to discuss further
collaboration in doing state level assessments of soil C storage
in agroecosystems. The effects of different agricultural practices
and their contribution to CO2 mitigation as a part of the assessments
were discussed.
Dr. Pam Matson, Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University
of California, Berkeley, CA, visited NREL and presented lectures
for the 1997 Distinguished Ecologist Lecture Series on Feb. 26-28.
Dr. Matson lectured on "Global Change in the Nitrogen Cycle"
and "Trace Gas Emissions from Intensively Managed Agroecosystems."
Dr. John Frederick, Chairman, Department of Geophysical Sciences,
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, visited NREL on Feb. 28. Dr.
Frederick presented a seminar titled "Solar Ultraviolet Radiation
and the Biosphere."
Dr. Terry Root, Professor, University of Michigan, School of Natural
Resources and the Environment, Ann Arbor, MI, visited CSU and presented
lectures for the Colloquium in the Life Sciences titled "Gender
Differences in Opportunities and Obstacles in Science" and
"Possible Ecological Consequences of Global Warming: A Case
Study of North American Birds" on March 31. Dr. Root is a Pew
Scholar as well as a winner of the Presidential Young Investigator
Award.
NREL Seminars
February 7: Bill Davis and Dave Bigelow, NADP. "NREL's Choice
Awards for the WWW: Useful examples and techniques for disseminating
scientific information via the Internet."
February 14: Dennis Ojima, NREL. "Land Use Issues in Temperate
East Asia."
February 21: Andy Parsons, NREL. "Antarctic Travelogue - The
Search for Scott."
February 28: John Frederick, Chairman, Department of Geophysical
Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. "Solar
Ultraviolet Radiation and the Biosphere."
March 7: Dr. Robin M. Reich, Associate Professor, Forest Sciences
Department, CSU. "Application of Spatial Statistics in Sampling
Natural Resources."
March 21: Tom Stohlgren, NREL. "The Weed Invasion of the West:
Dearth Invader?"
March 28: John Gross, NREL. "Evaluating Conservation Priorities
for Vertebrates - A PowerPoint Presentation."
April 4: Dave Schimel, NREL & NCAR. "The Ecology and Economics
of Stabilizing Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases."
April 11: Vern Cole, NREL. "Assessment of Potential Mitigation
of Greenhouse Gases in Agriculture: A Challenge for Ecological Studies."
April 18: Diane Waddle, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology,
CSU. "Prehistoric Migrations and the Origin of Modern Humans."
April 25: Gary Lear, NADP. "Atmospheric Deposition."
May 2: Mohammed Kalkhan, NREL. "Linking Multiphase Sampling
and Spatial Cross-Correlation to Assess Map Accuracy and Patterns
of Plant Species Richness."
May 9: Jim Ellis, NREL. "Implications of Spatial Scale for
Diversity, Stability, and Productivity - Lessons from South African
Game Ranching."
Graduate Student News
Ana Mireya Salas and Rodolfo Delgado have arrived from Venezuela
and will be students of Ted Elliott (Dwayne Westfall co-advisor)
and Keith Paustian (Gary Peterson co-advisor), respectively. Vern
Cole was instrumental in bringing them here and will be heavily
involved in their research and education. Ana will be self-funded
and working with Keith Paustian on the CROP project to develop a
new high resolution agroecosystem model.
Eric Allstott attended and presented a talk at the BRD Watershed
Studies Conference on the Olympic Peninsula in Forks, WA, in early
Feb.
Geneva Chong was in Honduras, Feb. 24-Mar. 7 to re-evaluate the
butterfly farm in the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve (part of the
Partnership for Biodiversity, a USAID/USDI/Peace Corps agreement).
She also participated in some initial planning for the development
of a "Center for Investigation and Documentation" for
the Reserve in cooperation with Honduran government organizations,
scientists, and international researchers.
Pella Brinkman gave a talk on her trip to Antarctica and the research
being done there, on Feb. 26, to the MESA Club at Rocky Mountain
High School.
Cyndi Brock gave a seminar on March 31 at the Loch Vale project
meeting in the NREL Conference Room. She presented her M.S. research
results on sulfur isotope biogeochemistry in a Loch Vale wetland.
On March 20, Serita Frey gave a guest lecture on Sustainability
of U.S. Agriculture to!Dan Binkley's NR 425 class. Serita also presented
a talk titled "Bacterial and Fungal Abundance and Biomass in
Conventional and No-Tillage Agroecosystems," at the CSU Student
Ecology Symposium held March 27-28.
Grants Funded
United States Department of Agriculture
Keith Paustian and Ted Elliott have been funded by United States
Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service
(USDA/NRCS) to assess how adoption of conservation practices in
agriculture (e.g., Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), conservation
tillage, grassed waterways) affects C storage in agroecosystems
for the State of Iowa. The project will help assess potential agricultural
options for CO2 mitigation, evaluated at local and state levels.
Proposals Submitted
Tom Stohlgren and Dan Binkley submitted a proposal titled, "Development
of an Aspen Monitoring Plan for Rocky Mountain National Park,"
to National Park Service (NPS).
Ted Elliott and Keith Paustian submitted a proposal to Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) titled, "Development, Monitoring, and
Assessment of Indicators of Ecosystem Health and Sustainability."
A proposal titled "Developing a GIS to Determine Alfalfa Stem
Nematode Occurrence and Alfalfa Disease Risk in the South Platte
River Basin" was submitted to USDA/CSREES/IPM Western Region/Systems
Research by Diana Freckman and Bob Niles.
Mike Coughenour and Jim Ellis submitted a proposal to NSF/MMIA
titled "Integrated Assessment of African Savannas with Spatial-Dynamic
Vegetation and Land Use Modeling."
A proposal titled "Modeling Arizona Oak Savanna Responses
to Climate, Grazing, Fire and Exotic Grasses" was submitted
by Mike Coughenour to University of Arizona (DOE/TECO).
Dan Milchunas submitted a proposal to University of Wyoming (USDA/IPM)
titled "Assessment of the Feasibility of Using Miniriizotron
Technology for Monitoring Belowground Responses."
Bill Hunt and Bill Parton submitted a proposal titled "Responses
of Shortgrass Steppe to Elevated CO2 and Resource Constraints: Scaling
from Plot to Landscape," to USDA (DOE/TECO).
A proposal titled "Factors Affecting Grassland and Wood Plant
Distribution in Semi-Arid Ecosystems of Southwest USA" was
submitted by Dennis Ojima to DOE/TECO.
Mike Coughenour submitted a proposal to various agencies titled
"Spatial Ecosystem Modeling of the Jackson Bison and Elk Herds
and their Environment."
Dennis Ojima submitted a proposal to NASA titled "Workshop
on the Development of a Temperate East Asia Land-Cover Database."
Romulo Menezes submitted a proposal titled "Agrosilvopastoralismo
no semi-arido: Sustentabilidade atraves da influencia de especies
arboreas nas caracteristicas do solo e na producao de biomassa pelo
estrato herbaceo" to the Brazilian chapter of World Wildlife
Fund.
Manuscripts Published
Cole, C.V., J. Duxbury, J. Freney, O. Heinemeyer, K. Minami, A.
Mosier, K. Paustian, N. Rosenberg, N. Sampson, D. Sauerbeck, and
Q. Zhao. 1997. Global estimates of potential mitigation of greenhouse
gas emissions by agriculture. Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems.
Epstein, H.E., W.K. Lauenroth, I.C. Burke, and D.P. Coffin. 1996.
Ecological responses of dominant grasses along two climatic gradients
in the Great Plains of the United States. Journal of Vegetation
Science 7:777-788.
McKeown, R., D.S. Ojima, T.G.F. Kittel, D.S. Schimel, W.J. Parton,
H. Fisher, and T. Painter. 1996. Ecosystem modeling of spatially
explicit land surface changes for climate and global change analysis.
McKnight, D.M., R. Harnish, R.L. Wershaw, J.S. Baron, and S. Schiff.
1997. Chemical characteristics of particulate, colloidal, and dissolved
organic material in Loch Vale watershed, Rocky Mountain National
Park. Biogeochemistry 36:99-124.
Paul, E.A., K. Paustian, E.T. Elliott and C.V. Cole (Eds.). 1997.
Soil Organic Matter in Temperate Agroecosystems: Long-Term Experiments
in North America. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL. 414 pp.
Pielke, Sr., R.A., G.E. Liston, L. Lu, P.L. Vidale, R.L. Walko,
T.G.F. Kittel, W.J. Parton, and C.B. Field. 1997. Coupling of land
and atmospheric models over the GCIP area - CENTURY, RAMS, and SiB2C.
Pages 92-95 in: 13th Conference on Hydrology, American Meteorological
Society, Long Beach, CA, February 2-7.
Personals
Charlotte Arbury had a baby daughter on February 10, 1997, and
named her Madeline Anne Arbury. Congratulations Mom and Dad Arbury!!
Trivia Answers:
1. Jackrabbit, for range and routes of movement. A monitored animal
was observed to visit one particular spot for a few minutes, but
only in the dark of night. Investigation of this particular spot
revealed a well-hidden nest. Mamma rabbit knew that daytime nursing
was a no-no.
2. Buffalo meat. Rumor was that whenever the freezer ran out of
such meat, the site manager would inspect the herd and that invariably
he would find one animal looking unmanageable. Actually, only two
buffalo ended up on the mess hall table, and only one of the two
was dangerously rambunctious.
3. Lake Lynn. On one occasion, a visitor was told that he would
be shown a certain experiment located at Lake Lynn. When actually
on site, he asked "Where is the Lake?" "Oh, you are
standing in it. Most years it is dry, but some years it has lots
of water."
4. Sarah Kanode. She was about 70 years of age when she became
cook. She had lived most of her preceding years on Pawnee grasslands.
Sarah died in 1989 at the age of 91.
NREL News Notes will be published every two months. Please submit
your news items to Kay McElwain (Editor) by the last Monday of each
month
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