NREL IN THE LIMELIGHT
NREL GLOBAL CONNECTIONS SYMPOSIUM
On September 8, 2004, NREL hosted the Symposium “Global Connections
between NREL and the World: Lessons Learned” at the CSU
Student Center. Colleagues, NREL alumni, and members of the scientific
community from near and far attended. In addition to the research
presented by NREL scientists, there was stimulating social interaction
and discussion among attendees. Ten NREL scientists gave presentations
of their research. A complete program, downloadable Powerpoint
presentations and photos, are at http://www.nrel.colostate.edu/events/symposium2004.htm.
Following the Symposium, the External Advisory Committee (EAC),
(Drs. Norman Christensen, Duke University, Thomas
Lovejoy, H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics
and the Environment, and Jim MacMahon, Utah
State University, participated in a panel discussion “Perspectives
on challenges for global ecosystem science.” NREL’s Dr.
Bill Parton substituted on the panel for EAC member Dr.
Jerry Melillo of The Ecosystems Center at Woods Hole, who was unable
to attend.
The lecture presented by the previous recipient of the NREL Award
of Excellence in Ecosystem Scienceis a highlight of the NREL symposium.
The 2002 awardee, Professor Thomas Rosswall of
the International Council for Science in Paris, honored us with
his lecture, “Microbiology-From
Ecosystem Science to Sustainable Development.”
MCNAUGHTON 2004 EXCELLENCE IN ECOSYSTEM SCIENCE AWARDEE
 The NREL Award of Excellence in Ecosystem Science was established
in 1997. It is presented to an individual whose independent and interdisciplinary
research has contributed to sustained, innovative syntheses and new
insights in the study of ecosystems. Previous recipients are: Dr.
Jerry Melillo, Woods Hole, Dr. David Coleman,
Univ. of Georgia and Professor Thomas Rosswall,
ICSU, Paris.
At the reception immediately following the NREL Symposium, Dr.
Mike Coughenour, NREL, presented the 2004 Award of Excellence in
Ecosystem Science to Dr. Samuel J. McNaughton who
is internationally recognized for his contributions to the field
of grazing ecosystem ecology. He is an eminent scholar and holds
an endowed chair at Syracuse Univ. Dr. McNaughton is globally recognized
for definitive research in the world’s premier grazing ecosystem,
the Serengeti, for three decades. He was the architect of central
ideas in ecosystem science and in developing a deeper understanding
of the fundamental importance of herbivores in structuring and
altering the basic processes of grassland and savanna ecosystem.
Dr. Coughenour closed the ceremony by noting that NREL is especially
honored to name Dr. Sam McNaughton for this award.
Dr. Jill Baron (USGS/NREL) receives local publicity
Publicity surrounding effects of nitrogen deposition to high elevations
of Rocky Mountain National Park has included news articles in
the Rocky Mountain News, the Estes Park Trail Gazette, and the
Loveland Herald. Interviews were given to Channel 7 and Channel
9 TV.
RESEARCH PROJECT NEWS
FUNDED RESEARCH PROJECTS
Drs. Eldor Paul and Rich Conant received
$619,201 of funding from DOE for “Ecosystem Controls on C Sequestration
Following Afforestation of Agricultural Lands.” This research
project is focused on understanding how conversion from agriculture
to forest impacts the amount and chemical characteristics of
soil carbon.
Dr. Stephen Ogle, PI, with co-PIs from NREL and
Statistics, CSU, and NASA Ames, were awarded $600,000 through the
NASA-USDA-DOE Interagency Carbon Cycle Science Program for “CO2 Fluxes between Agricultural
Lands and the Atmosphere: Towards More Complete Accounting by Integrating
Remote Sensing with Simulation Modeling.” This research
will support objectives of the North American Carbon Program
as well as U.S. carbon management policy.
Dr. Stephen Ogle, PI, with co-PIs from NREL
and Anthropology, CSU and Montana State Univ. were also awarded
$454,000 for “Emissions Trading Through
Agricultural C Sequestration: Adopting Conservation Practices, Leakage and
Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gases,” through the USDA-NRI Markets and Trade
Program. This project will support public policy development dealing
with mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions focusing on socioeconomic
and environmental constraints to adoption, as well as a better accounting
of mitigation occurring with adoption by including leakage and non-CO2
greenhouse gas emissions.
Drs. Kathy Galvin (NREL/Anthropology) and Dennis
Ojima were awarded $73,905 for a 1-year grant from NSF’s Human and Social Dynamics Special Competition
for “Household Decision Making Under Uncertainty.” The research
team is assessing household patterns and processes of coping with climate
variability from various sites around the world and are developing or
adapting and linking socio-economic agent-based household models to ecosystem
models to test hypotheses that relate climate variability and climate
change to decision making and the impacts and consequences on people
and ecosystems.
Dr. Diana Wall and Holley
Zadeh were awarded $65,000 from the Winslow
Foundation for “Integrating Soil Biodiversity and an Ecosystem
Process: Analysis of a Global Experiment.”
Drs. Rich Conant (PI) and Jill Baron (co-PI)
received $40,600 in funding from USGS for “Taking the PULSE
of Colorado’s Front Range.” They will develop indicators
for ecological conditions of biomes of the Front Range.
Dr. Rich Conant is co-PI for a subcontract with
Univ. of Colorado (R.A Pielke Jr., PI) on a 2.4 million NSF project “Science
Policy Assessment and Research on Climate (SPARC).” Conant
et al. will develop tools to reconcile supply of and demand for
scientific information, carry out sensitivity analyses to help
prioritize research, and characterize model output for policymakers.
Dr. Mohammed Kalkhan is PI on a $1.1 million NASA
project for Biological Fingerprinting of the Western United States.
The purpose of this project is to map native and non-native species
diversity. The work extends cooperative research with NASA Goddard
Space Flight Center and NASA Headquarters being conducted by Dr.
Tom Stohlgren (USGS/NREL) and a team of scientists, including Greg
Newman of NREL.
PhD graduate student Moffatt Ngugi (Dr.
Rich Conant, advisor) received a three-year, $72,000
NASA Earth System Fellowship for a project entitled “Characterizing
key resource areas in Kenyan rangelands using remote sensing.” He
will investigate how key resource areas (areas with forage available
during dry seasons and/or drought) and changes to key resource
areas impact forage supply for the broader regions. His research
will be carried out in seven Kenyan rangeland districts arrayed
across an aridity gradient.
APPOINTMENTS
Congratulations to Neil Shropshire who has been
appointed as NREL Assistant Director.
Dr. Joe von Fisher (NREL/Biology) was appointed
as the Director for the Colorado Laboratory of Environmental Mass
Spectrometry (CLEMS). This lab has two stable isotope mass spectrometers
that are ideal for ecological analyses and have been used to analyze
everything from precipitation collected across the entire U.S.
to arctic clonal plants and avian breath. One machine is a continuous
flow instrument and the other a dual-inlet machine. The lab is
primarily used by NREL members, but samples from other CSU departments,
and from other institutions, can be analyzed upon request. Go to
http://www.nrel.colostate.edu/about/lab/ms.html.
Dr. Jill Baron has joined the Board of Directors
of the Mountain Studies Institute, Silverton CO.
Dr. Rod Chimner was elected President of the
Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Society of Wetland Scientists.
Dr. Lindsey Christensen was appointed the NREL
graduate student liaison.
Dr. Stephen Del Grosso is now working as a Soil
Scientist for Soil, Plant and Nutrient Research, USDA, ARS, in
Fort Collins. Steve is responsible for the next edition of the
USDA Greenhouse Gas Inventory and for compiling trace gas flux
data from various sites into a common database. Steve will continue
to work with Drs. Keith Paustian and Steve
Ogle on the Central American Greenhouse Gas Inventories
project and with Drs. Bill Parton and Dennis
Ojima on greenhouse gas mitigation strategies.
OUTREACH AND SPECIAL MEETINGS
National
Dr. Rich Conant, and colleagues from Colorado
and Arizona State Universities, organized a meeting at CSU entitled “Reconciling
Supply and Demand of Carbon Cycle Science.” Additional participants
included NSF, DOE, and NOAA program managers, city planners,
as well as agricultural producers and policy makers.
Dr. Kathy Galvin organized a workshop at CSU
for her NSF Decision Making Under Uncertainty project. Attendees
included: Dr. Dennis Ojima, Jill Lackett, Dr. Randy Boone,
Shauna Burnsilver, and Dr. Rich Conant,
NREL; Dr. Peter Deadman, Univ. of Waterloo, Canada; Dr. K.S. Rajan,
Univ. of Tokyo, Japan; Dr. Philip Thornton, International Livestock
Research Institute (ILRI), Nairobi, Kenya and the Univ. of Edinburgh,
UK; and Dr. Tom Veldkamp, Laboratory of Soil Science and Geology,
Wageningen, the Netherlands.
Drs. Eldor Paul and Rich Conant organized
a meeting in Des Moines, Iowa entitled “The contribution
of terrestrial and anthropogenic processes to atmospheric CO2 concentrations
in the Mid-Continent North American Carbon Program (NACP) study.” Drs.
Keith Paustian, Niall Hanan, and Steve Ogle of
NREL also attended.
Dr. Diana Wall gave the invited plenary address
for the Society of Nematologists, Estes Park, CO, entitled, “Revisiting
Van Gundy's Challenge: Have We Taken Our Blinders Off?” Drs.
Emma Broos, Johnson Nkem, and Grace Li also
participated.
Drs. Jill Baron and Lindsey Christensen attended
the Western Mountain Initiative meeting in New Mexico at Bandelier
National Monument, where Lindsey gave a talk.
Greg Newman attended the National Biological
Information Infrastructure (NBII) All Node Meeting in Big Sky,
Montana to assist in the further development of the NBII Invasive
Species Information Node.
Dr. Rod Chimner presented a poster on ecosystem
carbon cycling in San Juan fens at the State of the San Juans meeting “San
Juan Mountains Science & Research: Linking Communities, Researchers
and Practitioners,” in Silverton, Colorado. This conference
was specially designed for presentations of academic and agency
research, results of local watershed-based assessment and restoration
efforts, and current natural, economic, and social conditions and
trends in the San Juan Mountains.
As an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow, Dr. Tom Hobbs attended
a week long training session in communicating science to government
in Washington, DC this fall. Dr. Hobbs also participated in the
Ecology of Infectious Diseases Workshop for the National Ecological
Observatory Network in Baltimore.
The Agroecosystem Research Group made a strong showing at the
68th Annual Meeting of the Soil Science Society of America with
the Canadian Society of Soil Science in Seattle, WA. Presentations
were given by Drs. Keith Paustian, Eldor Paul, Steve Ogle,
Karolien Denef and Alain Plante (NREL), Johan
Six (UC Davis/NREL), and NREL grad students Erandathie
Lokupitiya and Cathy Stewart. Alain also
chaired a symposium and Cathy presented a poster for which she
was awarded the top prize for graduate student posters in the Soil
Biology and Biochemistry (S3) division.
Participants at the 2004 UV-B Site Operators Workshop, from
left: Jose DeSoto, s.CA; Mike Newell, MD; Lee Thomas, ME;
Gordon Labow, NASA; Royce Fontenot, LA; Mim Pendleton, VT;
Mark Lindquist, CO; John Davis, Jim Slusser, Gwen Scott,
all UVMRP staff.
|
The UV-B Monitoring and Research Program (UVMRP) hosted its second
Site Operators Workshop at Sylvan Dale Guest Ranch, Loveland. Seven
of the 43 site operators attended the two-day workshop and heard
presentations and updates by UVMRP staff about their projects,
followed by hands-on training with the instruments and ancillary
components. Powerpoint presentations are available under the “Instrumentation” section http://uvb.nrel.colostate.edu/UVB/.
International
Drs. Dan Binkley (GDPE) and Oleg Menyailo (Sukachev
Institute of Forest, Russian Academy of Sciences) co-organized
a NATO Advanced Research Workshop to explore patterns and processes
of interactions between trees and soils. The workshop was
held in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, and brought together 25 scientists
from North America, Europe, and Russia. One of the key conclusions
was that species effects are commonly larger than the effects of
modest differences in climate, so the effect of climate change
on biogeochemistry (and trace gas fluxes) will likely depend more
on changes in species dominance on sites rather than on direct
effects of climate.
Drs. Keith Paustian (NREL/Soil and Crop Sciences), Stephen
Ogle (NREL) and John Brenner (USDA-NRCS/NREL)
attended the Second Authors meeting in preparation of the 2006
IPCC National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Guidelines, in Le Morne,
Mauritius. This meeting focused on the further developments of
the IPCC Greenhouse Gas Inventory Guidelines in the Agriculture,
Forestry and Other Land Use Sector (formerly LULUCF).
Dr. Diana Wall was co-leader of a UK Biotechnology & Biological
Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) funded international workshop, “Integrative
Approaches for the Investigation of Root Herbivory in Sustainable
Agricultural Systems” in Redding, UK.
Dr. Wall participated in NASA Planetary Protection
Advisory Committee meetings in Washington DC and in the Peer Review
Committee meeting for the Graduate School of Production Ecology & Resource
Conservation of Wageningen University, The Netherlands. She also
presented a keynote address on “Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning
in “Terrestrial Habitats in Antarctica” for the Scientific
Committee meeting on Antarctic Research (SCAR), Bremen, Germany,
and and the keynote address on “The Contribution of Soil
Invertebrates to Soil Ecosystem Services” at the International
Colloquium of Soil Zoology, Rouen, France.
Dr. Melannie Hartman gave a presentation, “Modeling
the Timeline for Stream Acidification from Excess Nitrogen Deposition
in Loch Vale Watershed,” at the NADP Scientific Symposium
and Technical Committee Meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
GRAD STUDENT NEWS
Francis Clark Soil Biology Scholarship Recipients
 Jill Oropeza is a GDPE and NREL MS student(Dr.
Jill Baron, advisor). She received her B.S. in Environmental
Science from the Univ. of Kansas. Her research focuses on identifying
the major controls on soil acidity under dominant vegetation
types within Loch Vale Watershed (LVWS), Rocky Mountain National
Park to better define the capacity of the watershed to buffer
changes in soil chemistry in response to atmospheric nitrogen
deposition. Jill is also involved as a NSF graduate fellow in
the GK-12 program. Jill expects to complete her research by December
2005, and will pursue opportunities to work professionally on
resource conservation issues related to human population growth
and urban development.
 Erandi Lokupitiya, from Sri Lanka, is a GDPE
PhD student at NREL and the Dept. of Soil and Crop Sciences (Dr.
Keith Paustian, advisor). Erandi obtained her MSc in Soil
Biology from the Univ. of Wyoming where she studied soil nematodes
in alpine soil. Subsequently, she worked in the Sri Lankan Ministry
of Forestry and the Environment on climate change and greenhouse
gas issues. Erandi’s research consists of analyzing national
scale carbon dynamics in agricultural soils in the U.S. using national
crop databases, GIS, modeling, and remote sensing. She has also
evaluated the methodologies used by different counties to inventory
their national greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural soils.
In the future, Erandi plans to develop expertise on climate change
implications in relation to soils.
 Sarah Hamman is a fourth year GDPE doctoral student
(Dr. Ingrid Burke, advisor) studying the seasonal
effects of prescribed fire on soil nutrient dynamics in Sequoia
National Park and varying severity wildfire effects on soil microbial
community structure and function in the Hayman fire site. Sarah
plans to graduate in December 2005 and is pursuing a post-doc position
in biogeochemical cycling research. Her goal is to share ecological
knowledge and inspire others to learn and care about the fascinating
world around us.
New grad student welcome
Dr. Tom Stohlgren's group welcomes the following
five new graduate students:
1) Cory Bolen is a Dept. of Forest Rangeland
and Watershed Stewardship MS student working under Dr. Mohammed
Kalkhan. Cory has a BS in Forest Resources from the Univ.
of Idaho and has worked for various federal agencies on fire/fuels
research and vegetation mapping projects. Cory's master's thesis
will explore the spatial modeling of fire/fuel characteristics
in Grand Teton National Park.
2) Ginger Bradshaw earned a BS in Natural Resources
Management from CSU. She has worked with the National
Park Service on diverse natural resource issues. Ginger plans
to develop research projects that will help land managers decide
where control efforts will have the most effect and apply limited
resources to manage invasive species problems.
3) Hilary Drucker graduated from Fort Lewis College
in Durango, CO with a BS in environmental biology and a minor in
chemistry. She is currently working towards her MS in Plant Pathology
and Weed Science in the College of Bioagricultural Sciences and
Pest Management, Dr. Cynthia Brown, advisor. Hilary is involved
in a project to identify the next invasive weed species of Colorado
by developing invasive weed lists for each county. These 'Watch
Lists' will be available to land managers through the National
Institute of Invasive Species Science (NIISS) web-sites.
4) Jon Freeman is a GDPE MS student (Drs.
Tom Stohlgren and Phil Omi, advisors).
His research is part of a Joint Fire Science Program project
on the interactions between pre-fire fuel treatments, post-fire
severity, and non-native plant species. Jon began collecting
data this past summer on the Aspen Fire on Mt. Lemmon, near
Tucson, AZ and the Davis Fire south of Ben, OR, working with
Don Carpenter, Dr. Geneva Chong (NREL), and Erik Martinson.
Jon graduated from the Univ. of Kentucky.
5) Sunil Kumar, from northern India, earned
a BS in Mathematics & Physics and a MS in Forestry. He worked
on the ‘Indian Central Himalaya Biodiversity Mapping and
Monitoring’ project before coming to CSU on a Ford Foundation
International Fellowship. Sunil has recently shifted to
the GDPE to work on the effects of spatial heterogeneity on
the distribution of native and non-native species diversity
in areas of Rocky Mountain National Park, the state of Colorado,
and the Western U.S.
Lindsay Reynolds is a PRIMES PhD student (Dr.
Tom Hobbs, advisor) working on the development of a
project in Rocky Mountain National Park looking at how elk browse
affects bird communities. She earned her BA in Ecology from
Dartmouth College.
Joseph DeCant is a GDPE MS student in forest
ecology working with Dr. Dan Binkley on various
aspects of forest restoration ecology in Colorado.
Doi The Bui, PhD student in forestry (Dr.
Dan Binkley, advisor) is doing his research on community
ecology and forest regeneration on limestone-derived soils in
Viet Nam.
Eli Knapp is a PhD student working with Dr. Kathy
Galvin, advisor, on her NSF-funded “Biocomplexity of the
Greater Serengeti” project. Eli is currently working in Tanzania,
but will be at NREL next summer.
Monique LaPerriere is a GDPE MS student in working
on forest biogeochemistry with Drs. Dan Binkley and Chuck
Rhoades. Monique will be investigating the dynamics of
biogeochemistry in riparian ecosystems at the Fraser Experimental
Forest in central Colorado.
VISITORS
Daniela Piermatteo, a PhD student at the Seconda Universita di
Napoli, Italy, visited NREL in September to work with Dr.
Stephen Ogle. Her research is part of a large field
experiment near her home institution in Italy, under the direction
of Francesca Cotrufo, which is anticipated to provide a broader
understanding of climate change impacts on plant and soil processes
in Mediterranean ecosystems. Daniela is focusing her studies
on litter production and decomposition under experimentally-manipulated
precipitation regimes.
Simon Bisrat, an Eritrean Univ. instructor and graduate student
with NREL alumnus Dr. Layne Coppock, Utah State Univ. visited NREL
and Drs. Mike Coughenour and Randall Boone, learning
the Savanna Modeling System. Lengthy discussions about the
ecology of African wild asses within Eritrea confirmed that the
ecosystem model will be useful in management of this critically
endangered species.
NREL hosted a meeting of the Grand Canyon Research and Monitoring
Program Science Advisory Board. SAB members, including Drs.
Jill Baron, Lance Gunderson, Jim Kitchell, Dale Robertson,
and Dave Garrett, spent two days reviewing the Program's Strategic
Plan, Core Monitoring Plan, Humpback Chub Recovery Plan, and Long-Term
Experimental Plan.
PEOPLE
NEW PEOPLE AT NREL
Dr. Jackie Grant is a Research Scientist working
with Dr. Dave Theobald (NREL, NRRT). She received
her Ph.D. for chemical and behavioral ecology of caterpillars from
the Dept. of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell Univ., NY. Jackie
will be working as a TNC Postdoctoral Fellow with Dave on landscape
connectivity models that incorporate genetic data from leopard
frogs in the Black Hills ecoregion.
Dr. Lindsey Christensen, previous NREL graduate
student, has rejoined NREL as a Research Scientist. Lindsey left
NREL in 2000 to work at the Center for Environmental Science, Stanford
Univ. as a Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Pam Matson. She
went on to serve as Program Director for an educational foundation.
She is now working with Dr. Jill Baron on the Western Mountain
Initiative, a USGS project that examines the effect of global change
on high elevation mountain ecosystems.
Dr. Joseph Ogutu is working with Drs.
Tom Hobbs and Robin Reid (ILRI/NREL)
as a Research Scientist on their NSF-funded project studying
effects of pastoralists on the abundance and distribution of
wildlife in the Mara region of Kenya. Dr. Ogutu is a Kenyan wildlife
ecologist and biometrician and will be based in Tanzania.
Dr. Chris Williams, previous NREL grad student,
has returned to NREL as a Research Scientist working with Dr.
Niall Hanan on his NOAA and NASA-funded project to study
the carbon dynamics of the African continent. Chris’ research
will seek to improve not only our understanding of the spatial
and temporal dynamics of African carbon exchange, but also the
role ofAfrica in global atmospheric carbon dynamics. Chris completed
his PhD at the Duke Univ. Pratt School of Engineering.
PEOPLE WHO HAVE LEFT NREL
Dr. Jeff Welker, Sr. Research Scientist, has
accepted an appointment as Director of the Environment and Natural
Resources Institute, University of Alaska, Anchorage. Dr. Welker
will be establishing a lab similar to the Stable Isotope Laboratory
he directed at NREL. He was also appointed professor in Biological
Sciences and is already engaged in cooperative research and programmatic
efforts.
John Brenner was reassigned to the new USDA Natural
Resources Conservation Service West National Technology Support
Center in Portland, OR. He is responsible for technology development
and transfer for model based greenhouse gas analysis for NRCS. John
continues to lead the USDA effort to incorporate Century into the
DOE Energy Information Agency Voluntary Reporting of GHG's 1605(b)
system. This joint effort and the new Carbon Management Evaluation
Tool for Voluntary Reporting (COMET-VR) continues to showcase how
NRCS and NREL work together and how research tools can be refined
for conservation activities for use by land managers on private
lands.
GIFTS TO NREL
NREL is deeply grateful to the many individuals who have contributed
to our Excellence in Enhancing Global Connections endowment. This
ambitious endowment will be used to support bridge salary for scientists
and other costs and opportunities which cannot be accommodated
by NREL’s base of federal grant funding. It is expected to
be a very important part of NREL’s future operations. Every
dollar donated to this endowment by individual NREL supporters
is being matched by an anonymous donor, making this a one-of-a-kind
opportunity to enhance NREL’s future. Over $69,000 has been
raised so far. If you are interested in contributing to this exciting
new endowment, please contact Neil Shropshire (970-491-5645 or
neil@nrel.colostate.edu) for more information.
NREL is also grateful for the continuing support given by donors
to the James Ellis Scholarship Fund, which will support students
interested in human dimensions of global environmental change,
and to the general NREL gift fund, which supports a variety of
efforts beneficial to NREL.
|
