About the Ecology Program
The mission of the Ecology program is to provide the highest quality education in ecology through advanced training in current ecological methods, theories, controversies, applications, and teaching methods by drawing on the great depth and breadth of ecological expertise at Colorado State University and in our local community of scientists. We follow CSU’s Principles of Community in our work, which focus on inclusion, integrity, respect, service, and social justice.
Recent Highlights
The Ecological Society of America recently presented the prestigious George Mercer Award to Megan Vahsen, a former GDPE student in Ruth Hufbauer’s research group who is now a postdoctoral fellow at Utah State University. The award is presented annually for an outstanding ecological research paper published by an early-career lead author. Vahsen and her co-authors received the award for a paper published in Science, titled “Rapid plant trait evolution can alter coastal wetland resilience to sea level rise”.
Six GDPE students were selected as 2024-2025 Sustainability Leadership Fellows for the School of Global Environmental Sustainability (SoGES). This fellowship program provides science communication training and other professional development opportunities for 20 advanced PhD students and postdoctoral scholars each year. Congratulations to Katherin Meza, Erin Jackson, Kathy Condon, Elizabeth Diaz-Clark, Kord Dicke, and Mikko Jimenez!
Laura Lukens, a PhD student in the Mola Lab, was recently awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. This award ‘recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who have demonstrated the potential to be high-achieving scientists, early in their careers’. Laura studies how anthropogenic change influences population dynamics and species interactions, with a focus on endangered species conservation. Congratulations, Laura!
CSU Ecologists in the News
PhD student, Matt Sturchio, was interviewed for a recent story in The Colorado Sun on the benefits of agrivoltaic installations. In the article, Matt shares that increased biodiversity and drought resilience is a win for Coloradan landowners. Photovoltaic panels, like those at Jack’s Solar Garden where Matt conducts his research, could also be useful in grasslands and pastures to provide shade for plants and livestock.
PhD student, Forest Hayes, and advisor Dr. Joel Berger, have found that climate change may be contributing to increased hostility between different species over limited resources. For example, the melting of glaciers in Glacier National Park is exposing previously buried salt-licks, which leads to conflict between Mountain Goats and Big-Horn Sheep. They found that goats almost always win. Sorry, Cam!
The research lab of Dr. Melinda Smith (Ecology, Biology) leads a study that combines field experiments and computer modeling to assess how co-occurring droughts and deluges will impact carbon cycling across the vast grasslands of the continental U.S. This project is operating on a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Recent publication highlights from students and faculty
Nature (February 2024)
In this Nature study, GDPE faculty member Anping Chen and his team ask to what extent the observed severe pulses of tree mortality induced by climate could affect overall vegetation greenness across spatial grains and temporal extents. The findings underscore the fundamental importance of spatio-temporal scales for cohesively understanding the effects of climate change on forest productivity and tree mortality under both gradual and abrupt changes.
Ecological Informatics (2023)
Many invasive plant species with predicted habitat suitability are as yet unobserved in land management areas but combining occurrence records with predicted suitability maps can identify invaders ‘at the doorstep’ of management areas. This novel type of list building can be used to help guide Early Detection and Rapid Response efforts.
Check out this recent article from several of our GDPE community members: Peder Engelstad, Ian Pearse, and Helen Sofaer.
Nature Ecology & Evolution (August 2023)
The majority of power generated by photovoltaic energy infrastructure is derived from ground-mounted solar arrays that prioritize energy production, minimize operating costs and, at best, accommodate limited ecosystem services. In this article, GDPE student Matt Sturchio and faculty Alan Knapp argue that co-prioritizing ecosystem services and energy generation using an ecologically informed, ‘ecovoltaics’ approach to solar array design and operation will have multiple benefits for climate, biodiversity and the restoration of degraded lands.