This commentary is by Nancy C. Emery, faculty director of the Niwot Ridge Long-Term Ecological Research program in the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, and associate professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder.
As peonies give way to lavender blooms and rattlesnakes surface on dusty trails around town, just 15 miles west — and a mile up — the icy lids of alpine lakes have finally receded. The earliest alpine wildflowers have faded, and midsummer blooms have emerged, adding bright dots of blue, pink and yellow to the greening tundra. Ptarmigans and snowshoe hares are once again hard to spot after finishing their annual wardrobe change from winter white to summer brown.
If you live in Boulder County, you likely feel connected to the places where these changes are unfolding: the snow-capped mountains you admire from a distance in early summer; the view earned from a hike above treeline. The mountains provide a seemingly constant, quiet backdrop to our daily lives. Yet for more than 45 years, scientists studying a narrow strip of tundra between Brainard Lake and the Boulder Watershed have been carefully documenting stories of change that are both nuanced and dramatic. They are now gathered again, ready to record the next chapter.
The scientists at Niwot Ridge are a team of ecologists, biogeochemists, ecosystem scientists, hydrologists and climatologists. They represent the current generation driving the Niwot Ridge Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program, a collaborative project continuously funded by the National Science Foundation since 1980. Like the ecosystem they study, the Niwot Ridge LTER team has changed over time, but the fundamental mission has remained the same: to identify and understand ecological patterns in a critical ecosystem.
The Niwot Ridge LTER is managed through the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and Mountain Research Station at CU Boulder, but its interdisciplinary research team comes from all over the country. It is one of 26 sites in a network of long-term monitoring programs that span key ecosystems in the continental U.S., Caribbean and polar regions. Long-term, continuous funding is particularly important in ecosystems like the alpine tundra, where individual plants less than 6 inches tall can be more than 100 years old, and extreme year-to-year fluctuations in snowpack and climate make it impossible to detect long-term trends with intermittent or short-term measurements.
The scientists at Niwot Ridge LTER collect, process and publish over 80 environmental data sets each year. They measure climate, atmospheric gas concentrations, snowpack, ice thickness, nutrient cycling, pika populations, wildflower diversity, forest dynamics, insect diversity and more. Many of these datasets are among the longest, highest and/or most continuous records of their kind in the world. The co-located, long-term measurements at the site allow scientists to address questions that are otherwise almost impossible to answer. What do trends in alpine stream chemistry tell us about air pollution and underground ice reserves? How does the amount of snow in the winter influence how alpine plants respond to longer, warmer summers? And what do these relationships mean for the local water supply, air quality and biodiversity?
Mountain regions supply clean water to half the world’s population and provide habitat for a third of all species that live on land, despite covering only about 10% of Earth’s land surface. Sustained research at Niwot Ridge has led to discoveries that have reshaped our understanding of the alpine ecosystems that sit atop our highest peaks.
These breakthroughs take time, patience, collaboration and the flexibility to rapidly incorporate new ideas and technology as they emerge.
For example, 30 years ago, Niwot hydrologists and biologists detected vigorous microbial activity in snow-covered soils during winter. Almost a decade later, microbial ecologists identified many of those microbes as fungi previously unknown to science. Botanists have documented slow but striking changes in plant composition on Niwot Ridge over the past 35 years, with some wildflowers declining as grasses, sedges and shrubs become more common. Today, plant ecologists are using new methods to manipulate the temperature that plants experience to see if warming explains those trends. Limnologists have measured longer ice-free periods in Niwot’s alpine lakes, a change that extends the summer growing season but increases the risk of algal blooms. Using new sensor technology, they’re now monitoring lake conditions beneath the winter ice.
Even if you’re unaware of the data being collected on Niwot Ridge, you’ve surely benefited from it. The National Weather Service uses real-time Niwot climate station data to assess the potential for damaging winds to descend into lower elevations. The City of Boulder consults the stream and water chemistry records to guide decisions about water use. Niwot meteorological data helps the Colorado Avalanche Information Center provide more accurate avalanche risk forecasts for backcountry skiers, and Rocky Mountain National Park uses results from Niwot research to inform wildlife management strategies.
The scientific reach of the Niwot LTER is both deep and broad. Whether we’re admiring the snow-capped peaks from a kitchen window or enjoying clean water from the tap, the Niwot Ridge LTER program continues to tell the story of the high places that sustain and uplift us all.