Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research - NWT LTER site

Another successful BioBlitz! We love getting 4th graders excited about the ecology of their own schoolyard!

An audacious experiment lives on:

To study impacts of longer, hotter summers, ecologists haul 5,000 pounds of sand up a mountain An annual experiment based out of CU Boulder’s century-old Mountain Research Station aims to measure the effects of warming temperatures and faster snowmelt on alpine ecosystems by coating snowpack with thousands of pounds of black sand.

A little local publicity for a little microclimate study at NWT:

CU Boulder study finds climate change impacts in mountain microclimates Some effects of climate change are dramatic and visible, like wildfires and extreme weather, but a new University of Colorado Boulder study found that climate change can impact even hidden places and some of the state’s smallest residents.

Another crop of fabulous and fearless Colorado Pika Project volunteers trained in Rocky Mountain National Park last weekend! Photo by Kristi Odum

What grows on Niwot Ridge? Alpine plants and science! Catch the latest plant community response to 15 years of global-change experimentation at the Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research site: https://www.authorea.com/doi/full/10.22541/au.164154950.01008943

Enthusiasm abounds for monitoring National Park resources in collaboration with the LTER!

Pika enthusiasts unite under a common theme At the Niwot Ridge LTER, community scientists expand the reach of pika research initiatives to understand climate change.

And yet ANOTHER cheer for community science: The Colorado Pika Project just won the 2020 USFS Volunteers & Service Award for Citizen Stewardship for extending our research on public lands. Congratulations and thank you to CPP leaders Megan Mueller (Rocky Mountain Wild) and Alex Wells (Denver Zoo), plus all 400 hard-working volunteers!

2020 USDA Forest Service Volunteers & Service Award recipients | US Forest Service Link to PDF version of bulletin.

Let's hear it for community science! National Geographic highlights the Colorado Pika Project, a partner in NWT LTER research on pika trends in the Rockies, including 400 volunteers organized by project leaders Megan Mueller (Rocky Mountain Wild) and Alex Wells (Denver Zoo) in collaboration with Chris Ray (NWT LTER).

This adorable rabbit relative sounds an alarm for global warming Each summer, the volunteer Pika Patrol is roaming the Rockies in service to the tiny, climate-threatened animal.

Austin Nash and Chris Ray anesthetize a pika for demographic studies at the NWT LTER.

Heather Kenny (left) and Airy Peralta hide a trap in the talus below Mt Audubon, hoping to catch a pika for demographic research at the NWT LTER.

From furry to icy, former NWT pika research intern Emma Perkins studied glaciers in Alaska this summer.