Flipping through field notebooks…
I will be doing research in the WaRM (Warming and Removal in Mountains) project and the DOE-funded snowmelt manipulation to study the effects of climate change on ecosystem function. Last summer in the WaRM plots, I found that warmer temperatures reduced plant biomass regardless of when in the season the biomass was measured, likely due to a reduction in soil moisture. This inspired the research I'll be doing the next few summers, looking to see how changes in snowmelt date influence carbon dynamics via changes in the plant community, microbial community, and abiotic conditions. I will also take the project a step further and see how reductions in biomass might influence grazing in public grazing lands in Colorado.
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