GIS and ecology

I've had three classes so far in my semester of GIS at PPCC. It struck me, looking at my last post, that re-doing Ahlefeldt's dissertation with GIS is a needed update, and could be done after I've had a few more semesters. I need a little programming to write the algorithms (or maybe ArcGIS will do this already) and the statistics to look for correlations between geology, geomorphology, soils, and climate in the Palmer Divide. In 1992, ESRI software was very expensive (not cheap now, however), and I'm not sure if students at CSU then had access to it at all. Now, at PPCC GIS students get a one year license for ArcGIS desktop as part of their tuition. It seems like this type of analysis is really the only way of doing things now.

Landscape Ecology of the Palmer Divide

The other day I finished reading Judy von Ahlefeldt's Ph.D. thesis on the ecology of the Palmer Divide. Judy is now the owner and publisher of the Black Forest News. Written in 1992 while she was at Colorado State, it focuses on answering the question of why does the Black Forest (of Colorado) exist? Why do we have a ponderosa pine forest extending out onto the Great Plains at the base of the Rocky Mountains?

Black Forest is at a four-way crossroads of the plains and the mountains, as well as the northern and southern Great Plains. The Black Forest is a mix of species such as Douglas fir, white fir, ponderosa pine, pinon pine, junipers, gambel oak, and relict tallgrass prairie. In her thesis, she looks at the geology, geomorphology, climate, soils and vegetation of the area to build a landscape ecology of the Palmer Divide.

She also throws in some ordination graphs, and uses computer programs like DECORANA and CANOCO, which at this point are beyond me. However, I got some good information I could take away.

Soil parent material and particle size (and their water holding capabilities) follow vegetation communities pretty closely.

• Northern mixed grass prairie is linked with eolian (wind blown) sand dunes and sandy alluvium
• Shortgrass prairie likes warm, clayey, alkaline (high Ca++ and Mg++ levels) soils
• Coniferous forest seems to be found more on weathered Pikes Peak granite and arkosic (high feldspar content, eroded sandstone) residuum of the the Dawson formation, in areas of higher moisture
• Douglas fir is found on steep (>20%), north-facing slopes where snow lingers longer
• Pinyon-juniper shows up in south or southeast facing slopes in soils with high clay content
• Gambel oak which grows by itself in grassland experiences less frequent and less intense fires than oak that grow in ponderosa pine.
• Grazing has altered the fire regime of the region
• Tallgrass prairie appears on arkosic alluvium and clay-silt soils. Little bluestem and prairie dropseed are found in cooler areas as opposed to mountain mahogany shrubland, which appears in warmer areas with sandy clay.
• Areas a few miles apart have different moisture seasonality. The south side of the divide and the highest elevation have a late summer moisture pulse, or monsoon, while the area north all the way to Castle Rock gets an earlier spring pulse of moisture, and not much a late summer monsoon.
  

Of further interest to me is that she mentions how no one alive has seen what the Black Forest looked like before it was logged extensively, grazed, farmed, and then built over with more and more houses, which altered the fire regime to be virtually non-existent.

I wonder if it would be possible to recreate 1. a pre-1860 fire regime, and 2. a description of the structure and age class of the forest at that time. Are there records of the timber volume extracted from the forest in the 1860s? Could one go backwards and recreate a forest based on this information, if it exists?

What would it take to reactivate the eolian dunes? How does thinning change the ecology of the forest, now that the fires are completely suppressed?

Ozone up again on the Front Range

Looks like ozone levels are climbing back up again in the Front Range, and the window of attainment is closing. The increased pollution is probably due to several things - more oil and gas wells in Adams and Weld counties, scraping the barrel of what's left out there, and more drivers with their more driving. Hurry Fast Tracks!

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New report on forest health in Colorado

This post was the last one I was working on before I got really busy. It's a it dated, but here it is anyway.

You can download the report in a PDF (direct link) here.

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A new report gives the low down on the range of beetles devouring Colorado's conifers, as well as declining aspen.

Some 643,000 acres of lodgepole forest - about 42 percent of Colorado's total - were infested last year by mountain pine beetles, said Jen Chase, lead author of the 2006 Report on the Health of Colorado's Forests.

But the damage went beyond lodgepoles. Ponderosa pines also suffered from mountain pine beetles in 2006, along with:

• 138,000 acres of aspens declining from a mysterious affliction.

• 68,000 acres of spruce infested with bark beetles.

• 372,000 acres of subalpine fir attacked by Western balsam bark beetles, root diseases and other unknown factors.

• 19,000 acres of piñon pines infested with ips beetles.

• 93,000 acres of Douglas fir, true fir and spruce hit by Western spruce budworm.

As for the causes:

"A lot of these outbreaks got kicked off because of the drought, but forest conditions have allowed them to keep expanding," said U.S. Forest Service entomologist Bob Cain. "We have pretty uniform conditions of older, denser forests across the state, which are susceptible to the bark beetles," he said. "So even though the drought conditions have improved, the outbreaks are continuing."

Which sounds to me like he might be referring to those "decadent" old growth stands. I'm not convinced that any new logging regime is going to change this situation. From what I've seen, when the trees, living or dead, are logged, they come back in the same, dense, single age stands to which Bob Cain refers. And then we have a never ending cycle until the seed stock is gone.

Moreover, no reference to global warming in the article, which with warming temperatures has reduced the winter freezes that kept the beetles in check. Nothing to be done about that for a long time.

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2006 El Niño fakes out Colorado forecasters

Here's the summary from the article which details the unusual winter we've had in Colorado so far.

An El Niño weather system arrived in the Pacific Ocean last fall, warming a stretch of water west of Peru's coast.

The last seven El Niños brought winters that were warmer and drier than usual in Colorado, with a few heavier snowstorms in the fall and spring.

This time, January was the eighth-coldest on record in Denver, and the monthly snowfall was twice the normal tally - nearly 16 inches instead of about 8, said Matt Kelsch, a meteorologist with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.

There has been measurable snow on the ground in the Front Range for 50 consecutive days, the third- longest period on record, Kelsch said.

This season's El Niño was a typical one, "moderate sized, fairly vanilla, really," Wolter said. "But the impacts have been anything but normal in this hemisphere."

Feeding the almost weekly snows in December and January was an odd constellation of forces, he said, including a warmer- than-usual western Pacific Ocean and storms that moved in from the northwest, not the southwest, as they normally do.

And for those warming skeptics:

The recent cold and snow do not mean global warming has skipped Colorado, he said.

While the background climate is warming, temperatures and precipitation will always bounce around the norm, Hoerling said.

The Longmont Times-Call chimes in:

Mike Gillespie, a snow-survey supervisor for the NRCS, said the state has had an unusual trend of large snowstorms hitting the Front Range and Eastern Plains instead of the Western Slope.

“Normally, our storm track comes into the northwest, and this year it’s been coming around the backside,” he said.

Summit daily follow up on dust and early snow melt

The Summit daily has a detailed article about the effects of dust blowing in from Utah, and coating the snow in the Rockies. This causes the snow to melt faster, by as much as 18 days, which creates problems for water users in Colorado. The dust is from soil that is disturbed by cows and ORVs that crush bacteria, called cryptograms, that hold the soil in deserts together.

Denver City Park geese rounded up for avian flu tests

CDOW officials rounded up the geese of city park in an effort to head off calls from city residents anxious about avian bird flu. Notice that it hasn't been found, and there are no indications that bird flu is anywhere close to Colorado, or that it would cause an epidemic in humans.

CU Museum exhibit "Hatching the Past"

The CU Museum has a new exhibit selected from its extensive dinosaur egg collection. Interesting to note that the collection was made primarily by two amateur paleontologists, like Charlie Magovern and wife, Florence. It's tough to get grants to dig for dinosaurs, so having enthusiastic volunteers is a great gain for science.

Mary Taylor Young on Raton Mesa

Mary Taylor Young, author of Land of Grass and Sky gives a write up on a recent trip to Raton Mesa, which is more south central Colorado. I know people use southeastern Colorado, but I think they do so too liberally. I've heard Colorado Springs referred to as southeastern Colorado, and it's about as central as you can get.

CO Rare Bird alert

Always good finds here.

Season starts for noctilucent clouds

Some of the first sightings came in last night from Ireland of these electric-blue clouds that float on the edge of the atmosphere. These are sometimes seen as far south as Colorado.

If you see some, you can report them.

This photo is from the spaceweather.com, taken by Paul Evans from Larne, in Antrim County.

Unplug your clothes dryer, courtesy of the weather

If some scientists' predictions that the West will get drier due to global warming are true, this year is shaping up to be one that affirms those slippery causal connections.

Various statistics and comparisons with previous years are showing this year to be really dry and hot, like the warmest combined April and May on record. Fortunately, reservoirs in some parts of the state are in good condition.

Meanwhile, dry farmed wheat production this year will be half of average, at about 50 million bushels. The average is 100 million. One farmer speculates that Colorado is in a 23 year drought cycle. No quote on when it started and when it will end.

The Rocky covers a new forecast from the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center that ups the fire danger ante. Some reasons for the heat and dry conditions:

•“Weak” to “Moderate” La Niña conditions were declared in the eastern tropical pacific by late fall/early winter. The fall/winter precipitation patterns of 2005/2006 in the Rocky Mountain Area were similar to past La Niña events. Though there are some lingering atmospheric features from this year’s La Niña, current El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions and forecasted indices suggest neutral conditions through the end of 2006. Therefore, ENSO is expected to have little if any impact on the RMA climate during the summer of 2006.

• The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) (defined by the difference between high pressure from the eastern sea board into south-central Europe versus low pressure over Iceland) was negative during the winter months of 2006. Composite anomalies of spring and summer temperature, RH, and precipitation rates during past negative NAO events paint a very bleak (hot and dry) picture for portions of the Rocky Mountain Area this summer, especially over Colorado, Wyoming and the Black Hills.

Steve Jones, well known Boulder naturalist combined these figures, as posted on the Boulder County Nature Association Listserv nature-net

This was the 12th driest spring (March-May) in Boulder since 1895, and the
driest spring since 1974. Significantly, it was the driest spring recorded
since the weather station was moved to the new location (NIST), slightly
closer to the foothills, in 1989. I moved to Boulder in 1970, so I remember
springs like this one (see 1972 and 1974) when the grass turned brown before
the end of May, but it's been a long time since that happened, so it's
somewhat of a shock. Steve

Year March April May Total

1925 0.35 0.25 1.61 2.21

1966 0.31 1.21 0.80 2.32

1954 1.16 0.83 1.33 3.32

1963 1.81 0.15 1.37 3.33

1972 0.68 1.52 1.22 3.42

1962 0.48 0.99 1.99 3.46

1919 1.49 1.65 0.88 4.02

1930 0.88 0.99 2.17 4.04

1913 0.71 1.58 1.85 4.14

1911 0.64 2.68 0.90 4.22

1974 1.22 3.07 trace 4.29

2006 2.08 1.04 1.18 4.30

Notice we're not at dust bowl levels yet.

New fossils found near Maroon Bells

New fossil tracks of a very old dinosaur were found in the Permian Maroon Formation. From the article in the Aspen Times:

Research yielded evidence of four animal species
in the tracks around the Maroon Bells. About 90 percent of the tracks
came from Diadectes, a prehistoric creature that roamed the world 70
million years before the first dinosaurs, Small said. The species was a
tetrapod, which means it was four-legged, and a herbivore. It left
tracks about 5 inches long.

With a turtle head and a lizard
body, Diadectes had qualities of both amphibians and reptiles, Small
said. Rather than a missing link, it was an "odd mixture" remaining
after amphibians and reptiles split into two distinctive groups, he
said.

Diadectes was doomed, either through further evolution or
death of the species. It was extinct shortly after it left the tracks
near Aspen.

"They didn't leave any descendants," Small said. "They were a dead-end species."

Fossils of insects and conifer trees have also been
found in the Maroon formation since the discovery of the Diadectes
tracks. Those discoveries allowed scientists to determine that the land
that became the Maroon Bells was once much closer to the equator, when
it was part of the supercontinent called Pangea. The climate was more
like India and parts of Africa, with monsoonal rains and dry conditions.


The place near the Maroon Bells where the hundreds of tracks were found
probably wasn't a superhighway for Diadectes. Small's guess is that the
sliver of land just happened to be preserved. Tracks were likely
everywhere.

Since that discovery in 2001, Diadectes tracks have
been found in the Maroon formation near Glenwood Springs and State
Bridge. It appears the herbivore proliferated.


These dinosaurs were walking around when the Ancestral Rockies were still around.

Porcupines disappearing in the West?

Does anyone know how porcupines are doing in Colorado? This New West article suggests there might some sort of decline going on.

Drought and early peak flows from melt off

Northwest Colorado isn't having much of a mud season, since precipitation in May is much below normal.

And the view from Vail indicates melt-off has peaked, earlier than normal. Is this related to the dust from Utah darkening the snow and making it heat up faster?

Part 2: NPR on dusting the Rockies from Utah

Good interview with Joyce Belnap, leading specialist in desert soil microbes that hold the soil together. When these microbes or crytopograms are run over by Jeeps, ATV's, bikes, or smashed by hooves of cows, the soil breaks loose and blows away. The dust settles on snow pack in the Rockies and makes the snow melt faster, creating havoc with managing reservoirs and thus the water supply for the Front Range.

Glenwood PI on Ruedi release for CO river fish

The Glenwood paper gives an update of the planned release from Ruedi Reservoir to help the gang of four endangered fish in the upper Colorado Basin.

Boreal Toad breeding program release planned for Peak 8

A release of tadpoles is planned for Cucumber Gulch which sits at the base of Peak 8 near Breckenridge. CDOW hopes to get a population started where only two toads were found remaining. Best of luck!

Bald Eagle Update - Eastern Colorado

Post article on recovering Bald Eagles. Prairie dogs seem to be important for Bald Eagles in Eastern Colorado.

Dusting the snow on the Rockies

Two articles in High Country News and NPR recently on dust coming from Arizona and Utah, and even occasionally China that coats the snow in Rockies, making it darker, absorb more heat from the sun and melting faster. I suspect that the China link is a little overplayed, especially in the NPR story. There are large dust storms in China, and the NPR story offers a map to investigate it. But overgrazing and oil and gas exploration in dry deserts destroy where the fragile microbes that hold the soil together.

From the HCN story:

On desert grasslands that have never seen grazing, "there’s barely any
dust production, no matter what"; the dust traps she posts in those
areas collect perhaps a tablespoon every six months. Most years, traps
in formerly grazed grasslands collect about twice as much, and
currently grazed lands collect even more, about nine times as much.
But the most dramatic differences, says Belnap, emerge during severe
drought years. While the ungrazed grasslands stay more or less the
same, formerly grazed ground produces as much as 20 times the amount of
dust as in wetter years. Currently grazed lands "just go bonkers," with
the dust traps sometimes filling faster than Belnap and her coworkers
can empty them.