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Litter decomposition in terrestrial habitats is affected by many factors, including temperature, moisture, and nutrient and organic composition of litter. Among organic components, lignin is the primary controlling factor of decomposition rates of surface litter during the later phase of decomposition in most habitats and during the initial phase in warm, moist habitats (i.e., those with a high actual evapotranspiration, AET). In habitats with moderate AET's, we suggest that the decreased control by lignin over annual decomposition rates of surface litter is due, at least in part, to a significant periodic or seasonal influence of other carbonbased plant secondary metabolites over rates in the initial phase of decomposition....
The importance, and even the existence, of competition among plants in arid ecosystems has often been questioned. An influential statement of Shreve (113) asserted that interspecific competition does not occur in deserts, and Went (145) denied that competition between desert plants occurs at all. Neither provided evidence for his assertions, although Shreve pointed out the diversity of habits and phenologies found among desert species. He may have been responding to the strong emphasis placed on competition by Clements and his followers (e.g. 27). The importance of competition in natural communities has recently been debated (28, 109, 127). These reviews suggested that terrestrial plant communities are among the...
We analyzed the geographic distribution of Tubifex tubifex from various river drainages in central Colorado by genetic screening with specific mitochondrial 16S ribosomal DNA (mt 16S rDNA) markers. Four distinct mt 16S rDNA lineages are evident. The sites varied with respect to land- and water-use practices. All sites represented habitats presumed capable of supporting oligochaetes. At the locations where whirling disease has had the greatest impact on resident rainbow trout, T. tubifex, representing lineages I and III (genotypes known to be susceptible to Mxyobolus cerebralis), were most commonly found. In contrast, at sites less affected by whirling disease, T. tubifex of lineages V and VI that are more resistant...
Soil microbial respiration is a critical component of the global carbon cycle, but it is uncertain how properties of microbes affect this process. Previous studies have noted a thermodynamic trade-off between the rate and efficiency of growth in heterotrophic organisms. Growth rate and yield determine the biomass-specific respiration rate of growing microbial populations, but these traits have not previously been used to scale from microbial communities to ecosystems. Here we report seasonal variation in microbial growth kinetics and temperature responses (Q10) in a coniferous forest soil, relate these properties to cultured and uncultured soil microbes, and model the effects of shifting growth kinetics on soil...
Frequent and persistent droughts exacerbate the problems caused by the inherent scarcity of water in the semiarid to arid parts of the southwestern United States. The occurrence of drought is driven by climatic variability, which for years before about the beginning of the 20th century in the Southwest must be inferred from proxy records. As part of a multidisciplinary study of the potential hydrologic impact of severe sustained drought on the Colorado River, the physical basis and limitations of tree rings as indicators of severe sustained drought are reviewed, and tree-ring data are analyzed to delineate a “worst-case� drought scenario for the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB). Runs analysis of a 121-site...
We describe a new method for the calculation of river flow that uses the oxygen isotope composition of bivalve mollusk shells that grew in the river-water/seawater mixing zone of the Colorado River estuary. Sclerochronological techniques are used to identify tidally-induced, fortnight-scale bundles of daily growth increments within shell cross-sections. These fortnightly markers are used to establish a chronology for samples taken for δ18O analysis. A composite seasonal δ18O profile derived from five shells that grew in the absence of river-water flow is used as a baseline against which profiles of river-influenced shells are compared. Because this comparison is between matched fortnights within a year, the temperature...
Human activities have caused the decline of numerous species and ecosystems. To promote ecosystem resilience, recent management efforts aim to maintain ecosystem patterns and processes within their historical range of variability. There has been substantial concern that quaking aspen, the most widely distributed tree in North America and the most important deciduous tree in the subalpine forests of the Rocky Mountains, has declined significantly in the western landscape during the 20th century. This reported decline has been attributed to conifer encroachment associated with fire exclusion, as well as other causes. To assess long-term changes in the extent of quaking aspen in a 175000-ha study area in western Colorado,...
The determination of plant and soil temperatures using remote sensing technology is examined in a shrub-steppe ecosystem. The emissivities of Artemisia tridentata L. shrubs and the soil surface were examined in such an ecosystem. The emissivity of A. tridentata plants was calculated to be 0.97, which is in the range of reported values for other green plants. The soil emissivity was 0.93. Temperature readings from an infrared thermometer (IRT) must be corrected for the emissivity value of the target and the reflected sky radiation. Although these two factors produce errors which are opposite in sign, they will not offset one another. An analysis is presented which quantifies the temperature error resulting from ignoring...
There is now a fairly substantial literature that addresses transboundary water allocation both at the international and interstate level. However, most of this literature deals almost exclusively with the question of allocation and ignores quality considerations. At the same time, there is a growing literature on transboundary pollution control and upstream/downstream externalities. What is missing is an attempt to integrate quality consideration into allocation agreements. This paper examines several allocation agreements and disputes in the southwestern United States and Mexico and looks at the ramifications of omitting pollution control and quality considerations in these negotiations. Published in Agricultural...
The exchange of nutrients, nitrogen in particular, between closely associated plants has attracted considerable interest due to its importance in agroecosystems under low external nutrient-input management. The intuitive observation of farmers that grasses benefit from near associations with clovers has not been easy to quantify, mainly because (i) the net effect is measured against large background fluxes, and (ii) excluding one species from one agroecosystem change the system fundamentally. The study of Moyer-Henry et al. (pp. 7–20 in this issue) approaches this problem elegantly by choosing a soil with a relatively low background mineralisation of nitrogen, while maintaining the same species in the system,...
Galloway plans to sell surface water, which was appropriated to Colorado under interstate compacts and acquired pursuant to state law, to users in a different stat and in a different river basin. Galloway poses a new question for the Colorado River compacts: Do compacts limit water use to specific geographic territory? This paper finds express or implied territorial use limitations in the compacts. The compact language would preclude out-of-basin use of Colorado River water which Galloway proposes. Because the compacts are federal law, they are immune from commerce clause attack and preempt inconsistent state law. This paper explores these propositions in depth. Published in Natural Resources Journal, volume 25,...
This chapter uses climate-sensitive decision environments along the Colorado River to illustrate the breadth and complexity of the water management issues and the role of climate in these contexts. The four examples are in: (1) the border region: international issues; (2) Arizona and California: interstate issues in the Lower Basin; (3) Native American water rights; and (4) conjunctive use and management: groundwater and surface water in Arizona. Published in Drought and water crises: science, technology, and management issues, in 2005.
Categories: Publication; Types: Book Citation, Citation; Tags: CRC Press
Downy brome (Bromus tectorum L. #3 BROTE) has developed into a severe weed in several agricultural production systems throughout North America, particularly on rangeland and in winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Several million hectares of winter wheat, pastureland, alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), grass seed fields, and overgrazed rangeland, as well as other crops, have been invaded by this annual grass since its introduction into this hemisphere. Downy brome is most abundant in the Great Basin and Columbia Basin areas of the western United States, but is found throughout the continental United States and parts of Canada and Mexico. In some cases, the vegetation on overgrazed rangeland consists totally of downy...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation, Journal Citation; Tags: Weed Science
Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) is a recognized, invasive annual weed of the western United States that reduces fire return times from decades to less than 5 years. To determine the interaction between rising carbon dioxide concentration ([CO2]) and fuel load, we characterized potential changes in biomass accumulation, C : N ratio and digestibility of three cheatgrass populations from different elevations to recent and near-term projections in atmospheric [CO2]. The experimental CO2 values (270, 320, 370, 420 μmol mol−1) corresponded roughly to the CO2 concentrations that existed at the beginning of the 19th century, that during the 1960s, the current [CO2], and the near-term [CO2] projection for 2020, respectively....
Runoff generated directly on Mancos Shale hillslopes initially picks up solutes by surface flushing. The major mechanism of subsequent solute pickup involves transport of soluble minerals as particulate matter with sediment. Solute release increases contemporaneously with increase in sediment concentration during rilling and rill entrenchment. Moreover, solute release increases as the power per unit width of surface area increases, thereby causally explaining the high correlation between runoff salinity and slope inclination. The regression between these two variables may be used as a tool to assess salinity hazard. Published in Journal of Hydrology, volume 59, issue 1-2, on pages 189 - 207, in 1982.
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Abstract The potential effects of climate change on the hydrology and water resources of the Colorado River basin are assessed by comparing simulated hydrologic and water resources scenarios derived from downscaled climate simulations of the U.S. Department of Energy/National Center for Atmospheric Research Parallel Climate Model (PCM) to scenarios driven by observed historical (1950–1999) climate. PCM climate scenarios include an ensemble of three 105-year future climate simulations based on projected `business-as-usual'(BAU) greenhouse gas emissions and a control climate simulation based on static 1995 greenhouse gas concentrations. Downscaled transient temperature and precipitation sequences were extracted...
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Understanding the passive microwave emissions of a snowpack, as observed by satellite sensors, requires knowledge of the snowpack properties: water equivalent, grain size, density, and stratigraphy. For the snowpack in the Upper Colorado River Basin, measurements of snow depth and water equivalent are routinely available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but extremely limited information is available for the other properties. To provide this information, a field program from 1984 to 1995 obtained profiles of snowpack grain size, density, and temperature near the time of maximum snow accumulation, at sites distributed across the basin. A synoptic basin�wide sampling program in 1985 showed that the snowpack...
We assessed the effectiveness of the western pearl mussel (Margaritifera falcata, Gould, 1850) as a bioindicator of aquatic system health. Fifty-years ago a large dredge mining operation for columbite-tantalite ores [(Fe,Mn)(Nb,Ta)2O6] disturbed a substantial portion of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River headwaters in Idaho. The disturbance likely increased concentrations of dissolved metals at the time. To evaluate the potential long-term impacts, if any, concentrations of Fe, Mg, Mn, and Zn in shell and soft tissues of western pearl mussels, collected from five reaches in Bear Valley Creek, were analyzed. We quantified the partitioning and bioaccumulation with respect to age of the four metals in the shell, gills...
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This report summarizes information concerning the bat fauna of Utah. It has been 20 years since the publication of Hasenyager?s Bats of Utah (1980), which remains one of the most useful works on the volant mammals of the state, and much on this subject has been reported during the last 2 decades. During the late 1990s several ambitious field studies of bats were conducted in Utah. Prominent among these were 2 bat inventories carried out in northern Utah in 1994 and 1995 (Lengas 1994b, Ageiss 1996) and 5 in the southern part of the state during the period 1996?1999 (Foster et al. 1997, Mollhagen and Bogan 1997, Jackson and Herder 1997, Day and Peterson 1999a, Day and Peterson 1999b). All of these surveys utilized...
This paper delineates bioclimatic zones of the Colorado Front Range. It develops a methodology which might be useful for making inventories of mountain bioclimates in other parts of the world. Following a description of the vegetation and the climate of the Front Range some insight is gained into the bioclimatic systems of the area by examining the applicability of established climatic classifications. The main part of the paper explains procedures for distinguishing the bioclimatic zones. The variables employed in determining the zones are the ratio of growing season thawing degree days to growing season precipitation, summer mean temperature, and growing season soil moisture deficit. Aspect is examined as a possible...
map background search result map search result map The Effects of Climate Change on the Hydrology and Water Resources of the Colorado River Basin The effects of snowpack grain size on satellite passive microwave observations from the Upper Colorado River Basin The Bats of Utah The Bats of Utah The effects of snowpack grain size on satellite passive microwave observations from the Upper Colorado River Basin The Effects of Climate Change on the Hydrology and Water Resources of the Colorado River Basin