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Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL)

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https://hdl.handle.net/10217/195540
These digital collections include faculty publications, presentations, reports, and datasets from the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL). Included here are individual datasets for the Ethiopia Project, Shortgrass Steppe-Long Term Ecological Research (SGS-LTER), Riparian Habitat and Invasive Species in the Colorado River Basin, and Yellowstone Willows LTREB. Also included is a collection of publications by Eldor A. Paul, a Senior Research Scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory and a Professor in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences.

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Browsing Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL) by Subject "aboveground net primary production"

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    Long-term forage production of North American Shortgrass Steppe
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 1992-11) Sala, O. E., author; Lauenroth, W. K., author; Ecological Society of America, publisher
    We evaluated the relationship between annual forage production and annual and seasonal precipitation and temperature at a shortgrass steppe site in north-central Colorado using a long-term data set (52 yr). We also constructed a relationship between forage production and aboveground net primary production (ANPP). Precipitation fluctuated randomly, but temperature had clear warming and cooling trends including a 17-yr warming trend from 1974 to 1990. Forage production was significantly related to both annual and seasonal precipitation but not temperature. Precipitation events between 15 and 30 mm accounted for most of the variability in production because they accounted for most of the variability in precipitation and because they wetted the soil layers that have the largest effect on production. Forage production amplified variability in annual precipitation. Production showed time lags of several years in responding to increases in precipitation. Change in vegetation structure has a characteristic response time, which contrains production responses in wet years. Constraint caused by vegetation structure is the reason why regional ANPP-precipitation models have a steeper slope than long-term models and point out a weakness of exchanging space for time in predicting production patterns.
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    SGS-LTER ecosystem stress area: long-term dataset following nutrient enrichment stress on the Central Plains Experimental Range in Nunn, Colorado, USA, ARS study number 3
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 1974-2011) Milchunas, Daniel G.; Lauenroth, William K.
    This data package was produced by researchers working on the Shortgrass Steppe Long Term Ecological Research (SGS-LTER) Project, administered at Colorado State University. Long-term datasets and background information (proposals, reports, photographs, etc.) on the SGS-LTER project are contained in a comprehensive project collection within the Repository (http://hdl.handle.net/10217/100254). The data table and associated metadata document, which is generated in Ecological Metadata Language, may be available through other repositories serving the ecological research community and represent components of the larger SGS-LTER project collection. The effect of plant community structure on nutrient cycling is fundamental to our understanding of ecosystem function. We examined the importance of plant species and plant cover (i.e. plant covered microsites vs bare soil) on nutrient cycling in shortgrass steppe of northeastern Colorado. We tested the effects of both plant species and cover on soils in an area of undisturbed shortgrass steppe and an area that had undergone nitrogen and water additions from 1971 to 1974, resulting in significant shifts in plant species composition.
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    SGS-LTER spatial variability in seed production of the perennial bunchgrass Bouteloua gracilis on the Central Plains Experimental Range, Nunn, Colorado, USA 1992-2005, ARS study number 20
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 1992-2005) Lauenroth, William K.
    This data package was produced by researchers working on the Shortgrass Steppe Long Term Ecological Research (SGS-LTER) Project, administered at Colorado State University. Long-term datasets and background information (proposals, reports, photographs, etc.) on the SGS-LTER project are contained in a comprehensive project collection within the Repository (http://hdl.handle.net/10217/100254). The data table and associated metadata document, which is generated in Ecological Metadata Language, may be available through other repositories serving the ecological research community and represent components of the larger SGS-LTER project collection. Production of seeds of Bouteloua gracilis was evaluated for a semiarid grassland in northeastern Colorado. Ten locations were chosen to represent the range in soil textures and grazing intensities found at the Central Plains Experimental Range research site. Number of flowering culms, inforescences and seeds, length of each flowering culm, total biomass or reproductive structures (culms, inforescences and seeds), and basal areas were assessed for each plant sampled. Community-level estimates of density of flowering culms and density of viable seeds are made for each location. Both soil texture and grazing intensity by cattle are important to spatial variability in seed production and other indicators of reproductive effort by B. gracilis.