Above and Beyond the Beetles - Life and Death at the Fraser Experimental Forest

Speaker: Chuck Rhoades, Research Biogeochemist, US Forest Service

Seminar: Above and Beyond the Beetles - Life and Death at the Fraser Experimental Forest

Abstract: During the early 2000s, a mountain pine beetle outbreak impacted high-elevation watersheds across Colorado and much of western North America. Work conducted at the US Forest Service’s Fraser Experimental Forest and other locations around the State helped to evaluate the impacts of widespread tree mortality on ecosystem processes and watershed nitrogen losses. The insect outbreak coupled with changing patterns of atmospheric deposition provided an opportunity to evaluate how high-elevation catchments respond to disturbance. Overall, these findings may have implications for the current episode of insect mortality occurring along Colorado’s Front Range.

Bio: Chuck Rhoades is a biogeochemist who studies forest watersheds as part of the US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. His research evaluates linkages between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in managed and unmanaged areas. For the past 23 years he has studied wildfire responses and ecosystem recovery after severe wildfires. Much of his work addresses the role of upland and riparian soils and vegetation in regulating nitrogen and carbon retention and export from forest watersheds and how ecological disturbance and land management alter these processes.