Colorado Headwaters Ecological Spectroscopy Study (CHESS)

 This summer I worked on the CHESS campaign (Colorado Headwaters Ecological Spectroscopy Study) funded by NASA and run by RMBL.

The campaign was collecting data to ask 3 main questions:

1. How are landscape patterns of leaf area, foliar chemistry, functional traits, and plant species distributions shifting? How do these patterns relate to changes in climate and land use?

2. How is environmental stress changing the structure and function of forests? What are the drivers and thresholds of change for different species, successional changes, and landscape positions?

3. How do the shifts described above feed back to changes in the energy and water balance?

To answer these questions, we used 3 levels of data collection. At the highest and broadest level, we used data collected by a NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network) plane (a twin otter) that was fitted with several instruments including LiDAR, hyperspectral sensors, and RGB cameras. At the mid level we used a drone fitted with some similar instruments. At the most precise level, we conducted ground truthing at various sampling areas (3 larger locations: Almont area (Lower Taylor River), Crested Butte/Gothic area (Upper East River), and Taylor Park area (Upper Taylor River). We collected the data during peak green-up time at the various locales.

For the ground truthing we collected data at plots such as species ID, percent cover, plant height, functional groups, tree health, leaf area index (LAI). We also clipped all the plants in the plots to determine foliar traits back in the lab: leaf mass area (LMA), leaf water content (LWC), foliar nitrogen, foliar carbon, and foliar delta-13C. We also collected soil cores to analyze the soil and geochemistry of the soils. We had 4 separate groups all collecting something slightly different. There was the meadow team, the shrub team, tree team, and soils team.

I was one of 4 leads hired. I was a meadow lead, and I was also in charge of plot selection. However, I helped out with shrubs quite a bit, and even a little bit with trees.

A typical day was spent from 8am until 1 or 2pm in the field. Then from 2 pm until 6 or 7pm in the lab sorting samples and doing lab processing. We worked long days, and sometimes 8 or 9 days in a row without a day off. This was due to the fact that the NEON plane could only fly when the weather was favorable (no clouds, no wind), so whenever we had good weather we worked. We basically needed to be collecting the ground data within 48 hours of the plane overlight.

The project was definitely very cool, and it will take a while to sort through and analyze all the amazing data we collected. But the best part of the whole project was the crew! It was such a fun and amazing crew! We instantly became good friends. We worked hard in the field and then chatted and listened/sang to music while doing sometimes mindless leaf sorting tasks in the lab. But we just really became really close!

Here is the team:

Ian: He was the PI and who secured the funding from NASA

Amanda: Overall field lead

Sophia: She is in RMBL's spatial ecology department. She mainly ran the LAI instrument. She went to UCLA for undergrad.

4 leads/techs

Me: meadow lead and plot selection

Cassidy: meadow. She's born and raised in Aspen and went to Denver University for undergrad

Piper: shrubs lead. She's a 3rd or 4th year PhD student from UCSB

Bradley: Drone operation lead. He's a master's student in Ian's lab at Western State University. He went to Thompson Valley High School in Loveland.

4 Western Undergrads

Bayden: in charge of the GPS.  He's a long distance athlete and on Western's XC and skimo teams

Reagan: meadow team

Yahaira: tree team. She's on Western's Search and Rescue Team.

Jack: tree team

The tree team was run by Marshall, a postdoc with NASA's jet propulsion lab. He was assisted by Dre, a Western Master's student. Anna, a German PhD student was also on tree team.

Other scientists rotated in and out, but the above was the core team