Niwot Ridge is an alpine

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...

research station located 65 km north-west of

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

in north-central

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

. It is on the

Front Range The Front Range is a mountain range of the Southern Rocky Mountains of North America located in the central portion of the U.S. State of Colorado, and southeastern portion of the U.S. State of Wyoming. It is the first mountain range encountered ...

of the southern

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...

and lies within the

Roosevelt National Forest The Roosevelt National Forest is a National Forest located in north central Colorado. It is contiguous with the Colorado State Forest as well as the Arapaho National Forest and the Routt National Forest. The forest is administered jointly wit ...

. Niwot Ridge is high.

Characteristics of the site

Niwot Ridge was designated a

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

Biosphere Reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...

in 1979 and was one of 17 reserves in the United States withdrawn from the programme in June 2017. The Niwot Ridge Long-Term Ecological Research Site was established in 1980 as a

United States Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency in ...

experimental ecology Experimental ecology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to ecological study and the underlying processes. The immediate goal of the research is to understand the relationships between organism In biology, an or ...

reserve. The site is characterized by "extensive alpine

tundra In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless mou ...

, a variety of glacial landforms, glacial lakes and moraines, cirques and talus slopes, patterned ground, and permafrost", and is home to Arikaree Glacier. Habitats include western spruce-fir forest,,

lodgepole pine ''Pinus contorta'', with the common names lodgepole pine and shore pine, and also known as twisted pine, and contorta pine, is a common tree in western North America. It is common near the ocean shore and in dry montane forests to the subalpin ...

(''Pinus contorta'')

subalpine forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial f ...

, alpine meadows as well as

ponderosa pine ''Pinus ponderosa'', commonly known as the ponderosa pine, bull pine, blackjack pine, western yellow-pine, or filipinus pine is a very large pine tree species of variable habitat native to mountainous regions of western North America. It is the ...

(''Pinus ponderosa'') shrubland. The site is little influenced by human impact and is thus an excellent site to monitor biological, chemical, and physical responses to changes in

atmospheric chemistry Atmospheric chemistry is a branch of atmospheric science in which the chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere and that of other planets is studied. It is a multidisciplinary approach of research and draws on environmental chemistry, physics, meteorol ...

and climate. The site is administered cooperatively by the U.S. Forest Service and the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sy ...

Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research The Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) is a scientific institute that is part of the University of Colorado Boulder. Its research mission is to " evelopscientific knowledge of physical and biogeochemical environmental processes at ...

(INSTAAR) for experimental and long-term studies of alpine tundra. The University of Colorado's Mountain Research Station facilitates research from atmospheric chemistry to alpine and sub-alpine ecology. Niwot Ridge is one of the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

Long Term Ecological Research Network The Long Term Ecological Research Network (LTER) consists of a group of over 1800 scientists and students studying ecological processes over extended temporal and spatial scales. Twenty-eight LTER sites cover a diverse set of ecosystems. It is par ...

(LTER) sites, and has been used by the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...

(NOAA) for atmospheric trace gas sampling since 1968. The

eddy covariance The eddy covariance (also known as eddy correlation and eddy flux) is a key atmospheric measurement technique to measure and calculate vertical turbulent fluxes within atmospheric boundary layers. The method analyses high-frequency wind and scal ...

dataset at Niwot Ridge is among the longest for forest sites, and has been used to study the role of subalpine forests in cycles of water, carbon, nutrients, and energy. Substantial increases in nitrogen deposition during the past three decades is one of the major concerns and has already impacted biological processes in alpine tundra and surrounding catchment areas. Educational programs in the biosphere reserve focus primarily on the university level, but also include high schools and the general public.

Sources

References

External links

*
Neonscience site

Another site
{{coord, 40.0000, N, 105.3000, W, source:wikidata, display=title Former biosphere reserves of the United States Research stations Protected areas of Colorado