K. Dana Chadwick: East River

Aboveground-belowground Biogeochemical Interactions in the Upper East River

Exploring the landscape distributions and controls of aboveground-belowground biogeochemical interactions through the critical zone.

My postdoctoral work considered above-belowground biogeochemical interactions to scale subsurface critical zone properties in the Upper Gunnison Basin in the Colorado Rockies. This work is in collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab Watershed Function SFA. In June of 2018 the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) conducted its first assignable asset survey with the Airborne Observation Platform (AOP). I led a coordinated field survey to ground truth the imaging spectroscopy data that was collected and allow for the establishment of aboveground-belowground relationships. This work is ongoing and was designed to support a wide range of research projects and goals in the region.

Findings & Highlights

September, 2020

Paper: Integrating airborne remote sensing and field campaigns

Our paper documenting methodologies for planning and executing integrated airborne and field campaigns is now out in Methods in Ecology and Evolution. This was an awesome collaboration across many institutions, including LBNL's Watershed Function SFA, and documents the first NEON AOP Assignable Asset collection. All data and codes are published as well! Check it out.

December 12, 2018

East River Field Campaign Highlighted on NEON's Blog

Our work conducting a ground truth campaign for the first NEON AOP Assignable Asset campaign was highlighted by NEON's blog. Check it out!

August 28, 2018

Signals in the Soils

My postdoctoral advisor, Kate Maher, and I recieved a EAGER grant from the National Science Foundation's Signals in the Soils program. We are so excited that our proposal 'Can remotely imaged vegetation characteristics provide a window into soil nutrient cycles?' was selected for funding.

August 16, 2018

First NEON AOP Assignable Asset Survey

In June 2018, the National Ecological Observation Network's Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) conducted it's first taskable survey over four watersheds in the Upper Gunnison watershed, including the East River watershed, home to the Rocky Mountian Biological Laboratory. This exciting work is part of LBNL's Watershed Function Special Focus Area in collaboration with its university partners. I'm so excited that this amazing resource is now avaliable to the scientific community.

About

Study Area

Rocky Mountian Biological Laboratory

This work is being conducted through coordination with the Rocky Mountian Biological Laboratory (RMBL). They facilitate and conduct incredible place based research - check them out!

Acknowledgements

This work was conducted by an incredible team of people from many different fields. I want to especially acknowledge the hard work of Katie Denniston and Amanda Henderson in facilitating the successful organization and completion of the 2018 field work. In addition, Jennie Reithel was instrumental in coordinating permissions and logistics for the work. The teams from LBNL who conducted geophysical measurement and microbial extractions and preservation were wonderful and I have learned a great deal from all of them.