The Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability is one of five academic departments in Colorado State University’s Warner College of Natural Resources, one of the nation’s most comprehensive natural resources colleges. The Department brings together top faculty leading global research in ecosystem science, sustainability, and watershed science. Students engage in fieldwork, laboratory training, and technical instruction to examine and explore the sustainability of local, regional, and global resources. CSU’s campus is located along the Front Range of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, providing students with unique access to a wide variety of ecosystems, such as alpine, subalpine, montane, foothills, and shortgrass steppe, that serve as living classrooms for hands-on learning.
The Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability (ESS) hosts a diverse range of labs and research groups focused on key disciplines such as ecology, water resources, climate science, and sustainability. These interdisciplinary teams of faculty and students work collaboratively to address some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges. Through cutting-edge research and innovative approaches, they are actively developing solutions that promote long-term sustainability, improve ecosystem health, and support resilient communities. Their work not only advances scientific understanding but also shapes real-world policies and practices for a sustainable future.
Learn more about the various labs and research initiatives within ESS below.
Laboratories Within ESS
Climate Solutions Laboratory
Led by: Dr. Rich Conant, Claudia Boot, and James Henriksen.
The Climate Solutions Laboratory is focused on developing scalable, high-quality, and cost-effective biotransformative climate solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The lab prioritizes sustainability and ecological health.
Projects:
- Using Microbes to Reduce Nitrous Oxide from Agriculture
- Understanding Sugar Breakdown and Enzyme Uses for Better Carbon Control
- Nitrous Oxide Database
- Classifying Rare Sugar Metabolism
- Developing Plant-Based Production of Breakdown-Resistant Carbon
- Persistent Proteins
- Sugar Sequestration: Evaluating Carbon Storage Potential of Candidate Sugars in Soil
- L-Sugar Incubation
- Stacks
ROSS: Radical Open Science Syndicate
Led by: Matt Ross, Associate Professor of Watershed Science.
Ross uses open data, reproducible workflows, and community partnerships to better design and manage (mostly freshwater) ecosystems.
Projects:
- NASA – Illinois and Ohio River Watersheds: How and why do algae blooms move through river and reservoir networks?
- NASA – Water Resources: How can remote sensing and data fusion help water resource managers?
- National Park Service Water Scarcity: How vulnerable are US National Parks to water scarcity?
- Sensors: What is the value of individual sensors in river networks?
- Macrosheds: Pooling and analyzing hydrobiogeochemistry data from every long-term watershed study in the US.
- Upper Poudre: How do wildfires affect water quality and algal growth in high elevation reservoirs, and are those changes propagated downstream?
- Lower Poudre: How does the Cache la Poudre River change as it travels through Fort Collins, Colorado?
USDA UV-B Monitoring and Research Program
Led by: Dr. Wei Gao, Director of USDA UV-B Monitoring and Research Program, Professor in the Ecosystem Science and Sustainability Department.
The climatological network is designed to provide an adequate density of measurement sites to establish the spatial and temporal characteristics of UV-B irradiance for the development of a UV climatology for the United States. The network follows a grid-based design that divides the country into 26 regions of approximately equal area. Sites are located primarily in rural areas, with particular consideration given to agricultural and forest regions. Specifically, the monitoring network:
Focusing On:
- Monitoring and examining UV-B radiation at the Earth’s surface.
- Studying the interaction among UV-B radiation, agriculture crops and production, forest, ecosystem, and climate.
- Developing an Integrated Agricultural Impact Assessment System.
SUPER (Skills for Undergraduate Participation in Ecological Research)
Led by: Dr. Stacy Lynn of the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory and joint faculty with ESS.
The SUPER Program brings together the teaching of foundational research skills from the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability (ESS) with research mentoring performed largely by the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL) scientists and Warner College of Natural Resources researchers. The program is designed for primarily Colorado State University (CSU) sophomores and juniors who are interested in gaining experience in ecological research.
Through SUPER students will:
- Increase scientific critical. thinking skills
- Expand scientific literacy
- Expand the ability to do and communicate about ecological research
- Build skills alongside a mentor
- Improve their qualification for future research positions or graduate school
Landscape Modeling Lab
Led by: Jessica O’Connell, Assistant Professor, Ecosystem Science and Sustainability.
The O’Connell Landscape Modeling Lab conducts research on broad-scale ecosystem resiliency and conservation through data science, remote sensing, field ecology, and ecological experiments. The Lab mainly focuses on wetland-dominate landscapes and largely uses open-source tools to conduct their science.
Focusing On:
- Understanding spatiotemporal patterns and processes in plant-soil interactions, habitat change, wetland plant productivity, phenology, carbon cycling, water dynamics, and other environmental gradients.
Agricultural Sustainability & Climate Impacts Lab
Led by: Nathan Mueller, Associate Professor, Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability and Department of Soil and Crop Sciences.
The Agricultural Sustainability & Climate Impacts Lab focuses on agricultural sustainability and climate impacts and adaptation.
Main Questions:
- How can we achieve a better balance between food production and the health of global environmental systems?
- How will agricultural systems be impacted by climate change, and how can farmers adapt to new conditions?
Klien Lab
Led by: Julia A. Klien
The Klien Lab focuses on identifying pathways and actions that promote sustainability and catalyze system transformation toward a just and sustainable future.
Projects:
- Mountain Sentinels Collaborative Network: Mountain Sentinels is a transdisciplinary network of scientists and stakeholders working to understand system dynamics and explore future trajectories in unique mountain social-ecological systems that provide ecosystem services to over half of the world’s population.
- Transformative Science with Society: Seeks to contribute to the transformation of science to be more inclusive and to bring diverse knowledge systems together.
- Ecosystem and Herder Vulnerability to Extreme Weather Events, Warming & Policy on the Tibetan Plateau: Investigate the social and ecological implications of climate warming, snowstorms, and grazing policies, and more broadly, pastoralists’ changing vulnerability to global change.
- Youth Environmental Alliance in Higher Education: This NSF-funded project connects institutions of higher education from all over the globe to provide integrated knowledge to students that empowers them to address complex global environmental problems. Undergraduate and graduate students work together across institutions worldwide to create learn together, work on ways to address sustainable development goals, participate in and lead sessions at the UNFCCC COPs, and become collaborative leaders to solve our most pressing environmental problems.
- The International Tundra Experiment Project (ITEX): ITEX is a global coordinated warming experiment across arctic and alpine sites.
- Nutnet at the Shortgrass Steppe, Colorado: The Nutrient Network (NutNet) is a coordinated grassroots research effort comprised of more than 130 grassland sites worldwide.
- Alpine Treeline Warming Experiment at Niwot Ridge, Colorado: The Alpine-Treeline Warming Experiment was installed in 2008-2009 on Niwot Ridge above Boulder, Colorado. It used infrared heaters to warm soil and plant surfaces by an amount comparable to current average projections of climate warming in the year 2100.
- African Sky Forests: Services, Threats, and Management Recommendations: This project is a transdisciplinary collaboration that includes an assessment of ecosystem services among different resource user groups and ethnic groups within West African mountains of Cameroon and D.R. Congo. Work also involves development of agent-based models. The project also entails an assessment of transdisciplinary research and practice across Africa.
- Community-based Pastoral Management in China and Mongolia: This project, funded by the Ford Foundation, brings together scientists from the US, China and Mongolia to explore best practices and challenges related to community-based pastoral management.
- Community-based Management and Participatory Models in the Highlands of Ethiopia
Research Focus Groups
Randall Boone, Professor
Dr. Randall Boone has been with the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory for more than 25 years and is a founding faculty member of the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability.
- G-RANGE: G-Range, a global rangeland simulation model.
- COMPHYDRO: Develop modules for teachers to instruct high school students about hydrology and computational concepts.
- ABC-CNH: Understand how climate change and glacial retreat in Peru affects local livestock raisers.
- HORSES: Modeling and management of wild horses in the West.
- SSTEM: An education project that promotes science education as part of our departmental curriculum, led by Dr. John Moore.
- WAMS: In this education project led by Dr. John Moore, women are trained in the sciences.
- ETHIOPIA: A project led by Dr. Paul Evangelista exploring ecosystem services in Ethiopian highlands under the NSF Coupled Systems program.
- MACRO: Evolving avian responses to climate change using a multi-species agent-based model.
- AGOUFOU: Coupled hydrological, ecological, and social systems in the Sahel.
- AK-MOD: Agent-based modeling to help study how households in northern Alaska share wild meats.
- GNU: Wildebeest forage acquisition in fragmented landscapes under variable climates.
- NC-GCCE: Scaling from local to global: teacher professional development to proviude a framework for classroom instruction on climate change and associated environmental consequences.
- CWD: Incidence and rates of spread in Chronic Wasting Disease.
- SAMBURU: Studying the impact of privatization on Kenyan livelihoods and the environment.
- BLM: Developing resource management and monitoring protocols for areas of extensive energy extraction.
- TIBET: Studying extreme weather events in Tibet.
- HWD: Understanding People in Places: human and wildlife dynamics.
- DREAMAR: Decision-making by livestock producers in the face of uncertainty.
- HABITAT: Balancing elk and deer populations with cattle and habitat in Colorado.
- SCALE: Effects of landscape fragmentation on large herbivores.
- POLEYC/IMAS: Integrated assessments to aid East Africa conservation and human welfare.
- WITS: Responses by South African livestock raisers to climate variability.
- FRGR: Tracking changes in wood frog movements in response to forest cutting.
Natural Resource Ecology Lab and Warner College Partnership with National Park Service