The Biogeography Lab focuses on forest disturbance ecology such as wildfires, bark beetle outbreaks, wind storms, and how they shape spatial patterns of forest species independently and interact with one another to shape species distributions. In addition, the lab studies if disturbance events are required for tree species to track climate change and move into new areas, or if species can move into new areas where they have not been in the past without the established forest being killed off first. The lab also incorporates other focuses, like impacts of human land use in shaping disturbance events and their ecological consequences.
Equipment & Software
The Biogeography Lab at Colorado State University is a 750 square foot facility in the General Services Building on the east side of campus and under the supervision of Dr. Jason Sibold. The space includes equipment for processing tree-ring samples, an area for meetings or seminars, and desk space and computers for graduate students.
Collections
- Fire history and post-fire regeneration of alerce forests, coast range, south-central Chile
- The influence of disturbance and management history on mountain pine beetle outbreak severity and stand development, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
- Forest disturbance ecology of Glacier National Park, Montana
- Regeneration dynamics and status of isolated Ponderosa Pine stands on the western slope of the northern Colorado front range
- Pre-settlement fire patterns: records of natural fire or anthropogenic fire use?