Outreach & Training

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/359

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Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) in the Upper Missouri River Basin
(Montana State University, 2017-04) Bauer, Brad; Poulter, Benjamin; Royem, Alisa; Stoy, Paul C.; Taylor, Suzi
A team of scientists from Montana State University (MSU), the University of Wyoming (UW) and the University of South Dakota (USD) has received funding from the National Science Foundation that is bringing $6 million to these states. The team will use computer models and field experiments to study what might happen over the next 100 years if we adopt a new energy system called BECCS. The project’s study region is the Upper River Missouri Basin, but the findings could help all regions better understand the impacts of BECCS on communities and citizens, agriculture and ecosystem services.
Effectiveness of "Bokashi" compost in breakdown of pre-consumer food waste
(Towne's Harvest Garden, 2013-06) Appling, Talinna; DePartee, Max; Eddy, Zachary; Rychener, Paul
Our student group tested the effectiveness of the Bokashi composting approach, comparing carbon dioxide emissions during a 1 month laboratory incubation and 6-week field incubation of pre-consumer food waste at Montana State University. Preliminary results are presented suggesting there is little difference in decomposition dynamics between pre-consumer food waste alone (control), food waste amended with Bokashi, and food waste amended with soil.
Long-term snowpack manipulation promotes large loss of bioavailable nitrogen and phosphorus in a subalpine grassland
(2015-05) Yano, Yuriko; Brookshire, E. N. Jack; Holsinger, Jordan P.; Weaver, T.
Nutrient retention in ecosystems requires synchrony between the supply of bioavailable nutrients released via mineralization and nutrient uptake by plants. Though disturbance and chronic nutrient loading are known to alter nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) dynamics and induce nutrient export, whether long-term shifts in climate affect source-sink synchrony, and ultimately primary productivity, remains uncertain. This is particularly true for snow-dominated ecosystems, which are naturally subject to lags between nutrient inputs and uptake. To address how climate change may affect nutrient source-sink synchrony we examined the impacts of deepened snowpack on N and P losses in a subalpine grassland in the Northern Rocky Mountains, USA, where we have experimentally increased snowpack depths by two- and four-times ambient snow for 45 years. Long-term snow addition resulted in remarkably high levels of bioavailable-N leaching (up to 16 kg ha^-1 year^-1) that were 11-80 times higher than those under ambient snowpack. Estimated bioavailable-P losses also increased with snow addition, but to a lesser degree (up to 0.3 kg ha^-1 year^-1), indicating greater enhancement of N losses over P losses during snowmelt. Because these losses could not be explained by changes in nutrient inputs in snowpack or by changes in plant-soil turnover, our results suggest that high bioavailable-N leaching under deep snowpack originates not from a lack of N limitation of plant productivity, but rather from enhanced subnivean microbial processes followed by snowmelt leaching prior to the growing season. This is supported by reduced soil N pools in the snow treatments. Snow-dominated regions are projected to experience shifts in seasonal snowpack regime. These shifts may ultimately affect the stoichiometric balance between available N and P and future plant productivity.
Slicing and dicing Gallatin Valley soils: Pitfalls of litho-, pyro-, and climo-sequences
(Montana State University, 2013-04) Sugden, John
Outlined approach to defining elevational limits of aeolian inputs to soils across the Bridger Range (climosequence), effects of varying lithologies on soil properties (lithosequence), and effects of fire on soil properties associated with the August 2012 Millie Fire (pyrosequence).