LINKING HYDROLOGY AND CARBON FLUXES TO CLIMATE IN ROCKY MOUNTAIN PEATLANDS

In North America, relatively small, isolated minerotrophic peatlands occur at their southernmost limit in the Rocky Mountains. Little is known regarding how different climatic regimes control hydrology and affect the fluxes of CO₂ and CH₄ between these ecosystems and the atmosphere. Currently, we are studying peatlands found at the high and low end of the elevation ranges in which they occur, in two regions of the Rocky Mountains: the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, and the Medicine Bow Mountains of southern Wyoming. In both of these regions, most of the annual precipitation falls as snow. However, climatic and precipitation regimes vary between these regions, and with elevation. In particular, the San Juan Mountains receive more late-summer precipitation than the Medicine Bow Mountains as a result of the North American Monsoon. Furthermore, understanding how climate is linked to hydrology and carbon cycling in these ecosystems is prerequisite to gaining insight into how they may change under future climate scenarios. Our goals are to i) gain a better understanding of how hydrologic cycles vary with climate in Rocky Mountain peatlands, ii) understand how fluxes of CO₂ and CH₄ are affected by climate in these ecosystems, and iii) understand how these greenhouse gas fluxes may change under future climate scenarios, and how they may provide feedback to anthropogenic climate change. Here we present hydrologic, meteorological, and carbon flux data collected during the growing season of 2011, as well as planned work for the duration of this project including an air temperature manipulation experiment during the growing season of 2012.