past faculty RESEARCH
Each year, the Montana Water Center awards funding to Montana University System faculty through the Faculty Seed Grant Program. See below for more information on past Faculty Seed Grant projects.
2016 FACULTY SEED GRANTS
DR. Lindsey Albertson: Impacts of changing river flow and temperature on salmonfly productivity and terrestrial subsidy
A variety of factors, including climate change and damming, are altering natural flow and temperature regimes in Montana’s rivers, with widespread implications for the animals that live in freshwater habitats. Macroinvertebrates serve as a key component of river food webs and support Montana’s culturally and economically critical fisheries. Macroinvertebrates are sensitive to changes in river flow and temperature because their life cycle stages are tightly coupled with discharge and temperature levels. In collaboration with fisheries biologists at Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks and the Bozeman Fish Technology Center, Dr. Albertson and a graduate student will investigate the impacts of changing late summer flows and increasing temperature on salmonfly (Pteronarcys californica) larvae and the density and timing of adult emergence hatches in the Madison and Gallatin Rivers. This research will use a combination of field surveys of natural populations and laboratory experiments that manipulate water discharge and temperature to investigate how shifting water resources are linked to Pteronarcys productivity.
Dr. Lindsey Albertson is an assistant professor in the Ecology Department at Montana State University. To learn more about her research, please visit her website.
(Dr. Alberston is currently an associate professor in the Ecology Department at Montana State University)
DR. Alysia cox: linking microbial diversity and activity to water quality
The health of an ecosystem is intertwined with its water quality and microbial community. Dr. Alysia Cox is researching the link between water quality and microbial activity and diversity within the headwaters of the Clark Fork, a river that has been heavily affected by past mining activity. Determining microbial diversity and activity in the headwaters will provide both an indication of metal contamination from past mining on the overall health of the system and will serve as a baseline for evaluating the effects of future climate change on microbial and chemical processes in this ecosystem. Microbial diversity and activity will be linked to water chemistry, providing information on how microbial activity relates to water quality. These data are expected to contribute to water quality and remediation solutions in Montana now and in the future. Furthermore, the results will help to understand similarly impacted ecosystems within the state.
Dr. Cox is head of the Environmental Dynamics in Geobiochemical Engineering (EDGE) Laboratory and Professor of Environmental Chemistry in the Chemistry and Geochemistry Department at Montana Tech. She will be conducting this research with the help of Joe Griffin, local expert and contaminant hydrogeologist, and EDGE lab students.
DR. robert payn: understanding how beaver mimicry restoration influences natural water storage in missouri river headwater streams
The Montana State Water Plan recommends strategies that improve "natural water storage", particularly in riparian and floodplain areas near streams. Beaver-mimicry restoration (BMR) seeks to simulate the natural effects of beaver activity in streams, and has become a popular approach to hydrologic reconnection of stream channels to floodplain and riparian systems. Proponents of BMR and authors of the State Water Plan suggest that restoration of incised streams will improve stream and riparian habitat, improve water quality (e.g., reduce excess sediment and nutrient laods), reduce stream temperatures in the summer, and improve natural seasonal storage in wetlands and local alluvial aquifers. The influences of BMR on biological aspects of ecosystem recovery have been well documented. However, the effects of BMR on natural water storage have yet to be tested directly, and the specific hydrologic mechanisms that would promote higher and cooler late summer flows remain poorly understood.
Rob Payn and Andy Bobst in the Montana State Watershed Hydrology Lab are partnering with The Nature Conservancy to build a program using existing and planned BMR activities in the Upper Missouri region as manipulative experiments toward a better understanding of the hydrologic consequences of stream restoration. Our objective is to couple field experiments with simulation modeling exercises to provide a scientific basis for the potential to increase natural water storage from BMR activity, and to discern the hydrologic mechanisms by which various time scales of natural storage may be created or enhanced.
Their strategy for initiating a program of hydrologic research integrated with BMR management is to design experiments around active construction that is taking place over the next two years. They will establish a template for experimental design and an equipment package that can be quickly deployed for pre-restoration data when the details of new BMR projects are decided. Project work over the next two years will investigate how BMR influences surface-subsurface hydrologic interactions by using replicated experimental before-after-control-imapct design. Field research will be supplemented with sensitivy analysis of modeled surface-subsurface interactions, including assessment of potential for increased evapotranspiration in the annual water budget. Monitoring will be conducted at two locations in the headwaters of the Jefferson River where the Nature Conservancy is actively implementing BMR.