past STUDENT-LED RESEARCH
Each year, the Montana Water Center awards Montana graduate students with financial support through an annual Water Resource Fellowship Program. To learn more about the past Montana Water Center Fellows, please read about their work below.
2016 STUDENT FELLOWS
Claire Qubain: snowpack controls on nitrogen availability and uptake in conifer forests
Snowpack is an important driver of nitrogen availability in western conifer forests. Snow promotes nitrogen fixation in soils throughout the winter months and provides soil moisture during the growing season. Mountain snowpack has decreased in the Rocky Mountains since the 1950s. Additionally, the snowpack is beginning to melt earlier in the season. The effects of decreased snowpack and earlier snowmelt on nitrogen availability in soils is unclear.
Claire Qubain, a graduate student at Montana State University, along with Drs. Jia Hu and Yuriko Yano, are exploring how complex topography, snowpack, and soil moisture control nitrogen availability in soil and tree nitrogen uptake throughout a growing season. A better understanding of controls on nitrogen availability and nitrogen uptake in western conifer forests will become increasingly important as snowpack decreases and climate continues to change.
Jordan allen: impacts of glacial processes on nitrogen cycling in the beartooth mountains, montana
Nitrogen is one of the main limiting factors on primary production, and is particularly important in low-nutrient systems, as is the case in most alpine environments. Waters draining from glacial alpine catchments have inorganic nitrogen concentrations, specifically nitrate, that are an order of magnitude higher than adjacent non-glaciated systems. Increased nitrate input to headwater lakes from glaciated catchments increases phytoplankton and diatom populations and the elevated nitrogen concentrations persist downstream, affecting multiple downstream lakes. However, the specific source of the elevated nitrate concentrations remains unknown.
Jordan Allen, a graduate student at Montana State University, is researching the magnitude of nitrogen concentration variation in two adjacent glaciated and non-glaciated catchments in the Beartooth Mountains to determine the source(s) of nitrate and the processes that control its supply. Nature has provided an excellent natural laboratory to easily compare the effects of glaciation while keeping most other variables nearly the same.
Keenan Brame: Transportation, sediment-association, and the future of microbial contaminants on the little bighorn river
The Little Bighorn River, located on the Crow Reservation in southern Montana, hold a significant cultural importance to the community. The river is used for recreation, irrigation, municipal, and raw consumption in traditional ceremonies. Prior research has shown evidence of microbial contamination in the river.
Keenan Brame, a graduate student at Montana State University, is quantifying indicator organisms (coliform, Escherichia coli) spatially at critical spots along the river and temporally at different climate and river conditions.
Keenan is interested in microbial partitioning between suspended sediment and free-living forms in the water, as microbial association with sediment is hypothesized to increase cellular viability in freshwater systems. Understanding how fecal indicator organism numbers fluctuate over the course of a year and among sites will provide information to the local community on when recreation and raw water use might lead to an increase in potential health risks and provide insight on the future of microbial water quality in the Little Bighorn River.