GK12 Montana State University

My research interests lie within the broad topic of climate change – specifically, paleoecology.  I am currently analyzing a 9-meter lake sediment core which was retrieved from Lower Red Rock Lake in the Centennial Valley, just west of West Yellowstone.  As a paleoecologist, I am concerned with ecologic communities from the past, and my lake core spans an impressive 25,000 years of time.  By extracting pollen from selectively spaced samples, and by the fortuitous unique morphologic nature of pollen, I am reconstructing a 25,000 year record of how vegetation has changed in the lake’s vicinity since the last full-glacial.  My research questions focus on the nature of vegetation in response to climate.  “How has vegetation in the Centennial Valley changed since the last glacial maximum?”  “How does it compare to other vegetation records in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE)?”  and finally “Are there global climate signals that show up as patterns in my vegetation record?”   

It is important to know the biotic response to drastic changes in climate such as those involved in glacial-interglacial transitions, so we can better understand what biotic changes we can expect with future climate change.  Records of this length are rare in the GYE, as much of the region was covered in ice during the last glacial.  Most of the existing lakes in the region were formed as a result of glacial recession, so my record since the full-glacial will fill an interesting gap in paleoenvironmental research.