Long-term place-based contributions to ecology: The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory

Background/Question/Methods

The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) was founded in 1928 in Gothic, Colorado, from the remains of an 1880s silver boomtown turned ghost town.  From those humble beginnings, RMBL has evolved to become the country’s premier terrestrial field research station, filled to the capacity of 160 residents each summer with faculty, researchers, graduate students, postdocs, and undergraduates from across the country and overseas. Most of the research done there is work at the population level, and some of those populations have been studied for many decades, by researchers who have worked for much or all of their careers there. It is the home of a 50+ year study of marmot biology and behavior (now with its second PI), a 40+ year study of flowering phenology, and decades-long work on aquatic insects, butterflies, ground squirrels, carrion beetles, etc. Many collaborations have been facilitated by the annual interactions among its researchers.  What is it about RMBL that has generated the longevity and originality of so many studies? 

Results/Conclusions

The scenic beauty, the relatively short well-defined field (and growing) season, the sense of community, and the history of scientific research are contributing factors to the “sense of place” that encourages long-term commitments to research at RMBL.  A consequence of such a commitment is that the researchers often learn enough about the natural history of the area for that knowledge to serve as a source of new research ideas, creating even more incentive to continue the research commitment. The background information accumulated over years also provides a context for future work, and facilitates identification of unusual events that may be ecologically important, as well as a way to measure the consequences of climate change. The many opportunities that RMBL offers for research assistants and students have also helped to create new cohorts of researchers who return to RMBL as graduate students, postdocs, and PIs. At least two families have had consecutive generations of biologists work there, and several biologist couples work there now.  This kind of long-term commitment to research at a field site is of course not unique to RMBL, and similar examples can be found at other field stations around the world.