Science Moab

Plants and insects are the key members of food webs because they are not only abundant and diverse, but they also provide food for many other animals higher up the food chain. We talk with Moria Robinson, Assistant Professor of Biology at Utah State University, about variations in these food webs as climate in the western U.S. dries and warms. In particular, we look at the interactions of rabbit b...

Utah is home to over 800 rock glaciers. These masses of ice covered with rock debris are key to perennial streams and alpine biodiversity, but they are poorly understood. We talk with Scott Hotaling, Assistant Professor in the Department of Watershed Sciences at Utah State University, who is studying the rare stonefly in order to gain understanding of how alpine streams are faring as glaciers rece...

Sunset Crater, the most recent cinder cone in the San Francisco Volcanic Field, is estimated to have erupted between A.D. 1085 and 1090. In areas where the resulting lava flows were greater than 30cm thick, people may have been forced to migrate, leaving behind long-established homesteads and agricultural fields. On the positive side, lower elevation areas with cinder fall in the range of 3-10 cm...

This show is part of a series exploring Science Moab’s School to Science Program, connecting students with scientists in the field, the lab, and beyond. This program began in 2021 and to date has mentored over 57 local students. In this episode, we talk with mentor Mary Langworthy, Public Programs Manager at the Moab Museum, and Klayre Humphreys, junior at Grand County High School. Mary has sponso...

As photosynthesis happens, trees take in carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the form of sugars or carbohydrates. These sugars can be stored for many years in trees as a sort of “memory” and used to support their growth and metabolism during times of stress, like a drought. We talk with Drew Peltier, ecophysiologist and professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Drew’s interests and...

From the perspective of an archaeologist, the physical body of an ancient person is a gift because a body is a time capsule of the past. They lived in that space and that time, and their bodies are manifestations of what was there. We talk with archaeologist Erin Baxter, teacher and Curator of Anthropology at Denver Museum of Nature and Science, about her work unraveling the ancient southwest cult...

The Little Colorado River (LCR) is a culturally and spiritually significant drainage for many people in the southwest. The LCR also provides sediment load to the main stem of the Colorado River for the production of sandbars downstream AND it is an important spawning ground for and home to the largest population of Humpback Chub. We talk with Phoebe Brown, river guide and researcher, about her stu...

Rangelands are vast, natural grasslands, shrublands, woodlands, wetlands, and deserts that support grazing and browsing mammals and they are primarily natural ecosystems with native vegetation. These rangelands can become degraded by fire or improper grazing. We talk with Kari Veblen, professor of Rangeland Ecology at Utah State University about her research that focuses on the ecology and managem...

It is well known at this point that humans are using more water out of the Colorado River, then the river can support…for humans as well as other life forms that live along and within the river. Agriculture is using approximately 80% of that water. We talk with Aaron Derwingson, Water Projects Director of the Colorado River Program for the Nature Conservancy. Aaron and his team do freshwater conse...

Sagebrush once stretched across almost 500,000 square miles from the Dakotas to California. Each year, a million acres is lost to invasive species, catastrophic wildfire, development, improper grazing and climate change. Matt Cahill is the director of the Sagebrush Sea program for The Nature Conservancy. Matt advocates that scientific solutions and large-scale collaboration are needed to reverse t...

For the past three years, the Nature Conservancy has hosted a small cohort of Indigenous college students at their Canyonlands Research Center in southeast Utah. The program, known as N.A.T.U.R.E. (Native American Tribes Upholding Restoration & Education), seeks to empower the next generation of science and conservation leaders on the Colorado Plateau. During those seven weeks, students work with...

Can the simple beauty of an organism be enough to want to restore and preserve it? If so, Aspen would be at the top of that list. So much more than a beautiful tree, a stand or group of aspen trees is considered a singular organism with the main life force underground in the extensive root system. We talk with Paul Rogers, professor and Director of the Western Aspen Alliance, about the threats to...

Ever wonder how those amazing dinosaur bones make it from being embedded in rock to a museum where they are flawlessly displayed within a complete skeleton? Natalie Toth knows. Natalie is the Chief Preparator at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and her job begins with a chainsaw in the field and ends with a fully prepared fossil display. We talk about the chain of events that must occur for t...

Cirsium scopulorum, or mountain thistle, was long thought to be the only species of thistle occurring in the alpine tundra. Molecular, morphological, and geographical evidence now support the recognition of many species of thistles in the alpine tundra of the southern Rocky Mountains. We talk with Jennifer Ackerfield, the head curator of natural history collections, and the associate director of b...

Increased visitation and recreation in the desert inevitably leads to more human-generated noise. We talk with Joel Berger, University Chair in Wildlife Conservation at Colorado State University, about how this noise may or may not be affecting the iconic desert bighorn sheep. More specifically, we discuss how the noise may lead to increased prenatal stress on the females. The female bighorn typic...

Given the increasing temperatures and aridity, the fate of pinyon-juniper woodlands on the Colorado Plateau is uncertain. We talk with Rebecca Finger-Higgens, Ecologist with the US Geological Survey, about the recovery of the pinyon-juniper woodlands in the La Sal Mountains following the Pack Creek Fire of 2021. Rebecca tackles the question of whether pre-fire forest thinning programs and post-fir...

Here in SE Utah, we are living in a geologically young, rapidly eroding landscape and we have the Colorado River to thank for sculpting such a beautiful and dynamic area. We talk with Joel Pederson, professor and Department Head of Geomorphology at Utah State University about his continuing research on incision rates of the Colorado River across the Colorado Plateau. We talk about some new advance...

High alpine talus slopes are home to a myriad of creatures, namely mountain goats and American pikas, both specialists in alpine habitats. We talk with Mallory Sandoval Lambert, whose curiosity about the interactions between these two mammalian herbivores led her to study their behaviors in the LaSal Mountains. Understanding these interactions will have important implications for the conservation...

Around the world, civilizations have literally been built on rock and the specific rock type of an area has definite influences on that society. Science Moab talks with wildlife and science documentary writer, Gautier Dubois, whose recent work, Top of the Rocks, will be featured at this year’s Moab Festival of Science. Each episode of this 5-part series looks at a different rock (basalt, granite,...

On October 14, 2023, an annular solar eclipse will cross North, Central, and South America. Parts of SE Utah will be in the direct path of the eclipse. We talk with Cris White, Eclipse Coordinator for the Earth to Sky Interagency Partnership, about the uniqueness of eclipses and the many scientific activities that will be happening in conjunction with this year’s eclipse.

Sedimentologists are geologists that study rocks on the earth’s surface today in order to interpret ancient depositional environments. By studying deposits of river gravels, Andre Potochnik has been able to determine major changes in the drainages on the southern part of the Colorado Plateau. We talk with Andre about his work in Arizona on the Apache Reservation and how he has come up with the tim...

Drylands encompass over 40% of terrestrial ecosystems and face significant degradation from a warming/drying climate and overuse. To combat this degradation, some restoration efforts have focused on the use of biological soil crusts (biocrusts): complex communities of cyanobacteria, algae, lichens, bryophytes, and other organisms living in association with the top millimeters of soil. We talk with...

Rivers have a magic way of healing, transforming and inspiring. From the calmest riffle to barnstorming haystacks, rivers always have rapids. This is how the river transfers energy. Monte Tillinghast grew up on rivers and has spent most of his adult years rowing the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. He knows a thing or two about rapids and has a gracious way of describing them. We talk with Monte abou...

Aside from the inherent beauty of a pinon-juniper ecosystem, the health of such woodlands are tied to broader climate swings. This is the awareness that the project Sentinels hopes to bring to light. The brainchild of Todd Anderson, Bruce Crownover, and Gary Machlis, the Sentinels project uses art+science to showcase the pinon-juniper adaptation to increased aridification in the deserts of the Ame...

While modern day river systems are highly engineered to efficiently move water, this is not necessarily a “healthy” condition. Joe Wheaton, a fluvial geomorphologist and Professor of Riverscapes at Utah State University, works to better understand the dynamics of fluvial environments and their subsequent management and restoration. We talk with Joe about his research on how the dam building activi...