MSU research featured in Science Magazine
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BOZEMAN — A Montana State University study of the history of Yellowstone National Park’s vegetation was recently highlighted by the editors of a prestigious journal dedicated to the advancement of science.
Science Magazine chose the MSU-led study, which was originally published in June in the Journal of Biogeography, to be featured it in its Aug. 31 edition as an “Editors’ Choice,” a section that highlights notable research published in other journals.
The article explained how MSU paleo-ecologists used fossil pollen in lake sediments in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem to assess how the vegetation composition and distribution of a mountain system has varied as the climate changed over the past 15,000 years.
“I am especially excited about this study because it uses new statistical approaches to examine long-term changes in vegetation and fire,” said Cathy Whitlock, professor in the Department of Earth Sciences in MSU’s College of Letters and Science and also a co-author of the study.
Using pollen and charcoal records across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem – most of which are the work of Whitlock and her students over the past 40 years — the researchers compared the ecological dynamics over both time and elevation, something that scientists haven’t been able to do before, Whitlock said.
To read the study, go to: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jbi.13364.
To read the Science article, go to: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6405/twil.
