Front Range Student Ecology Symposium (FRSES) at Colorado State University

Photo Contentest

FRSES 2009 - Photo Contest

2009 Photo Contest Winners

Best Overall		Best Study Organism

Thomas Wilding- Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO. A cold winters day in the desert. March 2008		Jim Bromberg- Rocky Mountain National Park. A mushroom village in Rocky Mountain National Park. While often grouped with plants, their phylogeny tells us they are really more closely related to animals. Vegetarians beware! August 2008

Best Person Picture		Best Scenery

Sarah Evans- Inner Mongolia, China. My Chinese colleagues and I collect data in an Inner Mongolian grassland. This site was especially remote, but two children from a nearby family farm showed up and ended up helping us clip biomass. July 2008		Kelly Hopping - Namtso Lake, Tibet Autonomous Region. This was taken near our study site, a few days after a 5.6 earthquake. A local monk told us that just before the quake started, the dragon that lives in the lake rose out of the water and flew to the mountains, where it looked down on the epicenter. October, 2008

More 2009 Photo Contest Entries:


Name: Pranav Chanchani Location: Tso Lhamo Plateau, (17,400 feet) North Sikkim, India Date: March, 2007 Caption: Tibetan argali (Ovis ammon hodgsoni), a threatened species of wild sheep, thrives in cold andresource-scares environments. This group is seen against the backdrop of peaks from the Kanchendzonga landscape.	Name: Elan Alford Location: Restoration Ecology Lab - Fort Collins, CO Date: October, 2008 Caption: Abstraction in Petri - selenium tolerant soil fungi	Name: Dan Auerbach Location: Large boulder near Dolores River near Bedrock, CO Date: 07/2008 Caption: Dinosaur footprints. Seriously.


Name: Toby Gass Location: Los Pinos Mountains, Sevilleta LTER, New Mexico Date: December 2008 Caption: Who's been eating Plot 9?	Name: Katie Goldberg Location Tram Chim National Park, Viet Nam Date: 9/26/2008 Caption: This photograph was taken in the middle of a lotus pond, in Tram Chim National Park in Viet Nam. Water, soil, and plant samples were collected at this location.	Name: Amanda Lease Location: Konza Prairie LTER, Kansas Date: August, 2008 Caption: Bouteloua gracilis. Because all flower parts are arranged together on one side, the seed head resembles an eyelash. In this close up photo, you can see both male and female parts.


Name: Samantha Stevenson Location: Urbino, Italy Date: July 2008 Caption: Sunset at the Urbino Summer School for Paleoclimatology (USSP), 2008. I spent three weeks at USSP learning paleoclimate data collection and reduction techniques.	Name: Jen Gunderson Location: South Africa Date: July 2007 Caption: A gorgeous sunset in Pilanesberg National Park, North West, South Africa. Cheetah blood samples were generously donated by the Pilanesberg National Park to help continue the genetic research concerning captive bred cheetah.	Name: Broox Boze Location: bboze@colostate.edu Date: June 2008 Caption: Japanese Macaque on the island of Yakushima in Southern Japan. This primate species serves as a final host to several nematode parasites which were the focus of my field work in 2008.


Name: Miriam Galeas Location: Tallgrass Prairie, Konza LTER (Kansas) Date: March, 2008 Caption: Taking a break from lighting the backfire during a prescribed burn at Konza Prairie.	Name: Eric Gangloff Location: Sandhills of eastern Colorado Date: June 2008 Caption: A male ornate box turtle (Terrapene ornata ornata) tells us how he feels about our research.	Name: Nicholas Gould Location: San Clemente Island, CA Date: 16 April 2008 Caption: This is a San Clemente Island (Urocyon littoralis clementae) fox kit emerging from the den of a radio-collared project study fox. The kit is likely between 6-8 weeks old and is almost small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.


Name: Lindsay Reynolds Location: Canyon de Chelly, AZ Date: July, 2008 Caption: Puddles appear on rain-worn sandstone after a late-summer monsoon storm	Name: Chris Herron Location: Craters of The Moon National Monument Date: October 2007 Caption: The morning ice vaporizing off of the volcanic rocks as the sun rises. The old lava flows at Craters of The Moon National Monument create a harsh landscape that make it feel like a remote planet.	Name: Jamie Fuller Location: Red Mountain pass, Colorado Date: January 16, 2009 Caption: Icicles and the early morning sun on a snowy slope


Name: Kristen Kaczynski Location: near Pico Duarte, Cordillera Central, Dominican Republic Date: March, 2008 Caption: The afternoon clouds descending on the monodominant Hispaniolan pine (Pinus occidentalis) cloud forest community.	Name: Heidi Erickson Location: Stratton Sagebrush Ecology Research Site, south of Rawlins, Wyoming Date: July, 2008 Caption: Three horned lark nestlings in cryptic nest under the edge of a black sagebrush plant. This nest was part of the nest monitoring portion of my Master's research. These little guys fledged the day after this photo was taken.	Name: Heidi Erickson Location: 14 miles north of Rock Springs, Wyoming Date: June, 2006 Caption: A sea of sagebrush just east of Eden, Wyoming with the standing remnant volcanic plug (Boar's tusk) in the background. The photo was taken while conducting avian point counts surveys for a Wyoming Basin Ecological Assessment project.


Name: Jason Shaw Location: Boulder County Date: September 2008 Caption: This is a big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus) that was caught in a mist net while doing surveys for Boulder County Open Spaces	Name: Amanda Broz Location: Fort Collins, CO Date: April 2006 Caption: The lovely, invasive spotted knapweed. The flower is attractive to the human eye, but also to many North American insects. Lore has it that this exotic weed was purposefully seeded all over the intermountain west by beekeepers.	Name: Christa Hardy Location: Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia Date: July, 2006 Caption: A female loggerhead sea turtle returning to the ocean at sunrise. You can see her incoming tracks and the change in the tide since she came onto the shore. The sand on her back is from her efforts to disguise her nest of nearly 200 eggs.

Name: Amariah Anderson Lebsock Location: SGS-LTER - Central Plains Experimental Range, Colorado Date: July, 2008 Caption: One of my radio-collared swift foxes (Vulpes velox) taking advantage of a cool but sunny prairie morning.	Name: Becky Chong Location: Sulawesi, Indonesia Date: September 2007 Caption: A new species of tree frog (Genus Rhacophorus) discovered during a biological survey in Indonesia.	Name: Stacy Lynn Location: Loiborsoit, Tanzania Date: June 2004 Caption: This is a boma where I spent many nights during fieldwork. You can almost hear the bells and bleats of the goats returning home, and the calves calling to the cows who were not far behind.


Name: Byron Collins Location: Fraser Experimental Forest, Colorado Date: June, 2008 Caption: Morning commute	Name: Emily Snode Location: Kruger National Park, South Africa Date: June, 2008 Caption: This female epauletted fruit bat (Epomophorus walbergi) was caught in our mist net in Kruger National Park, South Africa. Isn't she a cutie!	Name: Toby Gass Location: Los Pinos Mountains, Sevilleta LTER, New Mexico Date: December 2008 Caption: Natural alchemy - Blue grama turns gold at sunset. The snow made sampling difficult but was great for photography.