UHPSI team members gather for a final meeting before the summer field season begins
The UHPS team recently congregated for the last time before heading our separate ways for the summer field season. Over breakfast we worked on finalizing our research agenda, identifying last-minute logistical challenges, and sharing excitement for ongoing work on the High Plains. Over the course of the summer at least five team members will spend time at Ucross. Our efforts will build on fieldwork from last summer, targeting model verification for research on leafy spurge, sampling for bird calls and sounds around the ranch, collecting a large number of water samples, and running a workshop on pollinators and honey products, among others. We intend to “front-load” the field season and get a large amount of work done in the first few weeks. This will look like many long days collecting data from field plots while the vegetation is moisture laden from the spring rains. Once things dry up in mid- to late-July we’ll turn our focus towards projects that don’t rely as heavily on green growth. We’re all very excited and look forward to strengthening our relationships with our friends and partners in Wyoming and beyond. We plan to keep our news page up to date with the most recent discoveries and adventures from our field office at the Raymond Plank Creative Center — so stay tuned and let the summer begin!