Students seeking a MSc or PhD should consult the websites for the Colorado State University Department of Biology and Graduate Degree Program in Ecology for more information on the admissions process.
Ten papers that represent our primary research interests
- Knapp, A.K., C. Beier, D.D. Briske, A.T. Classen, Y. Luo, M. Reichstein, M.D. Smith, S.D. Smith, J.E. Bell, P.A. Fay, J.L. Heisler, S.W Leavitt, R. Sherry, B. Smith and E. Weng. 2008. Consequences of more extreme precipitation regimes for terrestrial ecosystems. BioScience 58: 811-821.
- Smith, M.D., A.K. Knapp and S.L. Collins. 2009. A framework for assessing ecosystem dynamics in response to chronic resource alterations induced by global change. Ecology 90:3279-3289.
- Hoover, D.L., A.K. Knapp and M.D. Smith. 2014. Resistance and resilience of a grassland ecosystem to climate extremes. Ecology 95: 2646–2656.
- Knapp A.K., D.L. Hoover, K.R. Wilcox, M.L. Avolio, S.E. Koerner, K.J. La Pierre, M.E. Loik, Y. Luo, O.E. Sala, and M.D. Smith. 2015. Characterizing differences in precipitation regimes of extreme wet and dry years: Implications for climate change experiments. Global Change Biology 21: 2624–2633.
- Wilcox, K.R., J.M. Blair, M.D. Smith and A.K. Knapp. 2016. Does ecosystem sensitivity to precipitation at the site-level conform to regional-scale predictions? Ecology 97:561-568.
- Smith, M.D., A.K. Knapp, S.L. Collins, D.E. Burkepile, K.P. Kirkman, S.E. Koerner, D.I. Thompson, J.M. Blair, C.E. Burns, S. Eby, E.J. Forrestel, R.W.S. Fynn, N. Govender, N. Hagenah, D.L. Hoover and K. R. Wilcox. 2016. Shared drivers but divergent ecological responses: insights from long-term experiments in mesic savanna grasslands. BioScience 66: 666-682.
- Knapp, A.K., P. Ciais and M.D. Smith. 2017. Reconciling inconsistencies in precipitation-productivity relationships: implications for climate change. New Phytologist 214: 41-47.
- Griffin-Nolan, R.J., J.A. Bushey, C.J.W. Carroll, A. Challis, J. Chieppa, M.Garbowski, A. M. Hoffman, A.K. Post, I.J. Slette, D. Spitzer, D. Zambonini, T.W. Ocheltree, D.T. Tissue, A.K. Knapp. 2018. Trait selection and community weighting are key to understanding ecosystem responses to changing precipitation regimes. Functional Ecology 32:1746–1756.
- Slette, I.J., M. Awad, T. Even, A.K. Post, A. Punzalan, S. Williams, M.D. Smith and A.K. Knapp. 2019. How ecologists define drought, and why we should do better. Global Change Biology 25: 3193–3200.
- Felton, A.J., I.J. Slette, M.D. Smith and A.K. Knapp. 2020. Precipitation amount and event size interact to reduce ecosystem functioning during dry years in a mesic grassland. Global Change Biology 26: 658-668.