About the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory

Ecological science for a sustainable world.

Painted shortgrass prairie scene

About NREL

The Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL) at Colorado State University has been a leader in ecosystem science since 1967. We are an interdisciplinary research center in the Warner College of Natural Resources, and our scientists work closely with the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability and the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology. We study how climate, soils, vegetation, animals, and people interact to shape the cycles of water, energy, carbon, and nitrogen, and we apply that understanding to problems including climate change, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, food security, and sustainable land management worldwide.

NREL is led by Interim Director Dr. Dennis Ojima.

Our History

The modern ecosystem concept took shape across the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was first defined explicitly by Arthur Tansley in 1935, then refined by ecologists including G. Evelyn Hutchinson and Howard and Eugene Odum. By the mid-20th century, momentum from the International Geophysical Year (1957 to 1958) spurred a set of international research initiatives, among them the U.S. International Biological Program (IBP), which ran from 1968 to 1974 and helped move ecosystem ecology into the mainstream of ecological science.

NREL was established at Colorado State University in 1967, in anticipation of NSF funding for the IBP’s grassland research, under founding director George M. Van Dyne (1967 to 1973). Van Dyne built a tradition of rigorous research based on the then-new field of systems ecology, bringing together researchers from different disciplines to work in teams on ecosystem-level problems facing natural resource managers. Where ecologists had traditionally studied individual organisms, NREL’s early work focused on how energy and materials move among the components of a system, not on the components alone. That approach was adopted by research centers worldwide during the IBP, and it produced the Grassland Ecosystem Model, known as ELM.

James H. Gibson, an atmospheric chemist, served as director from 1973 to 1984 and guided NREL through its transition from an IBP-funded program to an investigator-driven research organization. He secured funding to construct the Natural and Environmental Sciences Building that houses NREL, helped develop and lead the U.S. National Atmospheric Deposition Program from 1978 to 1982, and established the UV-B monitoring work that NREL still operates today. The ELM model was completed and published during his tenure.

Robert G. Woodmansee, a CSU graduate and one of the postdoctoral researchers who developed ELM, was director from 1984 to 1992. He brought ecological scaling, landscape ecology, and regional analysis into NREL’s research, and he emphasized that humans are part of ecosystems and must be studied as such. Before leading NREL, he helped establish the NSF Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) network and served as Director of Ecosystem Studies at the National Science Foundation.

Diana H. Wall directed NREL from 1992 to 2006 and made accessible science a central goal, working to put ecological knowledge in the hands of citizens and decision-makers at every level of government. Her own research on soil biodiversity and its links to climate change reached as far as the Dry Valleys of Antarctica. She went on to become the founding director of CSU’s School of Global Environmental Sustainability and received the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, the premier award in environmental science.

John C. Moore, also a CSU graduate, directed NREL from 2006 to 2024. A soil and food-web ecologist, he made environmental science literacy and public engagement a priority, creating programs that connect NREL scientists and graduate students with K-12 schools and broaden participation in science. He also led the creation of the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability in the Warner College of Natural Resources. During his directorship, several NREL scientists received Nobel Peace Prize recognition for their work on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Across more than five decades and five directors, NREL’s research has grown to span every continent and topics from the soil microbial dynamics of bison grazing to global studies of climate change and the terrestrial carbon cycle. Through all of it, the ecosystem approach has remained the common thread, together with a commitment, since about 1980, to studying humans as components of the ecosystems they shape. CENTURY, one of the first and most widely used ecosystem models in the world, was developed here. As we see it, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Scientific Leadership

NREL scientists have been recognized for their research and for their national and international service. Diana Wall was a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Dennis Ojima, Kathleen Galvin, Keith Paustian, and Stephen Ogle received Nobel Peace Prize recognition for their work on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). NREL members have served as program officers at NSF, NASA, and USGS, as presidents of the Ecological Society of America and the American Institute of Biological Sciences, and as contributors to the U.S. National Climate Assessment.

Internationally, NREL has helped lead major research efforts, including the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, the IPCC, the International Human Dimensions Programme, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the International Nitrogen Management System, and Future Earth. Our scientists have advised the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment, and the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel for the Global Environment Facility.

What We Do Today

NREL research spans field studies, laboratory and genomic work, ecosystem modeling, remote sensing, and participatory science. Current research areas include:

  • Soil carbon and organic matter dynamics, and the biogeochemistry of coupled carbon and nitrogen cycling
  • Greenhouse gas measurement, analysis, and national inventory support
  • Molecular and genomic controls of key ecosystem processes
  • Alpine and subalpine ecosystem research
  • Social-ecological and pastoral systems research
  • Wildlife ecology, including wild horse and burro research
  • Ecological forecasting and decision-support modeling
  • Remote sensing and spatial analysis for land management
  • UV-B monitoring
  • Big data and machine learning applications for ecosystem science

Much of this work is co-designed with the land managers, practitioners, and communities who will use it, so that the science supports real decisions about conservation, agriculture, water, and land use.

By the Numbers, 2021 to 2025

  • 169 active research projects
  • More than $35 million in research funding
  • More than 400 peer-reviewed publications
  • More than $5 million returned to CSU in indirect cost recovery
  • Research funding reached a 10-year high in 2025

Our Tools and Facilities

NREL has developed and maintains tools that are used well beyond our own laboratory, by scientists, agencies, farmers, ranchers, and volunteers.

  • CENTURY and DayCent. These ecosystem models, developed and refined by NREL scientists, simulate long-term ecosystem dynamics and greenhouse gas emissions. CENTURY was among the first and most widely used ecosystem models in the world. DayCent results feed the U.S. national greenhouse gas inventory and are built into the COMET-Farm decision-support tool, which helps farmers and ranchers estimate on-farm carbon storage and emission reductions.
  • CitSci (CitSci.org). A participatory science platform and consulting service that helps researchers and volunteers design projects, collect and manage data, and share results. CitSci also supports the CitSci Participatory Science Center.
  • EcoCore Analytical Facility. A CSU research core facility offering elemental, molecular, microbial, and isotopic analyses of soil, plant, water, and other environmental samples, available to researchers across campus and beyond. Online at ecocore.nrel.colostate.edu.
  • UV-B Monitoring and Research Program. A USDA-supported program, with roots in NREL’s early atmospheric work, that monitors ultraviolet-B radiation and studies its effects on crops, plants, and ecosystems.
  • Ecological Analytics. A rangeland ecological consulting service that brings NREL’s modeling and analysis expertise to land management questions.
  • Rubel computing cluster. A 692-core in-house computational cluster that supports large data sets and computationally intensive research.

Partner With Us

NREL works with federal and state agencies, universities, nongovernmental organizations, private companies, foundations, land managers, and volunteers. There are several ways to work with us today.

  • Collaborate on research. We co-design projects with practitioners and partner institutions, and our scientists advise and train students through the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability and the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology.
  • Use our services. Through CitSci, EcoCore, Ecological Analytics, and NREL IT Services, we provide participatory science tools, analytical laboratory work, rangeland consulting, and research computing on a fee-for-service basis.
  • Support our work. Philanthropic gifts sustain projects such as the Environmental Microbiome Culturomics Project, the L-Sugars Project, the Western Ranches Project, and the CitSci Participatory Science Center.

To discuss a collaboration, a service request, or a gift, contact us at nrel_communications@colostate.edu.

Contact

Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory Colorado State University 1231 Libbie Coy Way Fort Collins, CO 80523-1499 nrel_communications@colostate.edu