Tracing the Path

In the mountains surrounding RMBL’s Gothic campus, snow settles into alpine basins, melts into wetlands and soils, gathers into rivers, and ultimately flows to communities far downstream. Understanding what happens in plant communities along that path amid global change — a question with major implications for the Upper Gunnison and East River basins, the broader Colorado River system and watersheds worldwide — is central to the research of landscape ecologist and RMBL staff research scientist Ian Breckheimer, PhD.

Originally from Saluda, North Carolina, Ian is now based 35 miles south of Gothic in Gunnison, Colorado, where he lives with his wife, Lizza, and their 3-year-old daughter, Evelyn. He first encountered RMBL in 2017 as a PhD student at the University of Washington, where foundational papers written by RMBL scientists were required reading in his field. After graduating, he accepted a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard and began searching for an appropriate field site to launch his independent research program using drones and computer vision to study mountain meadows. That search took him to field stations across the country, but none captured his attention like RMBL. When he arrived in Gothic, wildflowers were in full bloom, and many of the scientists whose work had shaped his training were immersed in fieldwork.

“Don’t meet your heroes” is a well-worn adage, but Ian’s experience proved the opposite. “One of the things that really stood out to me was just how generous people were with their time,” he says. “I spent hours with David Inouye catching and banding hummingbirds. I spent a couple hours walking around with John Harte talking about carbon and water cycling. There were families there. There were kids running around. The science was exceptional, but also the sense of community and the sense of openness to new things and new experiences and new people was exceptional as well.” 

Two summers conducting research in that environment ultimately drew Ian away from the traditional academic path and toward RMBL. In 2020, he convinced Lizza to move to Colorado and joined the lab full-time as its sole staff research scientist — a position made possible thanks to a generous gift from RMBL board member John Haley and his wife Margie. Increasingly, Ian also partners with close RMBL ally Western Colorado University, where he’s an adjunct professor in the Clark Family School of Environment and Sustainability, advising graduate and postbaccalaureate students. (Lizza now teaches high school classes at RMBL too.)

The Role of CHESS

As a staff research scientist and a self-described “map nerd,” Ian supports visiting scientists while also leading his own independent research program. Much of his work combines field measurements with drones, airplanes, and advanced mapping tools to understand landscapes as integrated systems. A key question his research addresses is how changes in vegetation affect how much snowmelt becomes streamflow, a deceptively simple question with wide-reaching relevance. The ability to forecast how much water will move through the rivers later in the season is critical in managing irrigation systems, reservoirs, and municipal water supplies, he says.

Partly to answer that question, in the summer of 2025, Ian led a major research effort called the Colorado Headwaters Ecological Spectroscopy Study (CHESS), which brought together about 30 researchers from institutions across the country and was supported by a two-year, $1 million grant from NASA. Partnering with the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), his team flew specialized aircraft over the Gunnison Basin, using imaging spectroscopy and LiDAR to map vegetation at one-meter resolution. These instruments allow scientists to identify plant types and measure traits linked to how plants cycle carbon and water. At the same time, scientists collected data from forest and meadow ecosystems on the ground.  

By repeating and expanding on a similar 2018 RMBL campaign, CHESS offers a rare opportunity to see how plant communities and their water use have changed over time. Data analysis will continue through summer 2026, but Ian says their observations already suggest that increasingly hot and dry conditions spell trouble for local forests. He hopes future funding will allow additional campaigns to add new milestones to this growing record of change. “Intellectually, it’s really interesting,” Ian says of his work at RMBL. “On a pragmatic level, it really matters.”

Knowledge and Impact

Over the course of his career, Ian’s motivation for conducting research like this has evolved alongside the science. As an undergraduate, he was drawn to conservation and species protection. Curiosity later pulled him toward basic ecology and plant science, asking fundamental questions about how ecosystems work. Since becoming a parent, however, he feels a strong sense of urgency to do work that will impact decision-making both now and for generations to come. “When I can answer a question that’s both fascinating and useful, that’s the sweet spot for me,” he says. “I’m lucky enough to have the projects and the collaborators and the funding to do some of those things.”

Watershed science sits squarely in that space. By connecting snowpack, vegetation, and streamflow, Ian’s work helps build the knowledge needed to manage water and ecosystems now, while also creating reference datasets to which future scientists can return. From snow and wetlands to rivers and communities, his research reflects RMBL’s enduring role as a leader in headwaters science — helping us understand change where it begins.

— Suzanne Ennis
Communications Manager
Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory