Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

Colorado's boundaries encompass some 66.6 million acres, or over 104,000 square miles. Within this area, the type and extent of natural vegetation is determined by many factors, including elevation, climate, soils, disturbance patterns, and the ecological history of the landscape. Each change from lowland plain to mountain range to broad valley creates both habitat opportunities and barriers for plant species. The heterogeneity of the landscape provides...

A paleontologist offers an ecological tour of North America, from the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago to the present.

Environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb reveals that our modern idea of what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is wrong, distorted by the fur trade that once trapped out millions of beavers from North America's lakes and rivers. The consequences of losing beavers were profound: streams eroded, wetlands dried up, and species from salmon to swans lost vital habitat. Today, a growing coalition of "Beaver Believers", including scientists,...