Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest, Montana: A decade of research and education on coupled carbon and water cycles in snow-dominated watersheds

From approximately 2005 through 2015, scientists and trainees from several universities conducted research at Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest (TCEF), a long-term research site situated in the Little Belt Mountains of central Montana. Established in 1961 and currently part of the US Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station, TCEF has hosted decades of research related to forest management, ecology, hydrology, and other topics. In 2005, researchers began to combine existing TCEF infrastructure with new observations and analyses to better understand myriad ways in which water and carbon cycling processes vary independently and interactively. During the next ten years, TCEF research yielded insight related to soil carbon processing, hydrologic connectivity, vegetation water stress, climatic drivers of hydrologic responses, forest pest outbreaks, and more. Traditional hydrometric methods (e.g., snow, streamflow and groundwater monitoring) were supplemented with ecosystem flux towers, novel soil gas measurements, stable isotope analyses, spectral remote sensing, airborne Lidar, and other techniques. TCEF also served as a productive training ground for doctoral and master's students, undergraduates, and postdoctoral associates. For three years, TCEF hosted a week-long field course in mountain ecohydrology. Here we feature some of the key research findings and education accomplishments connected with TCEF during this decade of intense activity. We also highlight the unique setting, individuals, and circumstances that catalyzed this work.