How one family’s science roots continue to spread in Gothic, Colorado
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Rocky Mountain PBS will be covering the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory as part of production for "Colorado Experience" season 11, set to premiere this fall. Stay tuned for more stories on the topic.
GOTHIC, Colo. — The broad-tailed hummingbird wiggled her head around in David Inouye’s hand. She chirped loudly as he turned her over, reading the band on her leg.
“She’s not scared, she’s outraged,” David Inouye said as he released the bird after taking note of the number on the band.
The hummingbird’s band dates back to about a year ago, when David Inouye first trapped her. He has a trap outside of his home Gothic, where he’s able to monitor the different hummingbirds and their patterns.
This is one of David Inouye’s many projects, which have spanned his 54-year career at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, commonly called RMBL, in Gothic, Colorado.
Since 1928, ecologists have conducted professional field research at RMBL on a range of wildlife species, from insects to marmots. During a typical summer, up to 180 researchers and scientists from around the world conduct or assist in decades-long, ongoing experiments at the laboratory.
David Inouye first came to RMBL in 1971 as a student at Swarthmore College. He returned as a graduate student for five years, served as a faculty member for 40 years, and is now a retiree — but he still likes to work on his own projects.
His projects relate to wildflowers and climate change and how it affects pollinators.
“I like to work with pollinators because they’re aesthetically pleasing,” David Inouye said. “I enjoy working with beautiful hummingbirds, bumblebees and butterflies. There's a huge diversity of pollinators here.”
One of his projects involves setting up permanent plots where researchers can track the flowering of wildflowers throughout the summer. This data provides information about the wildflowers over a long period, and how the flowers affect the population of pollinators in the area as climate change continues to be an issue.
As David Inouye has gotten older, he’s passed the project down over to another ecologist: his son, Brian Inouye.
Brian Inouye has been visiting RMBL with his parents David and Bonnie Inouye since he was an infant. He spent his summers in Gothic while his dad conducted research.
“Coming here as a child was a treat, a privilege,” Brian Inouye said. “When you're surrounded by scientists, you're surrounded by people that are curious and share that love of natural phenomenon.”
When he found an interesting bug or a snake as a kid, he’d bring it up to another scientist, and they’d be equally as excited as him.
Growing up around scientists, Brian Inouye was able to get the full picture of what it was like to pursue the profession.
“I had my eyes open to the sciences because I got to attend seminars,” Brian Inouye said. “I talked to researchers about what they were doing. I talked to graduate students about what their experience was like.”
When Brian Inouye was an undergraduate, he spent his summers at RMBL assisting on research projects. There, he met his wife, Nora Underwood. They had similar interests because of their work, and soon Brian Inouye followed Underwood to graduate school at Duke University.
During graduate school, the couple conducted research in Brazil and Costa Rica where they worked as tropical ecologists.
That’s when Brian Inouye and Underwood had their daughter, Miyoko Inouye.
“When my wife and I had our daughter, it made it harder to do fieldwork in places like the rainforest in Brazil,” Brian Inouye said. “It also made us realize how nice it would be to spend summers up here where she could have that same experience of running around in the mountains and going for hikes and climbing peaks, but also spending a lot of time with her grandparents.”
When the couple isn’t teaching at Florida State University in Tallahassee, they’re in Gothic at RMBL, leading the projects that David Inouye started.
David and Brian Inouye have cabins at RMBL that are near one another.
“Now the three of us, plus my wife, Bonnie, and her granddaughter [Miyoko], sit around the dinner table several times a week and share dinner and share conversation,” David Inouye said.
Miyoko Inouye, now 15, likes to spend the summers doing a lot of what her father did back when he was a child. She hikes with her grandmother Bonnie Inouye, volunteers at the visitor center and has taken an interest in biology and the world that surrounds her.
“It's pretty amazing,” Miyoko Inouye said. “It feels like a second home, because I know so many of the people here, and this valley is just such an amazing place to come.”
Brian Inouye said that the last thing he wants to do is pressure her to become an ecologist like him and his father.
“We're trying very hard not to push her in any particular direction,” Brian Inouye said. “But she likes math, she likes science, she likes music. She has many interests, and she's got plenty of time to pick her path. So I don't want to push her towards any particular thing. I want to let her choose.”
David Inouye had similar reflections about his son’s career choice. He attributes that growing up in the valley at RMBL led to Brian Inouye coming back here for work.
This parallel reflects in Miyoko Inouye’s experience as well.
“They have kept the pressure off me,” Miyoko Inouye said. “I think it might be a side effect of being here that I'm naturally attracted to some projects. And of course, I hear them talking about their science at home and it's really cool to understand it more. I think it’s important to continue this project.”
Due to climate change, the projects and the valley have experienced significant changes. But David Inouye said that it's important that scientists continue these projects.
“If climate change continues on this trajectory that it's happening now and the changes that we've recorded over the last 50 years continue on the same line, here's what it's going to look like here in 50 years,” said David Inouye.
Animals like foxes have started to move up to the valley because of its more temperate weather. These new predators have resulted in a decreasing marmot population.
Temperatures in the valley have also risen, melting snow faster than before.
“If you don't like that future, then we need to do something about it,” David Inouye said. “The work that we're doing here is to educate people.”
Brian Inouye said his favorite part of his work is analyzing the data and learning something about it. He loves to share this knowledge with the world through papers, his students, publications – and his daughter.
“Being out here helps me have a better understanding of how important it is to preserve the natural world,” Miyoko Inouye said.
