EcoCore

Please Note: Our iLab site recently went 'live,' so we are still testing it to ensure it is operating properly.  Please let us know if you see any discrepancies regarding scheduling, pricing, etc., and we will address them.  Thanks for your patience.

Overview of Services

EcoCore Analytical Services is a Core Facility at Colorado State University, housed within the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory in the Warner College of Natural Resources and located in the Natural and Environmental Sciences Building. EcoCore’s mission is to provide analytical, training and educational services related to ecology, ecosystem sustainability, and water resources research to clients across several colleges at CSU, as well as local federal agencies and other universities and institutes. The laboratories comprising EcoCore Analytical Services are an essential, vital research laboratory enabling CSU to lead scientific discovery and education in Solutions and Strategies for a Sustainable, Thriving Planet. EcoCore supports scholarly activities broadly across units and critical components of CSU’s strategic transformation: climate change impact assessment and adaptation, greenhouse gas mitigation, global food systems sustainability, sustainable ecosystems and water resources, and sustainable energy development.

Instrumentation:

EcoCore provides access to, and analytical services for, a variety of instruments for elemental and biological analysis in solid, liquid, or gas samples:

• Velp CN 802 elemental analyzer for carbon and nitrogen concentration from solid samples (soil and plant)

• Shimadzu TOC-L for total/dissolved C and N from liquid samples (water and salt solution/K₂SO₄ for microbial biomass) and dissolved inorganic carbon

• Alpkem OI Analytical model 3700 automated wet chemistry system for measuring inorganic nitrogen (NH₄, NO₂, NO₃) and ortho-PO₄ concentration from water and KCl extracts

• Costech EA-isotope ratio mass spectrometer, used to determine d¹⁵N and d¹³C from solid samples.

• Thermo Delta V coupled to a GC-isolink unit with a Trace GC Ultra, Precon, and ThermoFisher Gas Bench. This instrument can measure compound-specific d¹³C and trace gas isotopic characteristics. A recently-installed gas bench enables it to also measure carbon and oxygen isotopes from carbonates/CO2.

• Picarro laser-based water isotope analyzer with automated sampler for fast-throughput measurements of ¹⁸O and ²H in water and in vapor.

Prep lab space:

EcoCore provides all necessary sample prep space, including the following:

• Equipment for soil assays, including sieving, grinding, drying, density separation, soil aggregate separation, inorganic carbon, texture

• Equipment for vegetation processing, including large and small Wiley mills, drying oven

• Chemistry lab, including fume hoods, filtration equipment, solutions preparation

• Nucleic acid and protein extraction, purification, preparation, and analysis; a Class I culture hood and laminar flow hood, and several high-speed centrifuges, Bio-Rad Real-Time PCR machine; multiform Tecan M200 plate reader for quantification of nucleic acids and proteins, enzyme assays, and any other assay requiring fluorescent or absorbance readings.

Please inquire for your specific needs.

Hours of operation

M-F/9-5 excluding University Holidays

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgment of facility contributions is expected in publications that include any data generated in the facility. Please cite us by our Research Resource ID (RRID: SCR_011015).
An example of an appropriate acknowledgment is “The authors wish to thank EcoCore Analytical Services (RRID: SCR_021758) at Colorado State University for instrument access, training and assistance with sample analysis”.

Contacts