Acquisition of Instrumentation for Enhancing Chemical Analyses in Ecological Research

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Ecological research is often enhanced by access to sophisticated instrumentation for chemical analysis, but it is usually not cost-effective to have every instrument in every ecologist's lab. This proposal requests funds for the acquisition of shared-use instrumentation that will permit a group of five ecologists at Fordham University's Calder Conservation and Ecology Center, with diverse research interests, to enhance their chemical analytical capabilities. The instruments include a Technicon TrAAcs-800 element analyzer, a Hewlett Packard HP5890A Capillary Gas chromatograph, a Waters High Performance Liquid Chromatography System, and a Perkin-Elmer HGA Graphite Furnace for an existing Perking-Elmer 1100B atomic absorption spectrophotometer. These instruments will be used in the analysis of essential inorganic nutrients in water, sediment and plant tissue samples, complex organic compounds such as plant pigments and allelochemicals, and trace elements and metals such as aluminum and selenium. The research disciplines to which these enhanced analytical capabilities will be applied include behavioral ecology (foraging choices of large primates based on nutritional quality), community ecology (species responses to nutrients, metal and biotic changes) and ecosystems ecology (biogeochemical cycles, paleoecology, climate change).