Constructing a Long-Term Ecological Research Program at the NTS: Building on Past EPSCoR Success to Create a Scientific Center of Excellence in Nevada

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9871942 Coleman Constructing a Long-Term Ecological Research Program at the NTS In order to move Nevada s university system to a world-class level of competitiveness, a panel of nationally recognized experts has recommended that the State of Nevada: (1) develop state centers of excellence, based on scientific strength, uniqueness, fundability, and consistency with the state s long-range science plan and (2) exploit the unique opportunities of the Nevada Test Site (NTS). The experts also explicitly identified Nevada s Global Environmental Change Program (NevGEC) as a potential target area. The current project is consistent with these recommendations and will add the experimental infrastructure and remote sensing technology necessary to integrate investigations of potential long-term changes of a desert ecosystem to increased precipitation, increased nitrogen deposition, and degradation of a microbiotic crust that lives on the surface of desert soil to ongoing work on the effects of elevated CO2 on an intact desert ecosystem at the Nevada Desert Face Facility (NDFF) on the NTS. This project will: (1) help solidify a scientific center of excellence in Nevada and thus potentially have a very positive short-term impact on Nevada s research competitiveness; (2) benefit the entire state as the NevGEC Program is a unique collaboration between the three main research institutions in Nevada; (3) address an issue of ecological importance to Nevada and to the world, and (4) create a world-class research facility on the NTS, a site that is critical to Nevada s long-term economic development.