FSML: Equipment to Enhance Research and Electronic Data Management at Flathead Lake Biological Station

弗拉黑德湖生物站（FLBS）成立于1899年，是蒙大拿大学系统的卓越中心。FLBS有3名常驻教师，15名固定员工，年度预算为100万美元。FLBS位于弗拉黑德湖的东岸，在蒙大拿州米苏拉以北90英里处，位于落基山脉的一个著名地区，被称为大陆之冠。该研究所的使命是开展生态学的基础研究，培养环境学科专业的高素质研究生，并以电子数据库、白皮书、短期课程、讲习班和论坛的形式向专业和公众提供科学数据和信息。FLBS研究计划围绕生态系统功能的自然和社会方面的具体假设组织，涉及25名合作者。长期核心项目有四个：1)生物物理梯度生物多样性和生物生产；2)河漫滩生态与河流修复；3)大湖湖沼学；4)环境变化评价与生态系统建模。在过去的五年中，这些项目产生了100篇评审论文，并大大提高了研究经费（50%）和新员工，研究生和访问科学家对我们设施的使用。此外，研究人员越来越依赖于大容量的数据库来进行生态系统过程的空间分析，这导致了对特定设备的迫切需求。该项目将协助获取：1)总有机碳分析仪，2)新空间分析实验室的硬件，3)光学测量（例如无脊椎动物，浮游动物，微生物和细胞器）的图像分析系统；4)配备高容量备份设备的局域网服务器。这些项目对合作研究的增长至关重要，对管理和分发外联图书馆迅速积累的大量电子数据库至关重要。

Established in 1899, the Flathead Lake Biological Station (FLBS) is a Center of Excellence in The University of Montana system. The FLBS has three resident faculty, a 15-member permanent staff and an annual budget of $1 M. FLBS is located on the East Shore of Flathead Lake, some 90 miles north of Missoula, Montana, within a remarkable area of the Rocky Mountains known as the Crown of the Continent. The FLBS mission is to conduct basic research in ecology, train quality graduate students for professions in environmental disciplines and provide scientific data and information to the professional and general public in the form of electronic data bases, white papers, short courses, workshops and forums.The FLBS research program is organized around specific hypotheses concerning natural and social aspects of ecosystem function and involves 25 collaborators. There are four long -term core projects: 1) biodiversity and bioproduction along biophysical gradients; 2) floodplain ecology and river restoration; 3) large lake limnology; and, 4) environmental change assessment and ecosystem modeling. These projects have produced 100 juried papers over the last five years and substantially elevated (50%) research funding and use of our facilities by new staff, graduate students and visiting scientists. Moreover, researchers increasingly rely on high volume data bases for spatial analysis of ecosystem processes, which has caused a pressing need for specific items of equipment.This project will assist in the acquisition of: 1) a total organic carbon analyzer, 2) hardware for a new spatial analysis lab, 3) an image analysis system for optical measurements (e.g., invertebrates, zooplankton, micro-organisms and organelles); and, 4) a local area network server with a high volume back-up device. These items are central to growth of collaborative research and essential for management and distribution of the massive electronic data bases rapidly accumulating at FLBS.