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

成立于1899年，平头湖生物站（FLBS）是蒙大拿大学系统的卓越中心。 FLBS有三名常驻教师，15名永久工作人员和100万美元的年度预算。 FLBS位于平头湖的东海岸，蒙大拿州米苏拉以北约90英里，在落基山脉的一个显着的地区被称为大陆的皇冠。 该研究所的使命是进行生态学基础研究，为环境学科专业培养高质量的研究生，并以电子数据库、白色论文、短期课程、讲习班和论坛的形式向专业人员和公众提供科学数据和信息，该研究所的研究方案是围绕生态系统功能的自然和社会方面的具体假设组织的，有25名合作者。 有四个长期核心项目：1）生物多样性和生物生产沿着生物物理梯度; 2）洪泛区生态学和河流恢复; 3）大型湖泊湖沼学; 4）环境变化评估和生态系统建模。 这些项目在过去五年中产生了100篇评审论文，并大幅提高了新员工，研究生和访问科学家的研究资金和设施的使用。 此外，研究人员越来越依赖大量数据库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。本项目将协助采购：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）;以及4）具有高容量备份设备的局域网服务器。 这些项目是合作研究增长的核心，也是管理和分发在FLBS迅速积累的大量电子数据库所必需的。

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.