MRI/RUI: Aquisition of Controlled Environment Chambers for Enhanced Research in the Plant Biology Program at Hope College

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A grant has been awarded to Hope College under the direction of Dr. Thomas Bultman for the acquisition of four controlled environment plant growth chambers, which, along with recent faculty hires, will considerably strengthen and extend the research and teaching program in the plant sciences at Hope College. Ongoing and predicted global climatic changes make plant ecology a particularly critical subfield of biology and therefore one to which undergraduates need exposure. The chambers will allow replicated, multi-factorial experiments of sufficient sample size for statistical validity. Chambers will be computer networked to allow integrated control from local or remote sites. The controlled environment chambers will be used to foster faculty-student collaborative research on impacts of global climatic change on plant-fungus and plant-fungus-insect interactions and on tree seedlings from neotropical cloud forests. Dr. Bultman and students will test if enhanced CO2 and drought interact with other environmental variables to influence an endophytic fungus/grass mutualism. Utilizing the controlled environment chambers, experiments will be conducted to the evaluate shoot and root mass response to variation in endophyte infection, CO2 level, defoliation, drought and fungal genotype. Dr. Swarthout and students will determine the response of endophytically-infected grass to elevated CO2 and temperature through enhanced levels of carboxylating enzymes. They will explore this response under a range of conditions in which nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) and water availability become limiting. Members of Dr. Bultman's laboratory will also test the insect response to variation in endophyte infection, CO2 level, plant damage, drought and fungal genotype using the controlled environment growth chambers. In like manner, they will also determine the response by natural enemies of herbivores to variation of endophyte infection, CO2 level, and fungal genotype. Dr. Murray and students will seek to uncover physiological explanations for alterations in elevational distributions of tree seedlings within the cloud forests at Monteverde, Costa Rica. The broader significance of the award is that undergraduate students in both research and classroom settings will gain important training in assessing primary and interaction effects using appropriate statistical procedures. Ability to precisely control light duration, light intensity, temperature, humidity and CO2 will greatly expand faculty and student research opportunties at Hope College. These opportunities are critical in the development of students as scientists and help to ensure students pursue careers in science.