Controlled Environment Chambers for Plant and Insect Research

该合同为用最先进的、可完全控制和监测温度、光线和湿度的无人值守房间取代五个过时的环境房间提供部分支持。新的实验室将允许在植物和昆虫的生态学、进化、行为、发育、生理学、遗传学和分子生物学方面进行适当控制的实验。新的试验室将允许研究人员控制温度、光照和湿度，以便严格确定它们对重要植物和昆虫特征的影响。此外，对生长环境的高度控制将确保试验组之间的任何差异都是处理的结果，而不是由于所研究生物的表型塑料反应。新的设施将支持一个由20多名研究人员和他们的学生组成的活跃小组。这些研究室将为包括妇女和少数族裔在内的大量和多样化的学生提供研究生和本科生研究和教育的机会。研究用途有望带来进步，提高我们对自然环境的理解和管理，以及我们对植物发育和生长的理解。这些实验室将能够研究植物-昆虫的相互作用，这将导致对农业和保护区土地的基本理解和管理做法的进展。

This award provides partial support for the replacement of five outdated environmental chambers with state-of-the-art, walk-in chambers for which temperature, light and humidity can be fully controlled and monitored. The new chambers will allow properly controlled experiments in the ecology, evolution, behavior, development, physiology, genetics, and molecular biology of plants and insects. New chambers will allow researchers to control temperature, light and humidity in order to rigorously determine their effects on important plant and insect traits. In addition, a high degree of control over the growth environment will ensure that any differences seen between experimental groups are a result of the treatments and not due to phenotypically plastic responses by the organisms studied. The new facilities will support an active group of over two dozen researchers and their students. The chambers will provide opportunities for graduate and undergraduate research and education for a large and diverse population of students, including women and minorities. Research uses are expected to lead to advances that will improve our understanding and management of the natural environment, and of our understanding of plant development and growth. The chambers will enable study of plant-insect interactions that will lead to progress in basic understanding and in management practices for agricultural and reserve lands.