Planning Visit to Australia: Collaborative Study of Detritus-Based Food Webs

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0427481McGlynnThis award supports a project planning trip to Perth, Western Australia, for Professor Terrence McGlynn of the Department of Biology of the University of San Diego. Professor McGlynn intends to discuss and refine the details of a collaborative research partnership with Professors Jonathan Majer and Byron Lamont and others of the Department of Environmental Biology of Curtin University of Technology in Perth. The mutual interest of the investigators is the role of soil nutrients in trophic cascades in animal communities. The short term objectives of this visit include evaluating potential field research locations in Southwestern Australia, integrating existing data sets and designing a series of experiments. Professor McGlynn's prior field research in Costa Rica and that of his hosts in Australia have found similar strong direct effects of soil nutrients upon the density of a terrestrial faunal community. They now intend to collaborate directly and indirectly to increase the efficiency and comparability of their research in different ecosystems.The first direct benefit of the visit will be to strengthen a planned research proposal to NSF seeking funding for Professor McGlynn's future research involving Australian field sites and collaborators. Beyond this, the anticipated broader benefit of obtaining such funding will be to provide international exposure and research experience for undergraduate students at the University of San Diego, with a significant proportion of them from underrepresented groups.