Housing and Facility Enhancements for Visiting Scientists and Students at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology

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A grant has been awarded to the University of Oregon under the direction of Dr. Craig Young for partial support of construction costs for new facilities that will be used by visiting investigators and students at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB) in Charleston, Oregon. OIMB provides course work for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in many aspects of marine biology and supports year-round research using marine organisms. The lab, which occupies a 140-acre coastal campus with 26 buildings, has research facilities and laboratory space for visiting scientists, graduate students, and student groups. The new facilities will include dormitory updates and renovations, completion of meeting rooms, visitor offices and common-use computer laboratories and a new three-apartment housing unit for visiting investigators. The new facilities will permit broader usage of the running seawater labs and increased access to a diversity of field sites on the Oregon Coast. OIMB has become a center for studies of early life-history biology of marine animals and plants, as well as a destination for studies of estuarine biology, marine mammal studies, and the biology of introduced species. The South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve occupies laboratory space on the OIMB campus and visitors to this nationally important natural area conduct a wide variety of research projects on estuarine ecology, conservation and restoration. In addition, OIMB supports research on deep-sea biology throughout the world oceans and many visitors come to work with resident faculty on deep-sea projects and expeditions. Students attend OIMB for course work in all aspects of marine biology, including but not limited to invertebrate biology, developmental biology, animal behavior, marine ecology, estuarine biology, marine birds and mammals, molecular physiology and phycology. OIMB supports education at the K-12 level through the MARE program, which serves as the science curriculum for local elementary schools and currently involves more than 2700 students in 110 classrooms taught by University of Oregon graduate students. The institution also serves as a focal point for community education in science and conservation, with numerous groups using the institute for conferences, lectures and courses. A quarterly public lecture series is well attended by the local community. Research at OIMB is mostly in the area of basic science, but it finds immediate application in regionally important fishery issues, in the science underlying marine protected areas in both deep and shallow water, in the impacts of exotic marine species, and in determining the mechanisms by which organisms adapt to changing environmental conditions on various time scales.