MRI: Acquisition of Instrumentation to Support Integrated Research and Teaching in Interdisciplinary Environmental Plant Biology

将利用资助仪器的研究项目解决与植物适宜性和环境/生态系统压力有关的问题。第一个项目研究植物对不利环境的生物化学和生理学。经历环境胁迫(高光、干旱、盐碱、高温、寒冷、疾病、昆虫食草性等)的植物？几乎总是表现出细胞生物化学的变化。该仪器将允许在现场和实验室对这些变化进行详细的、定量的测量。第二个研究领域是与美国公园管理局合作，研究谢南多国家公园的入侵植物。所要求的仪器将有助于扩展入侵植物对当地湿地物种的影响的长期生态学研究，从测绘和量化植物种群动态和扩展到包括对本地和入侵植物的生理的详细研究。这些不同的研究项目涉及对所需设备的共同需求，以及更深入地了解环境变化如何改变植物对特定地理区域的适应性的总体目标。这些仪器还将对我们在东门诺大学不断发展的研究氛围产生重大和积极的影响，我们正在努力整合生物和化学科学领域的研究和教育，与其他大学的研究伙伴和在公共部门工作的科学家(如谢南多国家公园)合作。

The research projects that will utilize the funded instrumentation address questions related to plant fitness and environmental/ecosystem stress. The first project studies the biochemistry and physiology of plants responding to adverse environments. Plants undergoing environmental stress (high light, drought, salinity, heat, cold, disease, insect herbivory, etc?) almost invariably show changes in cellular biochemistry. The instrumentation will allow detailed, quantitative measurements of these changes, both in the field and laboratory. The second area of research is in collaboration with the US Park Service on invasive plants in Shenandoah National Park. The requested instruments will facilitate the expansion of a long term ecological study of invasive plant impacts on native wetland species from mapping and quantifying plant population dynamics and spread to also include detailed study of the physiology of both native and invasive plants.These varied research projects are related in their shared need for the equipment requested, and in the overarching goals of gaining deeper understanding into how environmental change alters plant adaptive fitness to a particular geographical area. The instruments will also significantly and positively impact our evolving research atmosphere at Eastern Mennonite University, in which we are striving to integrate research and education across the biological and chemical sciences, in collaboration with research partners at other universities and with scientists working in the public sector (e.g. in Shenandoah National Park).