FSML: Infrastructure for Molecular and Microbial Ecology at the Harvard Forest

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The Harvard Forest is awarded a grant to upgrade, modernize, and reconfigure its John G. Torrey analytical laboratory to include capacity for research in molecular and microbial biology. Improvements to the laboratory include new benches, hoods, cold-storage facilities, energy-efficient electrical and mechanical controls, and a wastewater reduction system. The thoroughly renovated laboratoy will (1) provide new opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and faculty from the dozens of institutions worldwide who conduct research at Harvard Forest; (2) enhance long-term experimental and monitoring programs supported by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, and emerging through the Harvard Forests role as the northeastern core site for the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON); (3) support current and new classes and field camps in microbial and molecular biology, ecology, and archaeology; and (4) complement existing laboratory facilities dedicated to the study of terrestrial and aquatic biogeochemistry.Since 1907, research and education have been the mission of the Harvard Forest, one of the oldest and most intensively studied forests in North America. From its center consisting of 3500 acres of land, research facilities, and the Fisher Museum located in the North Quabbin region of Massachusetts, research scientists, undergraduates, gradutate students, K-12 students and their teachers, and forest policy analysts and decision-makers together explore topics ranging from conservation and environmental change to land-use history and the ways in which physical, biological and human systems interact to change the Earth.