Facilities to Enhance Research and Teaching at the University of Kansas Field Station

堪萨斯大学获得了一笔赠款，用于改善堪萨斯大学野战站(Kuff)的设施。空间站为东部落叶林和塔尔格拉斯草原生物群之间的交错带提供了研究和公共教育的机会。该奖项下设施的建设是Kuff更大愿景的一部分，该愿景将逐步实现，该空间站将吸引来自世界各地的更多样化的学生和教职员工，以环境无害原则为灵感，建设世界级设施。这笔资金将用于建设一个试验性温室此外，还将为越来越多的现场用户建造风暴避难所，考虑到库夫斯的天气条件，这是一个重要的安全特征。改善库夫斯的设施将有助于实现四个重要的长期目标。首先，它将改善个体调查者研究可以在多个空间尺度和多个实验对照水平上探索生态问题的环境。第二，它将进一步促进多研究者、跨学科的研究项目。第三，它将为未来的扩张奠定基础，纳入重要的能效和可持续发展概念。第四，它会增加库夫吗？对国家生态观测网络(http://neoninc.org))和生物复杂性知识网络(http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/index.jsp).)等大型网络的贡献KUF的活动包括一系列广泛的教学、公共宣传和研究计划，目标人群从大学生到学童，以及普通公众。库夫斯的研究为该地区的生态系统提供了广泛的知识基础，并促进了数十名学生和研究人员的发展。拟议的设施将通过1)改善研究基础设施，以促进组织的生态层面(即社区、人口和生态系统)与空间尺度(即实验室、中观和实地研究)之间的联系；以及2)提供一个加强的平台，作为本科生和研究生教育的基础。重要的是，设施的改善将有助于KUF成为地区和国家规模的科学和教育之间的纽带。如欲查询更多有关该站的资料，请浏览网站http://www.kufs.ku.edu/.。

The University of Kansas is awarded a grant to improve facilities at the University of Kansas Field Station (KUFS). The station provides opportunities for research and public education along the ecotone between the eastern deciduous forest and the tallgrass prairie biomes. Construction of the facilities under this award is part of a larger vision of the KUFS to be fulfilled incrementally, in which the station will attract a greater diversity of students and faculty members from around the globe to world-class facilities inspired by environmentally sound principles. The funds will be used to construct an experimental greenhouse-mesocosm-common garden facility that will support classical mesocosm research, using experimental test systems representing an intermediate step between small laboratory systems and the natural world, serve general ecology workspace needs, and provide the capacity for year-round plant care and propagation that does not currently exist at KUFS. In addition, storm shelters will be constructed for the growing community of site users, an important safety feature given the weather conditions found at KUFS. Enhancement of the facilities at KUFS will help satisfy four critical long-term objectives. First, it will improve the setting where individual-investigator research can explore ecological questions at multiple spatial scales and multiple levels of experimental control. Second, it will further facilitate multi-investigator, interdisciplinary research projects. Third, it will lay the groundwork for future expansions to incorporate significant energy efficiency and sustainability concepts. Fourth, it will augment KUFS? contributions to large-scale networks such as the National Ecological Observatory Network (http://neoninc.org) and the Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/index.jsp). KUFS activities encompass a broad array of teaching, public outreach, and research programs, targeting populations ranging from university students to school children, as well as the general public. Research at KUFS has provided a broad base of knowledge about ecotonal ecosystems in the region, and has fostered the development of scores of students and researchers. The proposed facilities will aid in the development of the KUFS mission by 1) improving research infrastructure in a way that promotes linkages between ecological levels of organization (i.e. communities, populations, and ecosystems) and bridges spatial scales (i.e. laboratory, mesocosm, and field studies); and 2) providing an enhanced platform on which to base undergraduate and graduate education. Importantly, improved facilities will help KUFS serve as a link between regional and national-scale science and education. For more information about the station, please visit the website at http://www.kufs.ku.edu/.