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

堪萨斯大学野外站加强研究和教学的设施

• 批准号: 1034796
• 负责人: Sharon Billings
• 金额: $ 32.99万
• 依托单位: University of Kansas Center for Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-08-01 至 2014-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1034796&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Facilities; Enhance; Research; Teaching; University

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/.

堪萨斯大学获得一笔赠款，以改善堪萨斯大学野外站（KUFS）的设施。该站为东部落叶林和高草草原生物群落之间的交错带提供了沿着研究和公共教育的机会。该奖项下的设施建设是KUFS逐步实现的更大愿景的一部分，其中该站将吸引来自地球仪的更多样化的学生和教职员工，以环保原则为灵感的世界级设施。这些资金将用于建造一个实验温室-围隔-公共花园设施，该设施将支持经典的围隔研究，使用代表小型实验室系统和自然世界之间的中间步骤的实验测试系统，满足一般生态工作空间的需求，并提供KUFS目前不存在的全年植物护理和繁殖能力。此外，还将为越来越多的工地用户建造避风港，鉴于KUFS的天气条件，这是一个重要的安全设施。加强KUFS的设施将有助于实现四个关键的长期目标。首先，它将改善个人研究者研究可以在多个空间尺度和多个实验控制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，它将为未来的扩展奠定基础，以纳入重要的能源效率和可持续性概念。第四，它将扩大KUFS？为国家生态观测站网络（http：//www.example.com）和生物复杂性知识网络（http：//knb.ecoinformatics.org/index.jsp）等大型网络做出贡献。neoninc.org KUFS的活动包括广泛的教学，公共宣传和研究计划，目标人群从大学生到学龄儿童，以及一般公众。KUFS的研究提供了关于该地区生态系统的广泛知识基础，并促进了数十名学生和研究人员的发展。拟议的设施将有助于KUFS使命的发展，方法是：1）改善研究基础设施，促进生态组织水平（即社区、人口和生态系统）之间的联系，并连接空间尺度（即实验室、中生态系统和实地研究）; 2）提供一个增强的平台，作为本科生和研究生教育的基础。重要的是，改进后的设施将有助于KUFS成为地区和国家规模的科学和教育之间的联系纽带。有关该站的更多信息，请访问网站http://www.kufs.ku.edu/。