REU Site: Biological impacts of climate change: testing hypotheses with collections and long-term data

加州大学圣克鲁斯分校 (UCSC) 获得本科生研究体验 (REU) 站点奖，在 2013 年至 2015 年夏季为八名学生提供为期八周的研究培训。气候变化是当今时代最重要的环境问题，导致许多物种的分布和丰度发生巨大变化，并可能威胁人们的生活方式。该 REU 将培训学生使用关键工具来理解气候变化的生物反应机制，包括：1）物种的生理/生态限制； 2）物种相互作用的变化； 3）假设检验，使人们能够区分气候变化和影响物种多样性和地理分布的其他自然或人为因素。学生将在 UCSC 生态与进化生物学系、环境研究系以及几个区域组织的导师的指导下研究各种生物体、系统和具体问题。项目之间的共同点包括1）测试假设； 2）从博物馆和教师研究中收集长期数据集； 3）测量关键的生理/行为特征或生态相互作用； 4）根据未来气候情景预测物种分布和/或生态系统的变化； 5）进行实地工作以证实他们的预测。该REU将根据他们的学业成绩和研究潜力选拔和培养24名本科生，其中包括许多少数民族学生。所有学生都将接受指导，帮助他们提高沟通技巧，发现适合自己教育和职业的资源，并认识和重视自己对科学的贡献。 REU 项目包括关于其项目关键方法和概念的讲座、讨论和研讨会，以及相关的实地考察。这些学生还将加入 UCSC 现有的针对 STEM 学科少数族裔学生的本科研究项目，参加有关科学伦理和传播的研讨会。我们将跟踪学生以确定他们对科学的持续兴趣、职业道路以及 REU 经历的持久影响。该计划将通过多种方式进行评估，包括 REU 通用评估工具。如需了解更多信息，请访问 http://reu.eeb.ucsc.edu/，或联系 PI（Barry Sinervo 博士，lizardrps@gmail.com）或联合 PI（Laurel Fox 博士，fox@ucsc.edu）。

A Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Sites award has been made to the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) to provide research training for eight students for eight weeks during the summers of 2013-2015. Climate change, the overriding environmental issue of our time, causes drastic changes in the distributions and abundances of many species and potentially threatens peoples' ways of life. This REU will train students to use critical tools to understand mechanisms underlying biological responses to climate change, including: 1) physiological/ecological limits of species; 2) changes in species' interactions; and 3) hypothesis testing that enables one to discriminate between climate change and other natural or anthropogenic factors affecting species diversity and geographical distributions. Students will work on a diversity of organisms, systems, and specific questions guided by mentors from UCSC's Dept. of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Dept. of Environmental Studies, and several regional organizations. The common threads among projects include 1) testing hypotheses; 2) assembling long-term data sets from museums and faculty research; 3) measuring key physiological/behavioral traits or ecological interactions; 4) predicting changes in species' distributions and/or ecosystems based on future climate scenarios; and 5) conducting field work to ground-truth their predictions. This REU will select and train 24 undergraduates, including many minority students, based on their academic records and research potential. All students will be mentored to help them improve communication skills, discover resources for their education and careers, and recognize and value their own contributions to science. The REU program includes talks, discussions and workshops on methods and concepts key to their projects, and relevant field trips. These students will also join with an existing UCSC undergraduate research program targeting minority students in STEM disciplines for workshops on scientific ethics and communication. Students will be tracked to determine their continued interest in science, career paths, and lasting influences of their REU experience. The program will be assessed by various means, including an REU common assessment tool. More information is available by visiting http://reu.eeb.ucsc.edu/, or by contacting the PI (Dr. Barry Sinervo at lizardrps@gmail.com) or the co-PI (Dr. Laurel Fox at fox@ucsc.edu).