REU Site: 3D Herbivory and Biodiversity of Tardigrades in North American Forest Canopies: Inspiring Students with Physical Disabilities to Pursue Field Biology

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This REU Site award to Baker University, Baldwin City, KS, in collaboration with the California Academy of Science, San Francisco, CA, will support the training of eight students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2015-2017. The program offers students with and without ambulatory disability (on crutches or in wheelchairs) the opportunity to conduct original research into the world of water bears (phylum Tardigrada) and the ecological mysteries of the high frontier of the forest canopy. Students will be trained to climb ropes and sample treetop habitats to discover new distributions, ecologies, and species. They will use advanced microscopes (PC, DIC, AF, SEM) to amass the data and images necessary for analysis, presentation, and publication. Student researchers will travel to alternative forest types at LTER sites in Florida, Massachusetts, or Oregon to collect comparative data. Students will complete the research process with a poster presentation at the California Academy of Science, where they will also engage in public outreach by teaching climbing techniques used to sample the tree canopy. The three-dimensional, comparative ecological studies of tardigrades living in forest canopies will shed light on both the distribution of these organisms and the complexity of underexplored temperate forests. It is anticipated that a total of 24 students, primarily from schools with limited research opportunities and who may have ambulatory disabilities will be trained in the program. Students will be immersed in research design, planning, conduct, analysis and reporting. All will present their work as posters and talks at scientific meetings, and many will write manuscripts for peer reviewed journals. Our results-orientated REU experience will motivate students, with or without a disability, to pursue graduate degrees and will enhance their careers as they become educators, scientists, and leaders of thought. The common web-based assessment tool for REU programs (funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences, Division of Biological Infrastructure) will be used to measure the effectiveness of the training program. Students must agree to be tracked after the program by the NSF automated email reporting system. Information is available at www.bakeru.edu/canopy, or by contacting William Miller (William.Miller@BakerU.edu) or Meg Lowman (mlowman@calacademy.org).