Infrastructure Improvements to Enhance Research at the La Selva Biological Station

该奖项为热带研究组织（OTS）的La Selva站的物质基础设施的改进提供支持，该组织是一个由来自美国、哥斯达黎加和澳大利亚的56所大学和研究机构组成的非营利性联盟。La Selva位于哥斯达黎加东北部，拥有1536公顷的经典低地热带雨林，该国以其杰出的国家保护区系统而闻名。该站是OTS在哥斯达黎加经营的三个生物野外站中最大的一个，其他两个是Las Cruces（靠近巴拿马的中高海拔云雾森林）和Palo Verde（瓜纳卡斯特省的低地季风干燥森林）。在这些地点，自然资源组织与政府和伙伴组织就培训、保护、环境教育和自然资源管理等科学问题进行合作。在其46年的历史中，La Selva主持了3000个研究项目，发表了2000多篇科学出版物和160篇论文。每年的访问量达到25000人次，1999年有3000名学生和教师使用。经过十年不断增加的使用，La Selva的住房和步道系统不足以满足这种使用水平的物理需求。该奖项将支持永久解决研究人员住房不足、原始森林中退化的小径和该站日益恶化的实验室等问题的计划。这种援助将使拉塞尔瓦能够在今后十年中继续成为热带生态学研究和培训的卓越中心。

This award provides support for improvement of the physical infrastructure of the La Selva station of the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS), a nonprofit consortium of 56 universities and research institutions from the United States, Costa Rica and Australia. La Selva encompasses 1,536 hectares of classic lowland tropical rain forest in northeastern Costa Rica, a country renowned for its outstanding national system of conservation areas. The station is the largest of three biological field stations operated by OTS in Costa Rica, the others being Las Cruces (mid-elevation cloud forest near Panama) and Palo Verde (lowland monsoonally-dry forest in Guanacaste Province). At these sites OTS works in cooperation with governmental and partner-organizations on scientific issues of training, conservation, environmental education, and natural resource management.Over its 46-year history, La Selva has hosted 3,000 research projects, resulting in over 2,000 scientific publications and 160 theses and dissertations. Visitation has reached 25,000 person-days a year, with education use by 3,000 students and faculty in 1999. After a decade of increasing usage, La Selva's housing and trail system are inadequate to meet the physical demands of this level of use. This award will support plans to permanently address the issue of inadequate housing for researchers, degraded trails in the old-growth forest and a deteriorating laboratory at the station. This assistance will enable La Selva to continue to be a center of excellence for research and training in tropical ecology during the decade ahead.