A Plant Growth Facility for Enhancing Interdisciplinary Plant Science Research and Training at Virginia Tech

该奖项为收购6个植物生长室（步入式生长室）和3个深入式生长室提供部分支持，这将使10个植物科学研究小组受益。 现有海湾的容量和环境控制质量有限。 现有的伸入式试验室已经过时，不可靠。 这个新的植物生长设施将允许多达6个同时进行的研究项目在单独的步入式海湾独立进行。已经为新设施制定了一项长期管理计划，包括一项在研究人员之间分配空间的协议。研究主题包括植物-动物相互作用，根觅食行为，适应性性状的进化，类黄酮生物合成途径中的串扰，以及植物-病原体相互作用中的信号传导过程。 此外，额外的生长室空间将提高适应性状表型可塑性研究的能力。 新的生长设施将解除对生物系植物科学家研究生产力的严重限制，并促进与弗吉尼亚生物信息学研究所教师的跨学科研究。植物生长设施的现代化也将丰富学生的教育和培训，提供更多的研究潜力和现代设备的经验。我们的教学收藏空间的增加将改善我们的植物类，并促进与更广泛的社区外展活动。

This award provides partial support for acquisition of 6 plant growth bays (walk-in growth chambers) and three reach-in growth chambers that will benefit ten plant science research groups. An existing bay is limited in capacity and in the quality of its environmental controls. Existing reach-in chambers are outdated and unreliable. This new plant growth facility will allow up to 6 simultaneous research projects to be independently conducted in the separate walk-in bays. A long-term management plan for the new facility has been developed, including a protocol for allocating space among researchers. Research on topics including plant-animal interactions, root foraging behavior, evolution of adaptive traits, cross-talk in the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway, and signaling processes in plant-pathogen interactions will be enabled. Moreover, the additional growth chamber space will improve the ability for research on phenotypic plasticity of adaptive traits. The new growth facilities will lift a severe constraint on the research productivity of plant scientists in the Biology Department and foster interdisciplinary research with faculty of the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute. The modernization of the plant growth facility will also enrich the education and training of students by providing increased research potential and experience with modern equipment. Increased space for our teaching collection will improve our plant-based classes and facilitate outreach activities with the broader community.