Planning Visit to Australia: Collaborative Study of Detritus-Based Food Webs

该奖项资助圣地亚哥大学生物系教授特伦斯·麦格林前往西澳大利亚珀斯的项目策划之旅。麦格林教授打算与珀斯科廷理工大学环境生物学系的乔纳森·马杰教授和拜伦·拉蒙特教授以及其他人讨论并完善合作研究伙伴关系的细节。研究人员共同感兴趣的是土壤养分在动物群落中的营养级联中所起的作用。这次访问的短期目标包括评估澳大利亚西南部潜在的实地研究地点，整合现有的数据集，并设计一系列实验。麦格林教授之前在哥斯达黎加的实地研究和他在澳大利亚的东道主的研究发现，土壤养分对陆地动物群落密度的直接影响类似。他们现在打算直接和间接地合作，以提高他们在不同生态系统中研究的效率和可比性。这次访问的第一个直接好处将是加强向NSF提出的计划研究提案，为McGlynn教授未来涉及澳大利亚野外站点和合作者的研究寻求资金。除此之外，获得这类资金的预期更广泛的好处将是为圣地亚哥大学的本科生提供国际接触和研究经验，他们中有相当大一部分来自代表性不足的群体。

0427481McGlynnThis award supports a project planning trip to Perth, Western Australia, for Professor Terrence McGlynn of the Department of Biology of the University of San Diego. Professor McGlynn intends to discuss and refine the details of a collaborative research partnership with Professors Jonathan Majer and Byron Lamont and others of the Department of Environmental Biology of Curtin University of Technology in Perth. The mutual interest of the investigators is the role of soil nutrients in trophic cascades in animal communities. The short term objectives of this visit include evaluating potential field research locations in Southwestern Australia, integrating existing data sets and designing a series of experiments. Professor McGlynn's prior field research in Costa Rica and that of his hosts in Australia have found similar strong direct effects of soil nutrients upon the density of a terrestrial faunal community. They now intend to collaborate directly and indirectly to increase the efficiency and comparability of their research in different ecosystems.The first direct benefit of the visit will be to strengthen a planned research proposal to NSF seeking funding for Professor McGlynn's future research involving Australian field sites and collaborators. Beyond this, the anticipated broader benefit of obtaining such funding will be to provide international exposure and research experience for undergraduate students at the University of San Diego, with a significant proportion of them from underrepresented groups.