MRI: Acquisition of Instrumentation to Support Integrated Research and Teaching in Interdisciplinary Environmental Plant Biology

研究项目将利用资助的仪器解决与植物适应性和环境/生态系统压力相关的问题。第一个项目研究植物对不利环境的生物化学和生理反应。经历环境胁迫（强光、干旱、盐碱、高温、低温、疾病、虫食等）的植物几乎无一例外地表现出细胞生物化学的变化。该仪器将允许在现场和实验室对这些变化进行详细的定量测量。第二个研究领域是与美国公园管理局合作，研究谢南多厄国家公园的入侵植物。所要求的仪器将有助于扩大入侵植物对本地湿地物种影响的长期生态研究，从绘制和量化植物种群动态和传播，还包括对本地和入侵植物生理学的详细研究。这些不同的研究项目与他们对所要求的设备的共同需求有关，并且在深入了解环境变化如何改变植物对特定地理区域的适应性方面具有总体目标。这些仪器也将显著和积极地影响我们在东门诺特大学不断发展的研究氛围，在这种氛围中，我们正在努力整合生物和化学科学的研究和教育，与其他大学的研究伙伴和在公共部门工作的科学家合作（例如在谢南多厄国家公园）。

The research projects that will utilize the funded instrumentation address questions related to plant fitness and environmental/ecosystem stress. The first project studies the biochemistry and physiology of plants responding to adverse environments. Plants undergoing environmental stress (high light, drought, salinity, heat, cold, disease, insect herbivory, etc?) almost invariably show changes in cellular biochemistry. The instrumentation will allow detailed, quantitative measurements of these changes, both in the field and laboratory. The second area of research is in collaboration with the US Park Service on invasive plants in Shenandoah National Park. The requested instruments will facilitate the expansion of a long term ecological study of invasive plant impacts on native wetland species from mapping and quantifying plant population dynamics and spread to also include detailed study of the physiology of both native and invasive plants.These varied research projects are related in their shared need for the equipment requested, and in the overarching goals of gaining deeper understanding into how environmental change alters plant adaptive fitness to a particular geographical area. The instruments will also significantly and positively impact our evolving research atmosphere at Eastern Mennonite University, in which we are striving to integrate research and education across the biological and chemical sciences, in collaboration with research partners at other universities and with scientists working in the public sector (e.g. in Shenandoah National Park).