The University of Virginia is awarded a grant to improve facilities at the Blandy Experimental Farm, a 700-acre environmental science field station in the northern Shenandoah Valley. The summer resident research community typically includes about 35 faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates, and Blandy provides support for these researchers through internal funds and an NSF REU site grant. Research strengths at Blandy include pollination ecology, plant-herbivore interactions, landscape ecology, the ecology of invasive species, food web and community ecology, and biogeochemical cycling. Blandy enjoyed steady growth and productivity over the past two decades, but now the research community has begun to reach or exceed the capacity of Blandy's physical infrastructure. This award will fund construction of a new 3900 sq. ft. laboratory building to meet projected needs for the next twenty years. The facility will include 360 sq. ft. of basic lab space for sample processing, two 360 sq. ft. rooms equipped with chemical hoods for analytical work, and a fourth 360 sq. ft. room for instrument and light microscopy work. The building also will include an environmental chamber, and a separate room for refrigerators, freezers, and ovens.

The building of a new laboratory will impact all of Blandy's programs. The immediate benefit will go to the researchers currently underserved by existing laboratory space, starting with resident and visiting faculty and graduate students who serve as primary investigators on Blandy research projects. Next are researchers who are trained by those primary investigators and who also work in the laboratory. This includes three distinct groups: REUs, RETs, and individually mentored high school students. Blandy's REU program has well developed partnerships with Howard University and the University of Puerto Rico - Bayamon that have resulted in underrepresented groups constituting 32% of REU students. Blandy is a "relocatable" site in the Mid-Atlantic region (Domain 2) of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) program with a focus on land use and invasive species. The new laboratory facility will provide a crucial mix of work space, specimen storage space, equipment, and reference material. Blandy is also home to the State Arboretum of Virginia and has developed an outreach program that is strongly integrated with its university-level research programs. Outreach at Blandy will benefit indirectly from this laboratory facility by an increase in the strength and diversity of research on which its outreach programs draw. It is anticipated that Blandy?s outreach programs will eventually benefit directly from the new facility through the later development of adjacent laboratory space dedicated to high school students. For futher information, please visit the station website at http://blandy.virginia.edu/.

Project Report

Blandy Experimental Farm is a University of Virginia biological field station located in the northern Shenandoah Valley in Clarke County, VA. Since 1927 Blandy has supported faculty, graduate, and undergraduate research. The research emphasis at Blandy shifted from cytogenetics (chromosomal studies) in the 1930s and 1940s, to mutagenesis (irradiation studies) in the 1950s and 1960s, to diverse areas of ecology beginning in the 1980s. Today areas of research strength include plant-insect interactions, invasive species ecology, landscape ecology, and ecosystem ecology. Blandy’s resident summer research community typically includes 3 University of Virginia faculty, two faculty from other universities, 10-12 graduate students from the University of Virginia and other institutions, 10 undergraduates from various colleges and universities around the country who participate in our NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates program, and usually 2-5 undergraduates who work as technicians for faculty or graduate students. In addition to our resident community, 10-20 faculty and students from the University of Virginia and elsewhere visit Blandy for stays ranging from one day to a few weeks as they conduct research on site or in the area. Although summer is the busiest time of year at Blandy, research continues year-round. Since its earliest days, the Blandy labs were located in a building constructed in the early 1800s, and over the past two decades it became clear that these small rooms could not keep pace with the growing volume of students and the growing sophistication of the research at Blandy. Financial planning for a modern lab began in the late 1990s, and the funds from this National Science Foundation Field Station Marine Labs grant in 2010 combined with internal funds to allow this vision to come to reality. Construction of the new Blandy Field Lab was completed in May 2012. The building totals 4000 square feet, an almost 5-fold increase over the space formerly available. Because it was designed to support field research, the lab features a variety of space that takes into account the dirt and mess for which field ecologists are justifiably renown. A generous porch outfitted with sinks, lighting, electrical outlets, benches, and storage allows space for cleaning dirty specimens brought in from the field or for constructing equipment to be deployed later into the field. The entrances from the porch lead to a processing room where specimens can be dried in ovens, stored in refrigerators, ultracold freezers, or in specimen cabinets. At each end of the processing room is a separate 200-sq. ft. room with independent environmental controls. These rooms are suitable for working with live plants or invertebrates. Further inside the building are two 800-sq. ft. rooms outfitted with lab benches, microscopes, balances, and other equipment for general laboratory work. Two 200-sq. ft. rooms adjacent to one of the general labs allow us to provide space for visiting faculty who may need a bit more privacy during their stay. Adjacent to the other general lab is a 400-sq. ft. fume hood room for researchers working with hazardous chemicals. The building also contains a small conference room, two bathrooms, and several rooms housing the custodial and mechanical operations. The building features many safety features including eyewashes in every room, two emergency showers, emergency lighting, sprinklers in the fume hood room, and a back-up generator. The building was designed to be LEED certifiable (pending) and features numerous elements of sustainable design and construction, recycled materials, efficient water and energy use, and an emphasis on a safe and comfortable work environment. The simple but attractive exterior architecture was designed to complement the other buildings on the Blandy campus that are part of a registered Historic District. The lab now comfortably accommodates the 30-35 researchers who spend their summer at Blandy, and it provides us with some room to grow. It includes space for some types of research that were impossible to conduct in the old labs. Soon into its first year of use it was clear that the new lab not only provided more space, better space, and safer space, but it was also enhancing students’ experience in ways we had not anticipated. Students were spending more time in the lab than ever before, interacting with one another and the faculty more than ever, and becoming more involved with research outside of their own projects. An internal review of Blandy facilities in the late 1990s and exit surveys from students and other visiting researchers during past decade identified inadequate laboratory space as the most serious limitation to conducting research at Blandy. Support from the National Science Foundation has enabled Blandy to address its most serious problem and created a facility that will support scientists for generations to come.

Agency
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Institute
Division of Biological Infrastructure (DBI)
Type
Standard Grant (Standard)
Application #
1034846
Program Officer
Peter McCartney
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2011-08-01
Budget End
2014-07-31
Support Year
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$350,000
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Virginia
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Charlottesville
State
VA
Country
United States
Zip Code
22904