This award provides funds to initiate a summer undergraduate research experience for 8 students in physiological ecology at Alma College and is intended to provide "practicum" in scientific research. The goal is to better prepare undergraduate students for graduate programs by enabling students to bridge the gap from student to practitioner of science. Special attention will be given to searching and reading literature, framing testable hypotheses, devising experimental protocols, developing technique and expertise with instrumentation, analyzing data, and writing a paper. Weekly meetings to discuss progress and problems and monthly seminars (by students and visiting scientists) will underscore the notion of communication among scientists. Students will work on individual projects with faculty mentors. The three proposed projects include: desert adaptations, body temperature regulation, biophysics, and histology of desert reptiles; plant disease and epidemiology involving "ash-yellows", a bacterial disease of significant ecological and economic importance; and symbiotic relations between a wood-boring beetle and a fungus living in infested maple saplings. Each project has laboratory and field components and each project will invite a prominent researcher to present a seminar and consult with students.
