The Harvard Forest is awarded a grant to upgrade, modernize, and reconfigure its John G. Torrey analytical laboratory to include capacity for research in molecular and microbial biology. Improvements to the laboratory include new benches, hoods, cold-storage facilities, energy-efficient electrical and mechanical controls, and a wastewater reduction system. The thoroughly renovated laboratoy will (1) provide new opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and faculty from the dozens of institutions worldwide who conduct research at Harvard Forest; (2) enhance long-term experimental and monitoring programs supported by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, and emerging through the Harvard Forests role as the northeastern core site for the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON); (3) support current and new classes and field camps in microbial and molecular biology, ecology, and archaeology; and (4) complement existing laboratory facilities dedicated to the study of terrestrial and aquatic biogeochemistry.
Since 1907, research and education have been the mission of the Harvard Forest, one of the oldest and most intensively studied forests in North America. From its center consisting of 3500 acres of land, research facilities, and the Fisher Museum located in the North Quabbin region of Massachusetts, research scientists, undergraduates, gradutate students, K-12 students and their teachers, and forest policy analysts and decision-makers together explore topics ranging from conservation and environmental change to land-use history and the ways in which physical, biological and human systems interact to change the Earth.
The Harvard Forest upgraded, modernized, and reconfigured its laboratory facilities for research in molecular and microbial biology. These improvements (1) provide new opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and faculty from dozens of institutes worldwide; (2) enhance long-term experimental and measurement programs supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Department of Energy (DOE); (3) support current and new classes, as well as ad field camps in biology, ecology, aquatic science, and archaeology; (4) and complement existing laboratory facilities and research. The modernization of this molecular lab for microbial science opens the Harvard Forest to a variety of researchers using molecular tools and techniques to study how microbes affect cycling of energy and nutrients in forest soils nutrient cycling; evolution and biodiversity of these microbes; and a variety of invasive species. The new facility fosters opportunities to investigate emerging frontiers of microbial science with molecular techniques and will allow students and researchers to keep pace with emerging standards of scientific inquiry. The new laboratory facilities complement extensive field site and automated data collection systems used by the Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research (NSF-LTER) program, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), the Department of Energy’s National Institutes for Climate Change Research (DOE-NICCR), and Programs in Terrestrial Carbon Research (DOE-TCPand Ecosystem Research (DOE-PER), and the Harvard Forest Summer Research Program in Ecology (an NSF REU site). The newly renovated space at Harvard Forest is energy- and water-use-efficient, well-equipped, organized, and uses space efficiently to support multiple users and/or groups making it a state-of-the-art facility for scientist from around the world to conduct research. The renovations provide a new platform for established researchers as well as the next generation of scientists, graduate students working on their dissertations, and undergraduate students doing senior thesis research or involved in research and training projects supported by the NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates program.
