This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The project involves the renovation of an existing biological field station through the construction of a new laboratory building to replace the facilities currently provided by two existing buildings, the Murray Lab, a pre-fabricated log structure, and the Willey Lab. It will be more cost-effective to construct a replacement building than to refurbish the existing structures. The new building will provide the same amount of research space as is present in the two buildings being replaced.
The Rocky Mountain Biological Lab is an independent, non-profit research organization that mainly consists of a biological field station in Gothic, Colorado. RMBL manages 1300 acres of private land and has a permit for scientists to work in the millions of acres of adjacent public lands. In 2009, 33 tenure-track scientists (or equivalent), four postdoctoral scientists, 18 graduate students, one technician, three teachers, and 60 undergraduate researchers used the laboratory spaces that will be upgraded by this project.
Examples of the type of research projects that will benefit from the renovation include: the role in cloud formation of aerosols emitted directly and indirectly by plants; how abiotic and biotic factors, such as nitrogen cycling in soils, interact to affect ecosystem structure and function and how natural disturbances and anthropogenic impacts such as climate change, species invasions, and herbivory shape these interactions; studies of biological responses to climate change, such as how plant and animal phenology, abundance, and climate are interrelated at a single site, whether the relationship between plant flowering dates and snowmelt is changing over time, and how montane communities respond to climate change; whether endosymbionts (fungi) increase host (non-native grass species) abundance and the mechanisms by which they affect host abundance; and the degree to which the diatom Didymosphenia geminata, which is blooming around the world, is causing a regime shift in the ecosystem structure and functioning of streams.
The facility to be renovated provides research infrastructure that supports scientists from a diverse range of institutions. Its research season provides research training for a significant number of undergraduate and graduate students. RMBL has a strong relationship with an Hispanic-serving community college that helps bring community college students into RMBL programs.
This grant funded the construction of the Gothic Research Center, a 4800 square foot facility with seven private labs, one larger shared lab, a sample processing lab, a precision techniques lab, a wet lab, and two labs associated with the operations of sensors and telecommunications. This facility replaces an equivalent amount of research space previously located in two other laboratories. By enabling modern techniques in a remote, field setting that hosts a substantial amount of research, the facility leverages a substantial amount of existing research. This type of place-based research is important because developing general insights into fundamental biological processes in the field involves working within systems that are constantly changing and highly dimensional. The facility also reinforces the nation's interest in understanding a changing climate by enabling the integration of molecular techniques with long-term monitoring. The Gothic Research Center is also critical for enabling increased use of sensors in the field. In addition to providing a clean, dust-free facility for the maintenance of sensors, it serves as the telecommunications hub for the management of data. The facility offers significant opportunities for research training. RMBL hosts approximately 40 student investigators each year, 60 research assistants, and 40 graduate students, many of whom use the new facilities. Because the Gothic Research Center substantially increases the range of techniques that scientists can meaningfully implement, it greatly expands the skill sets upon which we can train students. Construction of the new research facility has fundamentally changed RMBL, increasing the research opportunities that can be provided to scientists as well as making RMBL more sustainable in the long run. This leverages a substantial investment that NSF has already made in RMBL, both in RMBL’s facilities as well as in the scientists using the facilities. In addition to expanding the scope of work that can be conducted, the facility allows RMBL to expand operation in the fall shoulder season, both increasing the amount of research that RMBL can host as well as making RMBL more financially sustainable.
