National Science Foundation funding will allow the purchase of four controlled environment plant growth chambers for the University of North Carolina at Asheville?s Biology Department. This equipment will enhance the quality and quantity of both teaching and research for professors and undergraduate students in the natural sciences. Use of these chambers will be fully incorporated into the Biology Department?s undergraduate science curriculum, with students first exposed to the chambers in our sophomore-level plant biology class. Cohorts of talented students, particularly those from underrepresented groups, will then be recruited to participate in undergraduate research with the three principal investigators.
By controlling variables such as light intensity, day length, temperature, and humidity, students and faculty will be able to investigate how genetic differences among plants explain differences in growth, development, and reproduction. Growth chambers will also allow researchers to change environmental conditions to elucidate plants? adaptations to a shifting global climate. Finally, the growth chambers will be used in exploring the biology of exotic-invasive plant species. These non-native plants pose particular threats to the health of native plant communities and high quality natural areas, and understanding the ways in which they interact with abiotic environmental factors will help control their spread.
