The W.K. Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) of Michigan State University (MSU) has been awarded a grant to enhance educational and research opportunities by renovating nine ponds at the Experimental Pond Facility, improving cyber-infrastructure connectivity to the pond site, and installing emergency backup power at the facility. KBS is the largest off-campus unit of MSU and is known worldwide as a premier field site for research, education, and outreach in ecology and evolutionary biology. KBS provides access to diverse natural and managed habitats, many suitable for experimentation, together with modern laboratory facilities, to conduct terrestrial and aquatic ecology. Research activity at KBS has grown to the point that some of our facilities are stretched to the limit. The increasing numbers of resident and visiting researchers working at the Experimental Pond Site, along with a growing diversity and number of educational and outreach activities using this and other KBS facilities, are putting increasing demand on infrastructure and require that we upgrade and improve the facilities.
The nine ponds that will be renovated have undergone natural succession over the past 20+ years and have become unsuitable for many types of experimental studies due to low oxygen conditions and dense stands of submersed vegetation. Renovation of these ponds will allow KBS to continue to serve the needs of resident and visiting scientists, while ensuring flexibility for experimental design. Funds from this award also will be used to connect the Experimental Pond Facility to a 1Gb fiber optic backbone that now links KBS to MSU's main campus (fiber optic backbone installed in fall 2009 with MSU funds). This connection between the pond site and the KBS academic building will provide cyber-infrastructure support for data transfer between automated sensors at the pond site and other new instrumentation between the pond laboratory, the KBS main site, and MSU's campus. The backup electric generators to be installed at the Pond Laboratory with this award will ensure reliable temperature and air-supply to protect organisms (and experiments) during power outages.
The major activities funded by this award were: 1) renovation of ten experimental ponds at the Kellogg Biological Station's Experimental Pond Facility, 2) installation of fiber optic cable to the Field Laboratory at the Experimental Pond Facility and to the KBS Terrestrial Ecology Field Laboratory, and 3) installation of emergency power generators to both of the field laboratories noted above. These facility improvements have greatly enhanced research and education activities at both aquatic and terrestrial field sites by improving computer connectivity and high speed data transmission, safeguarding experiments involving the care of animals and plants by providing backup electrical power in the event of a power outage, and improving the availability and usefulness of the experimental pond array for visiting and resident researchers. Nine of the 10 experimental ponds renovated in 2010 were used for experiments in the summers of 2011 and 2012. These experiments involved a number of fish species, including two important sport fishes (largemouth bass and bluegill sunfish), and examined how inter-individual variation in fish behaviors impacted their growth, survival, and reproductive success under semi-natural field conditions. Two Ph.D. students, two postdoctoral researchers, and six undergraduate students conducted experiments in the newly renovated ponds during the 2011 and 2012 field seasons. The two Ph.D. students were recently awarded NSF Dissertation Improvement Grants (2012 and 2013) to fund addtional behavioral research in the KBS ponds. Along with the pond renovations, Improved computer connectivity to the experimental pond site via wireless upgrades and new fiber optic cable allows for high speed data transmission from all locations within the aquatic and terrestrial experimental facilities. The renovated ponds have also been used for teaching and outreach activities. These teachings and outreach activities include: 1) field exercises by students in the MSU 'SpartaNature' course, which introduces incoming freshmen to research in biology, and 2) field trips by local school groups (e.g., 100 8th grade students from the Olivet, MI school district in 2010) to see ongoing research. These field trips by school groups have been conduced as part of an NSF funded GK-12 program at the Kellogg Biological Station. The automatic backup generators installed at the pond site laboratory and terrestrial field laboratory are opporating effectively to supply emergency power during power outages, protecting ongoing experiments and animals housed at the site.
