9322378 Newman This award provides funds to establish a Research Experience for Undergraduates site at the W. K. Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) of Michigan State University. The program will provide undergraduate students the opportunity to participate in an integrative program in ecological field research, which is considered an essential part of the education of scientists with the skills to address complex environmental problems. Students will be exposed to concepts and techniques from a variety of subdisciplines, levels of ecological organization (genes to landscapes), scales, and habitats through weekly seminars led by resident and visiting researchers. Weekly group meetings will provide a forum to discuss research ideas and approaches, conceptual aspects of ecology and evolutionary biology, and project proposals. Each student will develop and conduct an independent project under the guidance of a faculty mentor, which will include all stages of scientific inquiry: identification and refinement of questions, experimental and sampling design, field work, and data analysis and presentation. Results will be presented to the KBS community at an REU symposium at the end of the summer, and written up in the form of a manuscript for publication in a scientific journal. ***
