We request support to acquire equipment needed to enhance our program of environmental research, which emphasizes interactions of organisms and ecosystem function. The equipment will significantly upgrade and expand two interactive facilities used by the six PIs in our separate and collaborative research: an environmental analytical chemistry laboratory (the CERE EAL) and a controlled environment facility (the CERE CEF). The capabilities of these two facilities are intimately linked; the laboratory components of most of our field-based studies require controlled environment chambers, and both the field and laboratory aspects require determinations of various nutrients and ions. Our group includes plant, animal, and microbial ecologists with expertise in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, whose work ranges from the level of organismal behavior and physiology to community and ecosystem dynamics. Our group is highly collaborative, and our individual and collaborative research is relevant to many issues of conservation and management importance in the Intermountain West. We provide significant research training opportunities at the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels. Collectively, we are the major advisors for 44 graduate students, 5 postdoctoral research associates, and numerous undergraduate research assistants or independent study students. We will replace obsolete equipment and add new pieces of state-of-the-art equipment with improved capabilities over those we currently have. We request two major pieces of equipment that will greatly improve the sample processing capacity and data quality obtainable from our analytical laboratory, an Alpkem FLOWSolution autoanalyzer (model 3590, base system A001280) and a Carlo Erba NA1500 CHNS combustion analyzer. These models are necessary to increase the sample number we can process and, also importantly, to improve our abilities to accurately determine low concentrations of nutrients and ions, especial ly nitrate, ammonium, and total nitrogen. We also request two walk-in, four reach-in, and four small benchtop environmental chambers to replace obsolete equipment and add additional controlled environment space. These chambers will equip a controlled environment facility that Idaho State University will build as part of a new greenhouse complex, with construction scheduled to be completed in January 1995. Although we understand that building cannot contribute to the match for this proposal, this greenhouse complex has a building cost of greater than $300,000 and is being built largely to support the research and research training of our group. The controlled environment room was added to the building plans in direct support of this proposal, at an estimated additional floor-space cost of $19,200. If this proposal is funded, we will be able to conduct our research more effectively, to undertake more collaborative research and more sophisticated research, to collect better quality data in a shorter time, and to expand our research programs. This will provide increased number and quality of research training opportunities to postdoctoral associates, graduate students and undergraduate students.
