We are heading to the Bonanza Creek LTER site in early Sept. to study nitrogen cycling in burned and unburned black spruce forests in collaboration with Terry Chapin. Our preliminary lab assays showed very rapid rates of internal nitrogen cycling under warm lab temperatures. Now we will try the experiment in the field (brrrrr) to see if temperature exerts the dominant control on these processes.
Steven McGee, Steve Croft, of Wheeling Jesuit University, and Jess Zimmerman received a grant from the National Science Foundation entitled "Journey to El Yunque: Studying the Effects of Hurricane Georges." The grant, for $499,778, was provided by the Instructional Materials Development Program in the Division of Education. The funds will be used to fully develop a set of web-based modules that middle school teachers will use to teach students tropical ecology, highlighting the effects of hurricanes on Puerto Rico's flora, fauna, and fungi. Jess will be traveling to West Virginia and the end of the month to begin work on the project.
As an attachment please find the proofs of a book chapter that should be coming out next month. The book is titled Modern Trends in Applied Terrestrial Ecology, published by Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers.
We propose to assemble a team of ecologists and geographers from major research programs in the Antilles (Puerto Rico), Central America (Costa Rica, Panama), and North (Florida, Mexico) and South America (Venezuela) --the Wider Caribbean Region-to accomplish three interrelated objectives. We intend to examine critically how knowledge accumulated through intensive research programs at a few sites can be regionalized to improve management and conservation of tropical areas. To achieve this goal, we will develop a multiscale environmental database containing geographic information system (GIS)-compatible data, including remotely sensed imagery, as well as georeferenced point and plot-level data. We will use this new database as a resource to encourage new investigators and new research directions arising from our research coordination network. To accomplish these objectives, we will employ annual face-to-face meetings, quarterly videoconferences using newly acquired Internet technology, coordinated research conferences, and symposia at national and international scientific meetings. We anticipate that synthesis of existing knowledge and coordination of future research activities will provide a greatly improved base for management and conservation in the Wider Caribbean Region.