FSML: An Analytical Laboratory for Examination of Land Use Change and its Consequences for Aquatic Ecosystems

Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole MA

Investigators

Abstract

Funds provided through this award will permit the purchase of analytical instrumentation to be placed in a new, state-of-the art analytical laboratory at the Marine Biological Laboratory. The laboratory will support expanding research and education programs in land use change and its consequences for aquatic ecosystems. The new laboratory will be located in climate-controlled space in a new building currently under construction. The new laboratory will contain instruments for analysis of nutrients in soil and surface waters, measurement of carbon and nitrogen in soils, sediments and biological samples, and analysis of nitrogen fixation and denitrification in soils and sediments. The new instruments will significantly expand the MBL's analytical capabilities in areas of recent technological advances, including dissolved nitrogen and phosphorus, and by greatly expanding capacity for analysis of large numbers of samples. They will improve the MBL's rapidly-growing undergraduate education in land-water research by allowing instruments to be dedicated to undergraduate and graduate education during critical periods of demand.