FSML: Winterization of Faculty and Student Residences at Mountain Lake Biological Station

University Of Virginia Main Campus, Charlottesville VA

Investigators

Abstract

Mountain Lake Biological Station (MLBS) was founded in 1929 by the University of Virginia (UVA) as an inland field station for research and teaching in the Southern Appalachians. In the last quarter century the station's research program has developed a focus in field based population studies with emphases in evolution, ecological genetics, population and community ecology, behavioral physiology, and conservation. MLBS is a full service residential facility that offers the full range of scientific, instructional, and communications support expected at a modern field station. The station averages near 7,000 user days per year. Typical users are in residence, often with families, for a few weeks up to three months at a time. Summer-season capacity tops out at 100 residents ranging from small children to high school students to course and research undergraduates, to distinguished research faculty. All members of the community work, eat, and live together everyday, integrating research and mentorship in the truest sense of a Jeffersonian "academical village". MLBS operates receives many usage requests for the spring and fall that cannot be accommodated due to the absence of winterized housing for researchers, families and visiting groups of all sizes. New investments by the University in 12-month staff and expanded services will provide much of the infrastructure necessary to allow MLBS to provide year-round service. A critical factor still limiting the station's ability to provide non-summer services is a lack of winterized housing. Housing improvements from this award will contribute to both the research and instructional mission of the field station. The proposed work will improve the physical infrastructure of MLBS allowing it to broaden its mission in both time and target. Group use space will allow MLBS to pursue new outreach programs and serve visiting classes and groups. Winterized and improved researcher space will enable it to attract and retain more and more diverse PIs.