A new laboratory for Blandy Experimental Farm

University Of Virginia Main Campus, Charlottesville VA

Investigators

Abstract

The University of Virginia is awarded a grant to improve facilities at the Blandy Experimental Farm, a 700-acre environmental science field station in the northern Shenandoah Valley. The summer resident research community typically includes about 35 faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates, and Blandy provides support for these researchers through internal funds and an NSF REU site grant. Research strengths at Blandy include pollination ecology, plant-herbivore interactions, landscape ecology, the ecology of invasive species, food web and community ecology, and biogeochemical cycling. Blandy enjoyed steady growth and productivity over the past two decades, but now the research community has begun to reach or exceed the capacity of Blandy's physical infrastructure. This award will fund construction of a new 3900 sq. ft. laboratory building to meet projected needs for the next twenty years. The facility will include 360 sq. ft. of basic lab space for sample processing, two 360 sq. ft. rooms equipped with chemical hoods for analytical work, and a fourth 360 sq. ft. room for instrument and light microscopy work. The building also will include an environmental chamber, and a separate room for refrigerators, freezers, and ovens. The building of a new laboratory will impact all of Blandy's programs. The immediate benefit will go to the researchers currently underserved by existing laboratory space, starting with resident and visiting faculty and graduate students who serve as primary investigators on Blandy research projects. Next are researchers who are trained by those primary investigators and who also work in the laboratory. This includes three distinct groups: REUs, RETs, and individually mentored high school students. Blandy's REU program has well developed partnerships with Howard University and the University of Puerto Rico - Bayamon that have resulted in underrepresented groups constituting 32% of REU students. Blandy is a "relocatable" site in the Mid-Atlantic region (Domain 2) of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) program with a focus on land use and invasive species. The new laboratory facility will provide a crucial mix of work space, specimen storage space, equipment, and reference material. Blandy is also home to the State Arboretum of Virginia and has developed an outreach program that is strongly integrated with its university-level research programs. Outreach at Blandy will benefit indirectly from this laboratory facility by an increase in the strength and diversity of research on which its outreach programs draw. It is anticipated that Blandy?s outreach programs will eventually benefit directly from the new facility through the later development of adjacent laboratory space dedicated to high school students. For futher information, please visit the station website at http://blandy.virginia.edu/.