scholarly journals BII-Implementation: The causes and consequences of plant biodiversity across scales in a rapidly changing world

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeannine Cavender-Bares ◽  
Peter Reich ◽  
Philip Townsend ◽  
Arindam Banerjee ◽  
Ethan Butler ◽  
...  

The proposed Biology Integration Institute will bring together two major research institutions in the Upper Midwest—the University of Minnesota (UMN) and University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW)—to investigate the causes and consequences of plant biodiversity across scales in a rapidly changing world—from genes and molecules within cells and tissues to communities, ecosystems, landscapes and the biosphere. The Institute focuses on plant biodiversity, defined broadly to encompass the heterogeneity within life that occurs from the smallest to the largest biological scales. A premise of the Institute is that life is envisioned as occurring at different scales nested within several contrasting conceptions of biological hierarchies, defined by the separate but related fields of physiology, evolutionary biology and ecology. The Institute will emphasize the use of ‘spectral biology’—detection of biological properties based on the interaction of light energy with matter—and process-oriented predictive models to investigate the processes by which biological components at one scale give rise to emergent properties at higher scales. Through an iterative process that harnesses cutting edge technologies to observe a suite of carefully designed empirical systems—including the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) and some of the world’s longest running and state-of-the-art global change experiments—the Institute will advance biological understanding and theory of the causes and consequences of changes in biodiversity and at the interface of plant physiology, ecology and evolution. INTELLECTUAL MERIT The Institute brings together a diverse, gender-balanced and highly productive team with significant leadership experience that spans biological disciplines and career stages and is poised to integrate biology in new ways. Together, the team will harness the potential of spectral biology, experiments, observations and synthetic modeling in a manner never before possible to transform understanding of how variation within and among biological scales drives plant and ecosystem responses to global change over diurnal, seasonal and millennial time scales. In doing so, it will use and advance state-of-the-art theory. The institute team posits that the designed projects will unearth transformative understanding and biological rules at each of the various scales that will enable an unprecedented capacity to discern the linkages between physiological, ecological and evolutionary processes in relation to the multi-dimensional nature of biodiversity in this time of massive planetary change. A strength of the proposed Institute is that it leverages prior federal investments in research and formalizes partnerships with foreign institutions heavily invested in related biodiversity research. Most of the planned projects leverage existing research initiatives, infrastructure, working groups, experiments, training programs, and public outreach infrastructure, all of which are already highly synergistic and collaborative, and will bring together members of the overall research and training team. BROADER IMPACTS A central goal of the proposed Institute is to train the next generation of diverse integrative biologists. Post-doctoral, graduate student and undergraduate trainees, recruited from non-traditional and underrepresented groups, including through formal engagement with Native American communities, will receive a range of mentoring and training opportunities. Annual summer training workshops will be offered at UMN and UW as well as training experiences with the Global Change and Biodiversity Research Priority Program (URPP-GCB) at the University of Zurich (UZH) and through the Canadian Airborne Biodiversity Observatory (CABO). The Institute will engage diverse K-12 audiences, the general public and Native American communities through Market Science modules, Minute Earth videos, a museum exhibit and public engagement and educational activities through the Bell Museum of Natural History, the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve (CCESR) and the Wisconsin Tribal Conservation Association.

1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (S2) ◽  
pp. 285-286
Author(s):  
T.M. Carvalho ◽  
M.F. Dunlap ◽  
R.D. Allen

The Biological Electron Microscope Facility (BEMF) at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UHM) is located 2400 miles over water from the next nearest research university. BEMF is a multi-user core facility, administered by the Pacific Biomedical Research Center (PBRC), an organized research unit at the UHM. The mission of the BEMF is to provide state-of-the-art instrumentation, services and training for electron microscopy to the biomedical and biological researchers in Hawai‘i and the Pacific region. The BEMF was established in 1984 under the direction of Dr. Richard D. Allen, and has since grown steadily in its instrumentation, expertise, and use. In the past 5 years it has served researchers from over 50 laboratories in PBRC and the colleges of Natural Sciences, Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, Engineering, Medicine, and Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology, as well as visiting investigators from other Hawai‘i, mainland and foreign institutions.The BEMF has a full line of instrumentation for conventional transmission and field emission scanning electron microscopy as well as a complete line of instruments for cryoelectron microscopy.


Phytotaxa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 493 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-156
Author(s):  
DIETER REICH ◽  
WALTER GUTERMANN ◽  
KATHARINA BARDY ◽  
HEIMO RAINER ◽  
THOMAS RAUS ◽  
...  

Greece, as one of the European biodiversity hotspots, is long since in the focus of botanical investigations. Among historical researchers significantly contributing to the floristic and taxonomic exploration was Eugen von Halácsy, a Viennese physician and botanist. He was the first and so far last author of a complete Greek flora, the Conspectus Florae Graecae, and has compiled a seminal herbarium collection of plant specimens originating from Greece. This Herbarium Graecum of approx. 26,000 vouchers, is today held by the Herbarium of the University of Vienna (WU). Investigations for original material in this collection yielded a total of 1,439 (approx. 5.5 %) vouchers. The current type status was checked for the entire material, the vouchers were databased, photographed and geo-referenced, and the data are made publicly available here. These results are presented in an annotated catalogue including 19 lectotypifications, in order to contribute to the still extremely active field of plant biodiversity research in Greece.


2020 ◽  
pp. 93-102
Author(s):  
Fabrizio d'Aniello

The pre-eminent motivation behind this contribution lies in the intention to offer students of three-year degree course in education and training sciences and master's degree in pedagogical sciences of the University of Macerata a further support than those already existing, aimed at expanding the educational meaningfulness of the internship experience. The main criticality of such experience is connected with the difficulty in translating knowledge, models, ideas into appropriate activities. This notably refers to the conceptual and educational core of the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship and, consistently, to the skill to act. Therefore, after a deepening of the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, followed by related pedagogical reflections based on the capability approach, the paper presents an operative proposal aimed at increasing young people's possibilities of action and supporting their personal and professional growth. With regard to this training proposal, the theoretical and methodological framework refers to the third generation cultural historical activity theory and to the tool of the boundary crossing laboratory, variant of the change laboratory


2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-39
Author(s):  
LaNada War Jack

The author reflects on her personal experience as a Native American at UC Berkeley in the 1960s as well as on her activism and important leadership roles in the 1969 Third World Liberation Front student strike, which had as its goal the creation of an interdisciplinary Third World College at the university.


2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 44-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. I. Anikina ◽  
A. S. Babkov ◽  
A. V. Malyshev

Russian Federal State Educational Standards of 3+ generation impose serious requirements to resource support of educational and training process, including electronic information-educational environment of the University. In the Southwest State University (SWSU), a unified multimedia information and educational environment based on Internet-broadband access technologies was created; it successfully operates and keeps developing. The main concept of this environment construction is the idea of integrating data, applications, and business processes. SWSU Electronic information-educational environment (EIEE) is designed to provide information transparency of the University activities in accordance with the requirements of the current legislation of the Russian Federation in the sphere of education, to organize educational activities of the University and to ensure access of students and research and academic-staff of the University to information and educational resources. The main components of SWSU EIEE are: the actors of the education and training process (teachers, students, etc.), external digital library systems, internal automated information library system, “SWSU academic courses” subsystem, “Southwest State University Web portal” subsystem, and the official web site of the Southwest State University. “Southwest State University Web portal" subsystem makes it possible to automate traditional basic functions of Dean's office of the University, such as managing student conduct systems for students of Bachelor and Master Degree Programs of full-time and correspondence forms of training; recording and statistical processing of the data on students’ progress; recording students’ achievements; managing Dean's office workflow. As prescribed in Federal State Educational Standards of 3+ generation, Portal Modules are used to record the results of formative and summative assessment of students in accordance with SWSU current score rating system for learning outcomes.


Author(s):  
Lore M. Dickey

In this chapter the author explores the mental health of those with nonbinary gender identities and focuses on the issues they face. The author defines nonbinary identities and discusses how these identities are different than people who have binary identities. There is a summary of the extant psychological literature focusing on people with nonbinary identities. Attention is also brought to how racial and ethnic minority individuals, including Native American people, conceptualize nonbinary identities. The chapter ends with information about the lack of attention to the Global South and the need for additional research and training in the mental health of those with nonbinary identities.


2013 ◽  
Vol 94 (10) ◽  
pp. 1501-1506 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley G. Illston ◽  
Jeffrey B. Basara ◽  
Christopher Weiss ◽  
Mike Voss

The WxChallenge, a project developed at the University of Oklahoma, brings a state-of-the-art, fun, and exciting forecast contest to participants at colleges and universities across North America. The challenge is to forecast the maximum and minimum temperatures, precipitation, and maximum wind speeds for select locations across the United States over a 24-h prediction period. The WxChallenge is open to all undergraduate and graduate students, as well as higher-education faculty, staff, and alumni. Through the use of World Wide Web interfaces accessible by personal computers, tablet computer, and smartphones, the WxChallenge provides a state-of-the-art portal to aid participants in submitting forecasts and alleviate many of the administrative issues (e.g., tracking and scoring) faced by local managers and professors. Since its inception in 2006, 110 universities have participated in the contest and it has been utilized as part of the curricula for 140 classroom courses at various institutions. The inherently challenging nature of the WxChallenge has encouraged its adoption as an educational tool. As its popularity has grown, professors have seen the utility of the Wx-Challenge as a teaching aid and it has become an instructional resource of many meteorological classes at institutions for higher learning. In addition to evidence of educational impacts, the competition has already begun to leave a cultural and social mark on the meteorological learning experience.


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