NSF PR 01-81 - October 17, 2001
NSF Awards $55 Million in Grants to Study Biocomplexity
in the Environment
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $55
million in research grants to scientists, engineers,
and educators to discover the relationships between
living things and their environment.
Explains NSF Director Rita Colwell, "Earth is a living,
ever-changing planet, with interconnecting threads
everywhere. Complexity is a defining characteristic
of these threads. All levels of biological organization
are more than the sum of their parts. Understanding
how complex systems develop from the interactions
of living things and their environment is critical
to an understanding of how our planet supports life."
Investigations of biocomplexity in the environment,
says Colwell, provide science a more complete understanding
of natural processes, of human behaviors and decisions
in the natural world, and of ways to use new technology
effectively to observe the environment and sustain
the diversity of life on earth.
Scientists, engineers, and educators must work in teams
across diverse fields, says Colwell, that go well
beyond biology to include, for example, physics, systems
engineering, mathematics, economics, and geochemistry
on studies that extend from the submolecular to changes
in the world's climate. "The biggest, most exciting
scientific questions are now at the interfaces of
traditional disciplines, such as biological chemistry,
computational ecology, and environmental genetics,"
she says.
This special competition, called Biocomplexity in the
Environment: Integrated Research and Education in
Environmental Systems 2001, is the third phase of
a multi-year effort supporting full research projects
and smaller exploratory projects, workshops and planning
activities. In the competition, 32 research projects
and 41 exploratory projects were funded, with support
from all NSF research directorates and offices.
Four subcategories of awards were made: Dynamics of
Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH); Coupled Biogeochemical
Cycles (CBC); Genome-Enabled Environmental Science
and Engineering (GENEN); and Instrumentation Development
for Environmental Activities (IDEA).
Research project topics include: modeling the interactions
among urban development, land cover change, and bird
diversity; coupling rhizosphere biogeochemical cycles
to plant growth under differing levels of carbon dioxide;
meta-genome analysis of extreme microbial symbiosis;
and developing instrumentation to measure the emission
and transport of biological aerosols into the atmosphere.
Exploratory projects include: sustaining multiple functions
for urban wetlands; simplification and recovery of
soil biocomplexity following agricultural cultivation
and forest logging; complementary development of new
chemical sensor and probe microscopy techniques for
environmental research in hydrothermal ecosystems;
and developing portable devices to map the distribution
of arsenic in groundwater in Bangladesh.
For a complete list of research and exploratory projects,
see: http://www.nsf.gov/home/crssprgm/be/ere_be-competitions.html
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