REU at Kent State – Come work on aquatic-terrestrial linkages in urban ecosystems

Kent State and Holden Arboretum are hosting a summer REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) focused on aquatic-terrestrial linkages in urban impacted ecosystems. Lots of great faculty in geology, biological sciences and other departments are participating, and I would be thrilled to mentor a student through the program. The program will run from June 1st to August 8th, 2014, and applications are due February 17th.

Kent State University and The Holden Arboretum invite applicants for a 10-week summer research training program. Students enrolled in this program will conduct mentored research into the importance of terrestrial-aquatic linkages in the ecology of urban-impacted ecosystems. This research will be designed to examine how human activities such as urbanization, industry, farming, mining, and recreational activities affect the way terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems interact. Projects might compare sites with and without urban impact to examine: nutrient cycling in soils and streams, microbial community composition in forest soils and stream sediments, plant-soil interactions, how shredders modify terrestrial leaf litter input to stream ecosystems, the effects of terrestrial pollutants on aquatic microbial community structure and function, how terrestrial and aquatic biogeochemical cycles are affected by human activities such as acid precipitation and land-use change. Along with learning about hypothesis generation, project design, and ethics in research, students will receive additional training archiving data in a geospatial database and will participate in weekly seminars.

To find out more about the program, look at all of the possible mentors and cool projects, and begin the application process, check out the website here.