Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

DR. WIERSMA conducts field-based research in the boreal forest. She is interested in what drives the spatial distribution of lichens in sensitive ecosystems, as well as in how vegetation and plant nutrient quality are affected by forest harvest. She currently has a long-term field site for lichen research in the Central Avalon Forest (~90 minutes from campus) and a second site with a larger research team that is investigating the ecological stoichiometry of a plant-hare-lynx system in and around Terra Nova National Park (~3h from campus). DR. PURCHASE conducts field-based research on fish, with a focus on within-species variation in reproduction. His main questions fall under the umbrella of how natural (abiotic) and sexual selection (e.g., female cues, sperm competition) interact to influence gamete ecology and evolution. Key to this research is the ability to sample a wide variety of geographically separate populations. He is currently conducting field work on several freshwater fishes across Newfoundland (250-1000km trips), and beach spawning capelin on the Avalon Peninsula (50-250km trips). DR. BROWN conducts field-based research in forest sites across Newfoundland and Labrador. Her research focus is on the role that non-climatic factors play in controlling plant species responses to climate change. She is particularly interested in the role of soil and biotic interactions in constraining tree range expansion, and the response of boreal forest stands to climate-induced changes in the fire regime. She has an array of long-term field research sites distributed across the island of Newfoundland (from 1 hour to 8.5 hours from campus, and study areas across central and western Labrador (20-24 hours from campus). Together, we propose to purchase a new field research vehicle to replace the current field truck (Ford Ranger) purchased in 2009 with funding from the 2008 RTI competition. The Ranger has served our research groups well, and has been used extensively over the past 8 years. The current vehicle is aging and is unfortunately at the stage where it is not reliable for field trips to remote areas The cost to recover and repair a breakdown in one of these remote locations would be considered prohibitive. It will be more cost-effective to use RTI funds to purchase a new vehicle than to pay for repairs and rentals out of the Discovery Grants of the individual researchers. We are proposing to buy a new field truck. We are proposing a larger vehicle with a full crew cab, as we have found that the current vehicle is too small and often our teams have to rent a second vehicle to transport personnel to the field. A larger truck with a crew cab would minimize the need for extra rentals, and thus cut down on expenditures from our individual Discovery Grants.