Brackenridge Field Laboratory

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Brackenridge Field Laboratory

• Introduction
• External Review Team Presentation
• Deans Comments
• Directors Comments
• Faculty and Students Comments
• Questions Answers

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Brackenridge Field Laboratory
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Brackenridge Field Laboratory

• An organized research, teaching and service unit
  in the College of Natural Sciences
• Currently 20M in grants 4M/year
• 8 different undergraduate courses meet there
  others use it regularly as a field site
• Critically important to research and teaching in
  Integrative Biology--our highest ranking
  biological sciences program
• BFL is a magnet facility--attracts top faculty
  students to UT Austin
• Proximity to campus
• Habitat diversity
• Species diversity
• Historical records and collections
• Facilities for research teaching

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What is Integrative Biology???

• Integrative biology is that part of the life
  sciences that puts molecules, genes and genomes
  into the broader contexts of organisms, species,
  ecosystems and the environment. It includes
  diverse disciplines that complement one another
  to study and teach about the complexity of life.
• Faculty interests include organismal morphology
  and physiology, development, genetics, animal
  behavior, biomechanics, ecology, systematics, and
  the evolution of life. Several of our faculty
  and courses deal with the relationship of humans
  to other life forms on Earth.
• Faculty members work with animals, plants, and
  other organisms and employ molecular and
  organismal approaches to questions of biological
  organization and diversity. Their research spans
  the levels of biological hierarchy from molecules
  to ecosystems. Scientists in IB use all the
  modern tools available from molecular biology to
  super computers.
• Integrative biologists work in a comparative way
  with many species that are not the standard model
  organisms for molecular biology or biomedicine,
  and they study them in nature more often than in
  test tubes. Their research applies broadly to
  issues of life on earth from human health to
  impacts of climate change.

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Integrative Biologists

• Study all different types of organismshow they
  work, develop, reproduce, behave, evolve,
  interact with other life forms
• Often address big questions such as climate
  change, biodiversity, conservation,
  sustainability, ecology, epidemiology
• Deal with the relationship of humans to other
  life forms on Earth
• Use all the tools they can in their research from
  molecular biology to super computers
• Work in a comparative way with many species that
  are not the standard model organisms for
  molecular biology or biomedicine
• Work in nature as well as in the lab

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BFL is Part of Campus Laboratories

• BFL is as developed for its purpose as any of our
  complex campus buildings
• The facilities at BFL are an integral part of
  numerous faculty laboratories
• experimental ponds
• small animal enclosures
• laboratory buildings and greenhouses
• Tanks for aquatic studies
• Artificial coral reef!

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BFL A Faculty Magnet

• Actual commitments of research and field
  facilities at BFL, have been made to a number of
  new faculty as part of their start-up offers,
  including
• Dr. Dan Bolnik aquatic facilities
• Dr. Molly Cummings aquatic facilities
• Dr. Matthew Leibold aquatic facilities
• Dr. Tom Juenger greenhouse facilities
  (_at_600,000)
• Dr. Hans Hoffman aquatic facilities
• Dr. Misha Metz coral reefs
• These faculty have joined UT Austin in part
  because we have BFL
• In addition there are major research programs of
  senior faculty that are dependent on BFL.
• Dr. Ulirch Mueller the general area of BFL for
  his work with leaf cutter ants
• Dr. Larry Gilbert greenhouse, lab facilities,
  and general area of BFL for fire ants studies
• Dr. Randy Linder
• Dr. Donald Levin
• Dr. David Hillis aquatic facilities for research
  on clams and fish
• Dr. Michael Ryan aquatic facilities for research
  on fish
• Many other faculty use BFL periodically.
• Visiting researchers enrich the intellectual
  environment
• We will lose these key faculty leaders if we lose
  BFL

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External Review Team

• Reviews by external experts are done every 6-7
  years for our key academic research units
• BFL team was 3 members of the NAS Paul Ehrlich,
  David Tillman, Nancy Moran
• Very distinguished ecologists/population
  biologists
• Experienced with the use of field laboratories
• Video of 7 October report to the UT
  administration Stephen Monti, Pat Clubb, Juan
  Sanchez
• Excerpts and full report, plus written report in
  notebook

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BFL Consequences of loss

• The loss of BFL would severely damage the
  national and international reputation of
  biological sciences here at UT
• Integrative Biology is the most highly ranked
  program in Biological Sciences
• Cost to build excellence
• Yearsoften decades
• Millions of dollars to build a truly world-class
  science program
• Neurobiology 45M in one time funds 3M
  recurring funding 10M endowment support
• Molecular Biology, even more
• BFL is a different kind of endowment
• We could lose all we have built in this area in
  two years or less
• Destroying BFL is a decision to give up our
  prominence in environmental and population
  biology
• If we lose BFL, the loss will be nationally known
  and our bad judgment will be widely ridiculed.
  Many of our best faculty will immediately begin
  to consider their options for positions
  elsewhere. We will experience a programmelt
  down.

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BFL Why not another site????

• BFL includes an unusually diverse array of
  environments including access to the Colorado
  River
• Rich species diversity
• A history of species changes at BFL that goes
  back for decades.
• Collections and documentation are available on
  site
• Facilities for teaching and research
• Proximity to campus allows classes to meet there,
  allows students and faculty to do experiments and
  return to campus for other daily activities
• provides a site for several different
  undergraduate courses and for undergraduate
  research activities
• BFL also provides a high degree of security for
  persons and equipment involved in prolonged study
  in the field

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BFL Proposal for the Future

• BFL is one of the most intensely utilized field
  labs in the country
• BFL is not functioning up to potential
• BFL lacks key facilities such as
• Classroom building
• Visitors center for outreach to the community
• Facilities support for a visiting scientist
  program and associated grant support
• Areas for large-scale experiments adjacent to
  historically preserved and biologically diverse
  areas

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BFL Proposal for the Future

• Construct a teaching building/visitors center as
  part of a Brackenridge master plan
• Create areas for public education, visiting
  scientists quarters and additional laboratory and
  teaching space
• Add support for staff as docents and for research
  support
• Set aside land adjacent to BFL for additional
  experimental plots
• Reserve all the flood plain area as waterfront
  access for BFL

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Brackenridge Field Laboratory
Visitors Center
Experimental plots
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BFL Summary

• Type of facility BFL's particular juxtaposition
  of laboratory and outdoor facilities with a
  mosaic of both aquatic and terrestrial habitats
  is highly unusual and puts UT Austin in an
  enviable position among biological science
  programs internationally. It is as much a part
  of the research laboratories of integrative
  biology faculty as any research building
• Structure of habitat For its relatively small
  size, BFL contains a remarkable array of
  terrestrial and aquatic habitats. Quite a bit of
  work done at BFL requires the aquatic facilities
  there. This demands proximity to the river as
  well as to the supplies of untreated well water.
  This simply could not be duplicated at another
  site close to campus.
• Regional position BFL sits on the Balcones
  fault that divides major regional complexes of
  eastern and western species. Some tropical
  organisms even reach their northern limits on the
  area.
• Biological resources The diversity of plant and
  animal species at BFL is outstanding in absolute
  terms, particularly surprising given its urban
  setting. In the near future, most field biology
  may by necessity be in urban areas so that BFL
  research now may be increasingly relevant as the
  future unfolds.
• Condition of natural systems Careful management
  of remnant native systems has allowed natural
  interactions of plants, insects, parasites, and
  aquatic life to function normally. In
  particular, species relationships important for
  pest control, agriculture, and genetic
  conservation are being successfully maintained
  for study.
• Historical baseline Biological systems are
  strongly influenced by historical factors. BFL
  has become increasingly more and more valuable as
  its vegetational history, its faunal and floral
  inventory, as well as experimental field studies
  have accumulated interrelated information.
  Similar experiments conducted on "new areas"
  versus areas having scientific baseline datawould
  be much less valuable such baseline data
  constitute criteria for funding projects at the
  National Science Foundation and they are
  critically important in an environmental research
  facility.

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• Proximity The key to BFL's present and future
  impact is its particular combination of
  biologicall and physical resources in proximity
  to the main campus. The Following advantages of
  BFL all depend to a large extent on this last
  feature
• Graduate research The quality of graduate
  student research in field biology has been
  greatly enhanced by the availability of BFL.
  Most graduate students in the program are
  supported by teaching assistantships and are not
  able to travel to distant field sites during the
  year. BFL allows year-around fieldwork and the
  possibility of daily monitoring. Even students
  whose research is conducted in other parts of the
  world frequently utilize BFL for comparative
  studies or for ancillary projects that enhance
  their careers. Graduate student projects
  undertaken at BFL have resulted in important
  publications in Science, Proceedings of the
  National Academy of Sciences, and other leading
  journals of basic science. BFL's support of
  graduate research was and remains instrumental in
  lifting our population biology programs into the
  top ten nationally. BFL is one of the reasons we
  can recruit top graduate students in field
  biology.
• Women in field science Many of our most
  successful Ph.D. graduates have been women.
  BFL's proximity and security allows women to
  conduct field studies alone in safety.
• Undergraduate teaching and research Routine
  involvement of undergraduates at field research
  sites during long sessions is generally
  difficult. BFL provides unusual and much used
  opportunities for a variety of courses and
  research experiences set in a natural area for
  observation, experiment, and lecture-demonstration
  . Although most courses are Biological Sciences
  field/lab courses, a range of other departments
  from Geography to Military Science have utilized
  BFL. It also allows undergraduates to interact
  with graduate and faculty research projects and
  to initiate individual projects of high quality.
• Faculty research and recruitment Without a
  doubt, BFL has been a conspicuous factor in
  recruitment of high quality faculty in
  population, systematic, and evolutionary biology.
  BFL supports faculty research at various levels.
  It is the major site for some field experiments,
  a complimentary site for others, and a source of
  live material for still other campus-based
  laboratory studies. Even faculty who never plan
  to use the site personally are attracted by the
  knowledge that it is potentially available for
  their graduate students and for teaching.
• The bottom line BFL is critical to teaching and
  research in population biology at UT Austin. A
  decision to move or dismantle it is a decision to
  lose our top-ranked program in this field.

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