An entry code from Dr. Frieda B. Taub is required to register
Application Process
Please read this webpage thoroughly.
Via e-mail, provide Dr. Taub, taub@u.washington.edu, with a 1-page essay that explains your (1) interest and motivation in understanding ecological systems, (2) experience in experimental approaches, and (3) background in ecology, chemistry, biology, planetary biology, or other subject you think relevant. Students from all majors and levels are invited to apply; motivation and interest are the most important selection factors.
Submit information by e-mail and you will be informed and provided with the entry code
Objectives
Students will have the opportunity to build and study freshwater, marine, or terrestrial biospheres (60 ml to 20,000 ml). Ideally, the students will develop a research question that can be answered only by experiments; not by the instructor, and not by a text book. Although limited to some degree by the practicalities of equipment and supplies, many students have developed and tested innovative hypotheses involving: types of organisms, numbers of trophic levels, nutrient limitations, nutrient stoichiometry, salinity, light intensity, light duration, temperature, digital image analysis techniques for enumerating organisms, or explored simple ecosystem models. Replicate systems, including open (to the atmosphere) controls allow students to explore biological variability and statistical properties. A term paper is required for credit.
Why Study Closed Ecological Systems?
In open systems, exchanges of carbon (as carbon dioxide) and oxygen are invisible and difficult to monitor in replicate systems. Therefore, the experimenter doesn't know if the system is self-regenerating, or is depending on external exchanges.
Earth's Biosphere approaches being a Closed Ecological System
- open to energy exchanges (light and heat)
- essentially closed to material exchanges—with very minor exceptions (ecological functions depend on elements recycling within the biosphere, not on re-supply from space)
Within Biospheres, organisms interact to supply each other's requirements and to transform each other's waste products, for example:
- Autotrophs (e.g., plants) use carbon dioxide and produce organic material, and heterotrophs (e.g. animals) use organic material and release carbon dioxide;
- Autotrophs use ammonia to build amino acids into proteins and biomass, and grazers eat the biomass and release ammonia (or urea), which can accumulate to toxic levels if not removed by autotrophs.
This year, Dr. Frieda B. Taub is keen on testing carbon sources for a chemically defined freshwater medium that will support Daphnia magna populations beyond the ~60 day thus far achieved with unidentified salt mixtures (Kent) in 250 ml glass contained microcosms. She is exploring the implications of different carbon sources and trace metals, but students are not limited to this theme.
Students are encouraged to present their work at UW's Undergraduate Research Symposium and at local schools as part of UW's outreach program.
Student Posters from Previous Years
See wall outside of FTR 224
Further Information
Professor Frieda B. Taub
taub@u.washington.edu, 206/685-2115
UW School of Fisheries,
224 FTR (1140 NE Boat Street), Box 355100
Seattle, WA 98195
Sponsors
Sponsored by School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and Washington Space Grant Consortium.