REU Site: Ecological and Evolutionary Responses to Rapid Environmental Change (EERREC)

This REU Site award to the University of California, Davis, CA, will support the training of eight students for nine weeks during the summers of 2021- 2023. Research is conducted at laboratories at UC Davis or nearby field sites. It is anticipated that a total of 24 students, primarily from schools with limited research opportunities (including partner institutions Howard University, CSU Fullerton, CSU Sacramento, and CSU Sonoma) or from an under-represented group, will be trained in the program.

Students will learn how to conduct research aimed at understanding ecological and evolutionary responses of organisms, communities and ecosystems to rapid environmental change and will present the results of their work at scientific conferences. Program assessment will be done thru the online SALG URSSA tool. Students will be tracked after the program in order to determine their career paths.

The UC Davis REU Site focuses on two major research themes: (a) ecological and evolutionary effects of changing environmental regimes and (b) the biology of organisms in human-dominated ecosystems. These areas (1) encompass important challenges that organisms and ecosystems face as a result of rapid environmental change, (2) reflect shared interests of UC Davis and partner-institution faculty, and (3) include specific research questions in urban, rural, agricultural, and natural systems and thus span the spectrum of effects of rapid environmental change that must be addressed by a diverse society.

Faculty and graduate student mentors from the College of Biological Sciences or College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences will guide REU scholars in projects that include studies of marine invertebrate range limits, plant phenology, thermal stress in butterfly caterpillars, salmonid physiology, ecological interactions in managed terrestrial ecosystems, human influences on bees or birds, and estuarine restoration ecology. The program includes instruction in responsible conduct of research, scientific communication, and the scripting language R, discussion about careers in environmental biology, field trips to nearby research reserves, and post-program mentoring.

Review of applications will begin on 1 February, with applicants reviewed by faculty from UC Davis and partners. For more information and to apply, please see https://eerrec.ucdavis.edu, or contact Program Coordinator Dr. Carole Hom ([email protected]) or the PI Dr. Rick Grosberg ([email protected]).

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.