Spring 2009 Rusack and Phocas Faculty Research Awards
The Faculty Development Committee has awarded the following Rusack and Phocas Family Research Awards for Spring 2009.
Damon Ganon, Bowdoin Scientific Station and Nancy Olmstead, Department of Biology
Behavior and ecological impacts of an island population of muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus)
Phocas Family Research Award
Introduced herbivores may have dramatic effects on island ecosystems, especially plant communities. Changes in plant community composition can have cascading effects on other aspects of the system, resulting in permanent changes in ecosystem function. In addition, isolated populations present unique opportunities to study the evolution of novel behaviors, especially when the species is living in unusual habitats. Muskrats are herbivorous rodents which specialize in wetland vegetation; they are present on the Bowdoin Scientific Station, and their effects on the island(s) are presently unquantified. We propose to study muskrat abundance, effects on vegetation, and habitat selection.
Ta Herrera, Department of Economics
Sustainable coastal development in Miches, Dominican Republic
Phocas Family Award
This project will positively affect this community while providing a natural “laboratory” for better understanding the social, economic, and natural/environmental processes of sustainable development. I am requesting funds to travel to Miches twice, and New York once, over two years to meet collaborators, familiarize myself with the site and local institutions, and to formulate research questions which would form the basis for a longer-term, interdisciplinary funding proposal directed to an outside source.
John Lichter, Departments of Biology and Environmental Studies and Eileen Johnson, Department of Environmental Studies
Developing a spatial database for the Androscoggin and Kennebec River watersheds
Phocas Family Award
While aiding dozens of student researchers and faculty members with their GIS research over the last several years, Eileen Johnson has accumulated a large quantity of spatial data relevant to coastal Maine and the Androscoggin and Kennebec watersheds. We seek funding to give Eileen the opportunity to synthesize and develop these spatial data into a database infrastructure that will be useful for future student and faculty research in a variety of disciplines. Additionally, Eileen’s work will aid a group of faculty from Bowdoin, Bates, and USM that is currently organizing a collaborative funding proposal to the National Science Foundation for coastal research.
Jim Mullen, Department of Visual Art
Extended Images: Investigating the Depiction of Space in the Coastal Landscape
Rusack Award
This project is an extrapolation of a body of work that I have building for the last few
years dealing with depictions of the coastal landscape. With the support I have received
I have been able to more extensively examine the coastal environment, most recently in
the suite of works that constituted my exhibition this spring in New York City. This
project would seek to extend that investigation by more directly exploring ideas of the
extended (or panorama) format.
Ed Laine, Department of Geology
Supporting an ECOHAB/NASA grant: Remote Assessment of Algal Functional Groups in the Absence of Extreme Blooms: Application to Alexandrium fundyense in the Gulf of Maine
Rusack Award
Funds are requested to travel (by vessel) on a weekly (April) and twice weekly basis (May and June) to the Bowdoin Buoy in Harpswell Sound to sample in support of a NASA funded research program that seeks to optimize, validate and test an existing ocean color functional group model to yield estimates of A. fundyense populations. A. fundyense is the dinoflagellate species responsible for Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) in the Gulf of Maine.
Dan Thornhill, Department of Biology
Investigating the Nature of a Temperate Coral Symbiosis
Rusack Award
Corals often form symbiotic relationships with photosynthetic algae known as Symbiodinium. These relationships typically benefit both partners and are critically important for the existence of coral reefs. Although most symbiotic corals are tropical, there is at least one symbiotic coral in Maine, Astrangia poculata. This unusual high-latitude coral symbiosis raises interesting questions as to whether the relationship is a mutualism beneficial to both partners or a parasitism where one partner (Symbiodinium) benefits at a cost to the other (the coral host). Here, I propose to investigate the nature of temperate coral symbiosis using Bowdoin College’s Coastal Studies Center