STUDYING ADIRONDACK WATERSHEDS FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION

For the past eighteen months, students and faculty at Alfred and Colgate Universities have been studying the effects of calcium depletion on watershed ecosystems in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State. The project, funded by NSF's Cross-Disciplinary Research in Undergraduate Institutions (C-RUI) program, combines both research and educational activities for undergraduate students, faculty, and secondary school teachers. The overarching research goal of the project is to study how calcium availability in soils and surface waters affects organisms. Calcium concentration changes in soils over the past 25 years are being measured using soils collected during the late 1970s through 1980s and soils collected in 2005 and 2006. The availability of calcium in soils and streams is also being artificially manipulated by the addition of calcium in the form of powdered limestone (soils) and calcium chloride (streams). We are investigating the effects of these calcium additions on litter decomposition, soil chemistry (both soil water and solids), invertebrates, and vertebrate insectivores. We are focusing on bacteria, algae and aquatic invertebrates in streams. Undergraduate students working on this grant are strongly encouraged to pursue independent research topics that are related to the overall project goals, and several have done so thus far. Courses taught during the same semester at the two universities are being linked with students engaging in common activities and shared field trips. Each summer for three successive years, secondary school teachers from across New York State are invited to apply to attend a 3-day workshop, supported by the grant and held in the Adirondacks, on the effects of acid deposition on ecosystems. During this workshop, taught and facilitated by all of the faculty and undergraduate students involved in the project, teachers are taken to the field areas and given hands-on experience in the techniques we use to sample soils, soil moisture, stream water chemistry, litter decomposition, and macroinvertebrate populations. These wild, but chronically disturbed, watersheds have provided a context for research and instruction regarding anthropogenic affects, the complexity of ecosystems, large-scale experiments, and the value of interdisciplinary research.