Professor Lisa Ott and student Tim Shelton, a junior Professional Chemistry major, with beakers of biodiesel. Ott and faculty member John Nishio just received funds from CER for biofuel research.

Center for Ecosystem Research: The Missing Link

A clearinghouse and laboratory for environmental research went through a few identities before it emerged as the new Center for Ecosystem Research (CER) in the College of Natural Sciences. The proposal for the center was written by Patricia Edelman, Richard Flory, and Jennifer Rotnem and approved by the Academic Senate in the spring of 2006. Rotnem is the co-director of the center and has been in on all of the previous iterations, beginning 10 years ago when she helped faculty find grants through the college’s Environmental Projects Office.

CER is the College of Natural Sciences’ third Center of Excellence, part of an infrastructure for interdisciplinary education and research.

The idea of interdisciplinary centers is something James Houpis, dean of NS, witnessed as an environmental scientist working at Lawrence Livermore Labs on climate change research. Houpis said that there was a systems ecology research group working on large interdisciplinary grants from the National Science Foundation, some of which have continued for 30 years.

“Interdisciplinary research is crucial to the understanding of complex issues in the natural sciences,” said Houpis. “Environmental problems from the real world don’t usually come as just a biology problem or just a chemistry problem. For example, if we ask the question, ‘How do we prevent water pollution from damaging a watershed?’ finding the solution might include a geologist, a biologist, a chemist, and an environmental scientist.”

An example of this interdisciplinary research is a CER-funded team that will travel to Costa Rica to study a vegetation kill zone near a volcano. Rachel Teasdale, Geological and Environmental Sciences, began with a proposal for volcano monitoring. Teasdale said CER has enabled the project to expand into a holistic ecosystem monitoring. “We get into our own zones—like I only work with volcanoes,” she said, “But the center encourages us to see how things are interrelated.” Houpis, Dave Brown in Geological and Environmental Sciences and the current CER faculty science director, and Jim Pushnik in Biological Sciences are collaborating with Teasdale on the project.

CER consists of two shared labs designed to foster collaborative interdisciplinary research. “Part of the purpose of the center is to optimize resources,” said Rotnem, “and to create an environment where faculty and students can work side by side on projects.”

Before the center was created, the labs available to researchers were small and spread out. Two different spaces (one a warren of small rooms called “the Cave” and the other a botany classroom that was in danger of being swallowed up for other space demands) were remodeled into the present larger and more open labs.

“The center is part of a missing link,” said Brown. “Most major universities already have these large research facilities. Ours have been put together by individual faculty as they could over their careers.”

Chemistry major Tim Shelton.

Brown does hydrology research and has worked for several years with the Aquatic Bio-Assessment Lab (ABL), a state agency that conducts water pollution research and is located on campus in Holt Hall. Some of the resources from that group provide funds for the CER.

Funding for the remodeling of CER’s labs was provided by then Provost Scott McNall. A proposal written by Edelman, James Postma, Flory, Margaret Owens, and Rotnem provided more than $250,000 in new research equipment.

Teasdale said this space and equipment are invaluable even to researchers who do most of their work in the field. She uses CER’s facilities to test equipment before taking it up to a work station in Lassen Volcanic National Park. “We are measuring water temperature in a very acidic environment, and we need to make sure our equipment will survive those conditions,” she said.

Much of the work that has been done so far is in water quality and water supply under contract with outside agencies.

“We have a strong and growing partnership with Butte County and its Water Resource Conservation department,” said Brown. “I’m working with Jim Pushnik [Ecological Sciences] and Michael Marchetti [Biological Sciences] right now on a CalFed grant to estimate how much water natural ecosystems require—how much water you need to keep the streams flowing so the salmon are happy and the streams are healthy.”

Lisa Ott, a new faculty member in Chemistry, and John Nishio, Professional Science Master’s program coordinator, have received seed money from CER to investigate the production of biodiesel from lipid sources. They will work on the project in the CER lab. Ott said CER has been an important resource for making interdisciplinary connections. “So far, it has been wonderful getting to know the other faculty on campus who are working on ecologically focused research projects,” she said.

Rotnem, Brown, and Houpis each see this as an exciting step forward for research. By facilitating this interdisciplinary collaboration and the efficient use of space and scientific resources, the College of Natural Sciences expects that the benefits will not only be an increase in grant and contract competitiveness, but also increase our ability to respond to pressing societal needs. And in these troubling economic times, universities will need to increase their leadership role by a focus on improving the public good. Houpis sees CER as a future leader in addressing ecological and environmental concerns in the North State.

—Anna Harris and Kathleen McPartland, Public Affairs and Publications