Core Priority: Environmental Sciences
As Liberty Hyde Bailey recognized in shaping the vision for CALS more than a century ago, environmental stewardship is a natural extension of studies to improve agriculture. In CALS, studies of insects and diseases have led to new strategies in integrated pest management that significantly reduce the use of pesticides. Discoveries in crop and soil science and in plant breeding and genetics enhance soil structures, improve water quality, and reduce the need for fertilizer and other inputs.
From a focus on cellulosic conversion to the production of ethanol and other biofuels from agricultural waste, CALS has advanced to the forefront of research on alternative fuels and biochemicals.
From classroom to laboratory, field, forest, and watershed—even to the halls of Congress itself—CALS’ scientists enhance our understanding of issues regarding air, water, soil, and climate change as they discover “greener” approaches to remediation, and enhance the stewardship and sustainability of the world’s scarce resources.
Programs in natural resource management, earth systems, environmental engineering, biological resource conservation, ecology, biodiversity, waste management, and atmospheric sciences enable the college to take the lead in several university initiatives for a more sustainable future
Climate Change Causes Coral Death ▼
Corals—whose massive reefs support complex ecosystems, shelter and nurture hatchlings, and protect shorelines from erosion—are in trouble because of climate change and pollution. How much trouble is a question that Drew Harvell, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, searches the seven seas to answer.
In the waters off such farflung locales as the Florida Keys, Zanzibar, Mexico, Hawaii, and Palau, Harvell and her students gather data on coral reef destruction as it emerges as a widespread consequence of ocean contamination and global climate change. Harvell was tapped in 2004 to head one of six international research teams carrying out an unprecedented, 15-year initiative launched by the World Bank with major support from the Global Environmental Fund.
The team Harvell is leading studies the distribution, causes, and impacts of coral disease worldwide. Their goals include determining which species harbor and spread the organisms that cause coral disease—areas about which virtually nothing is known. “This is cutting-edge research performed at the highest level possible,” she says.
Solving the problems threatening coral reef ecosystems and the many coastal communities whose livelihoods depend on them will require hard choices and unprecedented international cooperation. The World Bank project trains scientists and builds capacity in the regions where coral reefs are being studied. Harvell’s team ran their first workshop in Zanzibar in 2006 to train scientists from the East African region in microbiology, coral taxonomy, and coral diseases.
Until approaches can be developed for managing waterborne infectious diseases, Harvell considers it particularly important to trace the origins of new inputs and “turn off the pathogen pollution spigot.” In the longer term, she says, “We may also be able to develop more tools to enhance immunity and make corals less susceptible to disease.”
Biofuels Show Promise for Renewable Energy Systems ▼
CALS is a national leader in the effort to develop more sustainable production technologies for ethanol and other biochemicals. Professor Larry Walker of the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering, who directs the 14-state Northeast Sun Grant Institute of Excellence, is a core contributor in several major research projects.
Walker is involved in a project led by Professor Jim Gossett in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering to make switchgrass more susceptible to enzymatic conversion aimed at extracting sugars for fermentation to ethanol. The technologies for this work have come from the 20-year research collaboration between Walker and Professor David Wilson in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics (MBG).
With Harold Craighead, professor of applied and engineering physics and director of Cornell’s Nanobiotechnology Center, Walker is exploring the use of advanced imaging systems to study how cellulose-degrading enzymes move across the cellulose fiber to liberate glucose. MBG professor Maureen Hanson is working to express the plant enzymes that degrade cellulose for conversion to fermentable sugars.
In the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Professor Don Viands, research associate Julie Hansen, and extension associate Hilary Mayton are developing breeding programs to increase yields for varieties of switchgrass that grow well in the Northeast. Professor Jerome Cherney in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences is focused on making switchgrass a more efficient substitute for coal for burning in pellet stoves.
Walker is using a new $10 million grant from the Empire State Development Corp. to purchase fermenters, incubators, and analytical equipment and build a state-of-the-art biofuels research lab in Riley-Robb Hall.
Decades of Acid Rain Cause Loss of Sugar Maple in the Northeast ▼
In soils acidified by acid rain, sugar maples produce fewer seedlings that survive and mature, and more adult trees die. So found Stephanie Juice ’04 in a study she led as an undergraduate in natural resources. She drew these conclusions after adding nutrients to soil in a test plot at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire, and reproducing the favorable soil conditions that existed prior to 20th-century industrial pollution.
The result: sugar maples on the plot rebounded dramatically.
Her work provided “the most conclusive evidence to date” that the decline of sugar maples is linked to the effects of acid rain, according to Timothy Fahey, professor of forest ecology and co-author of the study, which was published in the journal Ecology.
Juice and Fahey found that acid rain—the environmental consequence of burning fossil fuels, running factories, and driving cars—has altered soils and reduced the number of sugar maple trees growing in the Northeast. Nitric and sulphuric acids in the rain leach calcium from the soil, leading to higher acidity.
“The research addresses how a long-term, humancaused change in the environment is affecting sugar maples, which are valuable both ecologically and economically as one of the dominant species in our region,” says Juice, who now works for the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Milbrook, NY.
Landscape Architecture of Solar House Wins Awards ▼
The student-designed and -built solar house that earned second place in the 2005 Solar Decathlon Competition also won a student Award of Honor from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) for its functional landscape.
The solar house landscaping was created by students in the Department of Landscape Architecture who covered 1,400 square feet with 1,500 edible plants and 240 square feet of tall fescue lawn. Peter Trowbridge, professor of landscape architecture, served as the students’ adviser.
“At the simplest level, the design and display aimed to illustrate concepts of permaculture, creating an entirely edible garden that could be ornamental and aesthetic in both form and function,” says ASLA’s summary description. Onions, carrots, kale, colengela, peppers, beans, and artichokes created a rich tapestry of texture and color. Paths through the garden ensured easy accessibility to the plants. “The project demonstrated that sustainability could be achieved through this cohesive indoor/outdoor connection of house and landscape.”
The home’s dirty water, for example, was filtered and used to irrigate the lawn, and kitchen waste was composted to nourish the plants. The designers considered their landscape “a market basket, a filtration system, a collection system, a wildlife habitat, and, finally, as a means of capital production.”
Making Sound Decisions ▼
To be a good listener in the world’s most remote or inhospitable places, you need better ears than the ones that come as standard equipment on the average human. Engineers in the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s Bioacoustics Research Program (BRP) have created remote recording devices called autonomous recording units (ARUs) that can be programmed to record at specific times of day for up to two weeks at a time.
ARUs don’t get bored, hungry, or tired. They have been used to listen in on elephants in Africa and monitor the distribution of endangered songbirds. Scientists around the world use the digital recording equipment, computer software, and algorithms to study animal communication and evaluate the health of wild populations. One project involves working with the U.S. Navy’s Integrated Undersea Surveillance System to study whales.
The Cornell University Biological Field Station on Oneida Lake ▼
A field site for internationally renowned fisheries and aquatic research occupies 430 acres at Shackelton Point, northeast of Syracuse on Oneida Lake.
The field station is a springboard for a prolific and wide-ranging research program including studies of fish ecology and management, limnology, ecological modeling, population dynamics, wildlife ecology, biogeochemistry, fish diseases, the human dimensions of natural resources management, invasion biology, and colonial birds.
In addition to serving as a training ground for many graduate students and postdocs, Shackelton Point, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, has hosted about 300 undergraduate interns over the past 27 summers.
The centerpiece of the research at the field station has been a data set, begun in 1956 and continuously updated, that documents the significant changes that have taken place in the ecology of Oneida Lake since the field station was established. This database has become a valuable resource for understanding large lake ecosystems and freshwater fisheries dynamics throughout the world.
“Our research program has gone from local to global in the past 50 years,” says Professor Ed Mills, director of the field station and a 30-year member of its faculty. He is optimistic about the facility’s future, especially since the recent completion of an aquatic research laboratory, where much of the work focuses on invasive species. The station is a unit of the Department of Natural Resources.
Climate Change: New Options for Meteorology Students ▼
From his vantage point on the eleventh floor of Bradfield Hall, senior lecturer Mark Wysocki has a meteorologist’s eye view of every change in Ithaca’s infamously fickle weather. After 20 years of helping prepare meteorology students in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences for government service, the communications industry, and graduate study in a surprising range of fields, he now sees the program itself changing.
But unlike the many storm systems that roil their way down Cayuga Lake, the changes in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences are designed to improve the long-range forecast.
Suppose a big chocolate maker wants to know how weather will affect cocoa prices. Or financial analysts ask when short- and long-term climate trends will affect energy markets. Or a major retailer with stores in hurricane-prone areas wonders what can be done to prevent losses.
The answers, Wysocki says, come from Cornell-trained meteorologists who have studied everything from atmospheric thermodynamics, synoptic meteorology, and microclimatology to radar remote sensing, physical oceanography, and applied multivariate statistics. These are some of the 100-plus courses, rich in mathematics and science, offered in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
Opportunities for undergraduate research are even more diverse. For instance, the atmospheric science major who spent her junior and senior years with the NASA-Cornell Mars Rover team “really extended the definition of long-range forecasting,” Wysocki says. He is equally proud of students who worked with entomologists on the link between West Nile virus and climate change and with ecologists on air pollution’s effects on forest growth.
