{"id":25589,"date":"2024-05-17T21:34:32","date_gmt":"2024-05-17T21:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=25589"},"modified":"2026-03-13T17:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T17:49:09","slug":"biology-professor-part-of-team-awarded-15-million-nsf-grant-to-study-climate-change-in-the-arctic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2024\/05\/biology-professor-part-of-team-awarded-15-million-nsf-grant-to-study-climate-change-in-the-arctic\/","title":{"rendered":"Biology professor part of team awarded $15 million NSF grant to study climate change in the Arctic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Biology Professor <\/span>Mary Heskel<\/span><\/a> is among a group of experts from 14 institutions that received a $15 million award from the National Science Foundation. The <\/span>Evolving Meta-Ecosystems (EvoME) Institute<\/span><\/a>, which will be led by the <\/span>Woodwell Climate Research Center<\/span><\/a> in Falmouth, Massachusetts, is a new six-year project that will focus on improving scientific and public understanding of how Arctic organisms and ecosystems are responding \u2014 and will continue to respond \u2014 to a rapidly changing climate. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on earth by about four times, so we’re watching adaptation and change potentially happen in a very<\/span> short period of time,\u201d said Dr. Heskel, who is the only scientist on the team from a four-year liberal arts college. \u201cThese adaptations make the Arctic both a very cool and rather ominous place to think about rapid climate change.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a <\/span>plant physiological ecologist, Professor Heskel will work with other scientists to study how plants in northern Alaska are changing their growth and metabolism, as well as modifying the nutrient cycling and habitat for wildlife such as birds and fish. The grant also offers an opportunity for six Macalester students \u2013 one per year \u2013 to join the team for a summer-long immersive research experience in the Alaskan tundra. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere’s funding for undergraduate students, graduate students, postdocs, field technicians, and journalists,\u201d said Heskel. \u201cWhat makes this kind of grant, a Biology Integration Institute award, different is its expansiveness. We’re really looking to bring a lot of scientists together to<\/span> develop observations and experiments that will<\/span> lead to novel, integrative questions and train and support students and early career scientists.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of this work, the EvoME Institute also aims to foster a new generation of cross-disciplinary biologists, with special attention to increasing the inclusion and retention of researchers from backgrounds currently underrepresented in the field.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More information, including collaborators and updates, can be found <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Evolving Meta-Ecosystems Institute will focus on understanding how Arctic organisms and ecosystems are responding to a rapidly changing climate.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":881,"featured_media":25591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-25589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-newswire","tag-biology","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/881"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25589"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29699,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25589\/revisions\/29699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}