In May 2013, University of Idaho faculty and Ph.D students attend the NSF-IGERT project annual meeting in Costa Rica. The students are in the joint Ph.D program between UI and CATIE and will receive doctorates from both institutions.
The University of Idaho has received a $249,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to fund an ongoing study on preserving biodiversity in Costa Rica. It is the first grant of its kind awarded to UI.
The study, conducted by an interdisciplinary group of graduate students from both UI and the Costa Rican Tropical Agriculture Research and Education Center, focuses on a historically forested corridor. The corridor that is rapidly being turned into pineapple plantations, and the study observes the impact of deforestation on the environmental system — as well as human social systems.
“(The grant) is designed to help get a better understanding of how ecological change influence human population, and how humans impact the environment and change ecosystems,” project leader Lisette Waits said. “We know that for humans and human economies to remain healthy, it depends on these ecological systems, and at the same time, whatever humans choose to do in the landscape influences ecological systems.”
Waits said the grant will help cover the salaries of the students and their mentoring faculty members, as well as travel costs to and from Costa Rica. It will also help to further the research of five doctoral candidates who have already spent three years in Costa Rica studying under the NSF Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship.
According to Waits, their time spent in Costa Rica has included extensive fieldwork taking plant samples, netting bats for genetic samples and visiting local communities for a more anthropologically view on the issues. To Waits, one of the most exciting parts of the project is the wide spectrum of academia the study covers.
“This project brings together faculty from many different departments from across the university,” Waits said. “So with faculty members from entomology, from sociology, from the forestry department here at UI, and then with CATIE we have faculty members from the ecology department and faculty members from their social sciences department. So it’s really kind of a unique group, in that we have brought together from really wide variety of academic backgrounds and all these emphasize in making it possible.”
Because UI has a joint doctoral program with CATIE, students working under IGERT will receive doctorates from both institutions at the study’s conclusion, which is set for spring of 2015. Students will publish their findings in papers to be reviewed by their peers. They will also share their findings with three Costa Rican communities in a series of educational workshops.
“I think it’s a very unique opportunity that students at UI have to do research in Costa Rica, and been made possible with the partnership with CATIE and joint Ph.D. program,” Waits said. “It’s just one example of research that we’re doing together and the unique opportunity that has been made possible by collaboration.”
Hannah Shirley can be reached at [email protected]