Contact:	Tom Turner, (505) 277-7541 Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821
May 6, 2002 BIOLOGY PROFESSOR AWARDED NSF CAREER AWARD FOR ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION OF AQUATIC SYSTEMS University of New Mexico Assistant Professor of Biology Thomas F. Turner has received a $500,000 grant over five years from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) to create an integrated research and educational program for museum-based approaches to ecology and the evolution of aquatic systems. "The award is designed to build an education and research program that focuses on the collection of fishes in the Museum of Southwestern Biology (MSB) at UNM using state-of-the-art techniques for students and those interested in water management practices,” said Turner, who is also the curator of fishes at the museum. “Graduate and undergraduate students will gain a fundamental understanding of how natural history collections acquire, document and database specimens to provide a historical record of our rich natural heritage in New Mexico.” Stable isotope methodology will be utilized to compare present-day and museum preserved specimens to determine whether the fish community functioned differently prior to human population growth and large scale water diversions. The research is designed to identify ecosystem-wide events that may have altered fish community dynamics in the Rio Grande watershed. Abundance patterns of select fishes will also be evaluated and studied and compared to current estimates of genetic diversity to determine whether reduced abundance has changed genetic diversity in ways that hamper species recovery. Both research efforts are focused on important issues for conservation and restoration of the Rio Grande. “Natural history collections are becoming increasingly important for documenting and understanding the changes in biodiversity on the planet because they preserve a historical record of organismal diversity,” said Turner. “In addition, natural history collections have been used to address important issues in human health such as the origins and emergence of Hantavirus in the desert southwest. Unfortunately, a fundamental gap exists between undergraduate and graduate training and the enormous resources that natural history collections can offer for solving important problems.” Turner hopes to close the gap by familiarizing graduate and undergraduate students with the kinds of information available in natural history museums. He will illustrate how this information can be brought to bear critical environmental problems using a multidisciplinary research approach that produces scientists who can capitalize on the vast resources offered by natural history museums to solve environmental problems. Another goal of the grant is to document historical changes in sources and cycling of nutrients as a result of water regulation in the Middle Rio Grande by analyzing historical specimens archived in the MSB. Over the past 90 years, major levee and dam construction projects have affected water and nutrient flows leading to the extinction of certain fish species that are dependent on floodwaters on to the flood plain which has been restricted with the placement of dams and levees. “Historically, the extensive floodplain of the Rio Grande was inundated in springtime as a result of snowmelt and precipitation,” said Turner. “The placement of dams and levees restrict movement of floodwaters onto the floodplain and restrict the nutrient flow. Dam placement has been shown to have important implications for nutrient cycling in other southwestern fluvial systems. Such changes in water management have been implicated in extirpation and decline of native fishes, like the Rio Grande silvery minnow.” The NSF Early Career Development program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers NSF’s most prestigious awards for new faculty members. The CAREER program recognizes and supports the career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who are likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st Century. CAREER awardees are selected on the basis of creative, career-development plans that effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their institution. # # #

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