Garden Club Scholarship

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Education: Garden Club of America Wetlands Scholarship

The Garden Club of America provides an Award in Coastal Wetland Studies. This scholarship originated in 1966 when the Rockefeller Fund was established for the purpose of promoting environmental education. In 1999, Mrs. Edward Elliman, a member of the Rockefeller family and the Hortulus Garden Club chose to promote wetland conservation through the support of young scientists in their field work and research. It is administered by the Center for Coastal Resources Management, Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) at the College of William and Mary and open to graduate students pursuing advanced degrees in coastal wetlands science.

The award is a one-year scholarship for graduate studies in coastal wetlands and carries a stipend of $5,000 to support field-based research. The goals of the Garden Club are to promote wetlands conservation through the support of young scientists in their fieldwork and research. Applications are reviewed by a selection committee of practicing wetland scientists.

For the purposes of this scholarship, coastal wetlands are defined as those tidal or nontidal wetlands found within coastal states, including the Great Lakes. Applicants should be enrolled in a graduate program (M.S. or Ph. D.) at a university within the United States.

Selection criteria is based on technical merit of proposed work and the degree to which the work is relevant to the Garden Club objective of promoting wetlands conservation.

There is a preference for students who are early in their degree programs and have field-based research that occurs in coastal wetlands of the U.S.

Applicants must provide the following by January 15, 2012:

A resume/C.V.;
A completed 2012 GCA application form; and
A letter of endorsement from the applicant’s graduate faculty advisor.

***** See application requirements for detailed instructions. *****

GCA Wetlands Scholarship Award Recipients in 2012

DOROTHEA LUNDBERG is a PhD candidate in the Marine, Estuarine and Environmental Science program at the University of Maryland. She received her MS from that program and did her undergraduate work at Richard Stockton College of NJ. Dorothea (Dot) was the top choice of the Selection Committee at VIMS. She has extensive experience in hydrology and is currently primary researcher working on 2 sites of grid-ditched marshes on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. She will be comparing the hydrological, nutrient and ecological conditions of ditched vs. unditched sites to determine the health of ditched marshes and to predict ecosystem responses to restoration practices consisting of ditch plugging.

LEE SCHOEN is a MS candidate at Central Michigan University, having received a BA in Biology with aquatic emphasis from Grand Valley State University, MI. His research involves highly technical scientific methods and instrumentation. He is studying the carbon isotopes from tissue samples of fish to estimate the proportion of diet coming from wetlands food sources. Additionally, he will study the otoliths or minute calcerous particles found in the inner ear of fish which, like tree rings, grow from year to year and register near shore and wetland habitat use. His studies will take place in wetlands around Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Lee is not all work; he is also a competitive long-distance runner!

BART CHRISTIAEN is a PhD candidate at the University of South Alabama, working at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, the State of Alabama’s Marine Science Institution. He is from Belgium where he received a MS in both Biology and Environmental Science and in Oceanography. He is exploring a new and novel research study as to whether “Diurnal Shifts in Dissolved Oxygen Stimulate Water Column Denitrification in Wetland areas?” He will take early morning water samples at bayous and lagoons associated with coastal wetlands to detect populations of denitrifiers during periods of low oxygen concentrations. He is performing these experiments since he recognizes that one way to encourage conservation and protection of wetlands is by “fully quantifying the ecosystem services they provide”.

AKASHA FAIST is in the doctoral program at the University of Colorado Boulder in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department. Her research is on vernal (ephemeral) pool plant community ecology and restoration in California, at a Travis AFB retired runway. She is studying how spatial and interspecific variation in litter decomposition may govern native plant performance in restored and naturally occurring pools. She will test to see whether decomposition rates vary between invaded pools with invasive species producing more biomass and more litter and vernal pools with native species. She will also look at seed bank storage dynamics to see how native plant seed banks differ between invaded and native-dominated vernal pools. Akasha is using video classroom lessons of her sites to work with a 6th grade class.

GCA Wetlands Scholarship Award Recipients in 2011

Leah Hope-Menzies Beckett - Assessing the Vulnerability of Coastal Marshes to Sea Level Rise - University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland

"I love mud! You have to love mud to love coastal marshes, and I love coastal marshes! Since 2007 I have worked with Dr. Andy Baldwin at the University of Maryland studying the effects of sea-level rise on coastal wetlands. I started doing research for a master's degree and enjoyed it so much, I stayed on to do research for my PhD. I hope to complete my dissertation work in 2012 and to find a research position in the field of coastal marsh ecology through a field work-intensive post-doc or job."

Beckett Interim Report -
September 2011

Marissa Lee - Towards a predictive framework for invasive plant impacts on native wetland communities, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

"Previous studies have helped describe consequences of exotic plant success on ecosystem health, but we still have difficulty explaining and predicting invasion-induced changes to ecosystems. Using the exotic riparian grass, Microstegium vimineum (Japanese Stiltgrass) I will be developing a predictive framework for exotic plant impacts on native communities through ecosystem processes by measuring (1) how the plant's effects on and responses to nitrogen cycling transformations vary across the different light, nitrogen fertility, and soil moisture conditions that M. vimineum encounters in its invaded range and (2) how nitrogen cycling feedbacks affect M. vimienum's competitive ability across those environmental conditions. This work, which will be conducted in Durham, NC, will soon lend predictive power to land managers targeting invasion fronts and inform restoration efforts about the processes that must be overcome if native species are to re-establish in exotic-dominated systems."

Lee Interim Report -
September 2011

Owen McDonough - Biogeochemistry at the Terrerstrial_Aquatic Interface: The Role of Agricultural Wetland Restoration on Downstream Hydrologic Intermittency and Nitrogen Processing - University of Maryland, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, Solomons, Maryland

"For my dissertation research I am investigating the hydrological and ecological links between freshwater wetlands and adjacent stream networks. More specifically, I am studying 1) the impact of wetland status (near-pristine [forested], hydrologically restored [formerly farmed], degraded [actively farmed]) on the hydrologic connectivity between freshwater depressional wetlands and adjacent temporary streams, and 2) the influence of wetland status on the ecosystem structure and function of those streams as well as downstream perennial reaches. I am conducting this work in the headwaters of the Choptank River watershed on Maryland's Eastern Shore."

McDonough Interim Report - September 2011

Lori Sutter - Intra- and Inter-specific Response of TIdal Wetland Plants to increases in Salinity as Predicted by Changes in Sea Level - Virginia Institute of Marine Science, The College of William & Mary, Gloucester Point, Virginia

I’m interested in the mechanisms that are driving changes in vegetation assemblages in tidal fresh water (and near-fresh water) marshes that result from increases in salinity expected with sea level rise. My work will document dynamics of plant dominance and nutrient assimilation in space and time along a salinity gradient in the Pamunkey and York Rivers in Virginia (a sub-estuary of the Chesapeake Bay). I’m investigating the eco-physiology of dominant species subjected to low levels of salinity and the role that increasing salinity will have on biotic interactions – both between different species of plants and between plants and the herbivores that feed on them. The results can help those responsible for managing nutrient inputs into the river adjust the “Bay Diet” in light of rising sea level, maintain diversity and manage habitats for fishery nurseries and spawning grounds. When finished with my doctorate, I hope to find a teaching position at a small college where I can cultivate interest in the natural world.