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Cedar Creek Plant Ecology Internship

Position Overview:
CCESR has opportunities for students to work as plant community ecology interns, research field supervisors, and prescribed burn technicians. Many positions run from June through August, but some technicians will be needed as early as March and through October. As a research intern or technician, you will contribute to ongoing field experiments, have the opportunity to initiate individual research, attend scientific seminars, and interact with professors, post-docs, and graduate students.

Research Overview:
We have three large scale projects and several smaller scale experiments that require most of our intern resources. BioCON is one of the large scale experiments where we explore the ways in which plant communities respond to environmental changes such as increased nitrogen deposition, increased atmospheric CO2, decreased biodiversity, altered precipitation patterns, and increased temperatures. Another large scale project is the Big Biodiversity experiment that studies how plant diversity affects the rates, dynamics, and stability of ecological processes at the population, community, and ecosystem levels. Other experiments nested within the Big Biodiversity looks at factors such as irrigation and increased temperatures. The third large scale experiment, FAB, is looking at tree competition under different diversity levels. This experiment includes approximately 40,000 trees within a 30 acre field that will run for over 100 years. Throughout the summer we maintain and sample these experiments.

 Independent Project Opportunities:
As part of these positions you will have the opportunity to conduct your own research project with the guidance of a graduate student mentor. You can go through the entire research experience from writing a proposal to data collection to presenting your results at a symposium at CCESR. There will be workshops on different aspects of research.