Title:   NSF Awards $52.5 Million in Grants to Study Biocomplexity
Date:    October 12, 2000




Media contact:
October 12, 2000
Cheryl Dybas
NSF PR 00-73
(703) 292-8070/cdybas@nsf.gov

Program contact:
Joann Roskoski
(703) 292-8480/jroskosk@nsf.gov

                 NSF AWARDS $52.5 MILLION IN GRANTS
                         TO STUDY BIOCOMPLEXITY
The Interrelationship of Living Things with the Environment

   The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $52.5
million in research grants to scientists and engineers across the
country to foster a better understanding of the
interrelationships that arise when living things at all levels-
from molecular structures to genes to ecosystems--interact with
their environment.

   "The interplay between life and its environment is complex,"
explains NSF Director Rita Colwell.  "The connections are not
necessarily straightforward or easily discerned.  These ribbons
of interconnections are what NSF's biocomplexity awards will
study."

   In order to help preserve biodiversity, habitats, and
ecosystems, Colwell hopes to eliminate or reduce incomplete or
inconsistent scientific information.  "We need to study
environmental parameters in a broadly based, systematic manner,"
she says.

   This systems approach is the crux of biocomplexity studies,
says Colwell. Scientists and engineers must work in teams across
diverse fields that go well beyond biology to include physics,
systems engineering, economics, geochemistry and others, on
studies that extend from the submolecular to mass changes in
climate with potential for worldwide impact.  "Past investments
in molecular biology, remote sensing, information science, and
mathematics have yielded tremendous advances and powerful new
technologies and tools that now make biocomplexity research
possible," she says.  "The biggest, most exciting scientific
questions are now at the interfaces of traditional disciplines,
such as biological chemistry, computational ecology, and
environmental genetics."

     NSF's Special Competition in Biocomplexity: 2000 is the
second phase of a multi-year effort.  It supports full research
projects, as well as "incubation activities" that enable groups
of researchers who have not historically collaborated on
biocomplexity research to develop projects via workshops and
other planning activities.

     In the biocomplexity 2000 competition, 16 research projects
and 57 incubation activities were funded, with support from all
NSF research directorates and offices.

     Research project topics range from a study of how physical,
biological and human interactions shape the ecosystems of
freshwater bays and lagoons (Mark Bain, Cornell University); to
the biocomplexity of introduced avian diseases in Hawaii (David
Duffy, University of Hawaii); to the co-evolution of biodiversity
and the environment through geologic time (Charles Marshall,
Harvard University); to the evolution and ecology of perturbed
interactions (Claudia Neuhauser, University of Minnesota).

     Incubation activities include risk assessment of nonindigenous
species (David Lodge, University of Notre Dame); understanding the
role of urbanization as a driving force of global atmospheric change
(Robert Harriss, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research);
linking large-scale hydrological and biological processes in restoring
riparian forest ecosystems (Karen Holl, University of California at
Santa Cruz); and understanding genome evolution and macroevolutionary
diversification in green plants (Pamela Soltis, Washington State
University).

 -NSF-

For a complete list of research projects and incubation
activities, see: http://www.nsf.gov/home/crssprgm/be/biocomp-
init/bcawd00.htm