Quick Looks
University’s Funded Research Reaches New Heights
Research is rocking at UM, where for the second year in a row the University set a record for external funding.
UM brought in $87 million in funding during the 2016 fiscal year to support homegrown Montana research, entrepreneurship and statewide outreach, exceeding last year’s record total of $83 million.
Scott Whittenburg, UM vice president of research and creative scholarship, says University faculty members and staff reached the record through 684 submitted proposals, which was almost 10 percent more than the previous year.
“We have a growing reputation as a research university, with nationally and internationally renowned scientists,” Whittenburg says. “Our students get to work in amazing labs and learn from great researchers, who also regularly inspire budding Montana scientists through dynamic K-12 outreach programs. At the same time, this activity spurs entrepreneurship and attracts new companies to power our economy.
“We couldn’t be more excited about our current trajectory in funded research.”
In fiscal year 2016, 10 faculty members had at least $1 million in research expenditures. The top five earners were:
- Reed Humphrey, College of Health Professions and Biomedical Sciences, $6.3 million
- Vida Wilkinson, Missoula College, $4.4 million
- F. Richard Hauer, Center for Integrated Research on the Environment, $4.4 million
- Donald Loranger, Defense Critical Language and Culture Program, $3.6 million
- Stephen Sprang, Center for Biomedical Structure and Dynamics, $2.7 million
UM Ranks High in North America for Ecology Research Productivity
UM ranked №5 in North America for its scholarly productivity in the field of ecology, according to a recent study published in the journal Ecosphere.
Ranking ahead of many well-respected research universities such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton, UM’s faculty lead the pack in publications, number of citations and the impact of their research moving the field forward.
“The University of Montana, in terms of its productivity and impact on the broad field of ecology, is in the top 3 percent of research institutions in North America,” says Ric Hauer, director of UM’s Center for Integrated Research on the Environment. “The UM ecology faculty is not only running with the big dogs like Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley — but actually is one of the big dogs.”
Ecology encompasses topics such as global loss of biodiversity, the interface between climate change and plants and animals, and the impact of humanity on the planet, among other issues.
The study, which was conducted by UM alumna Megan Keville under the direction of UM Professor Cara Nelson and Hauer, compared 316 North American academic institutions between the years of 2000 and 2014 and ranked them based on the number of papers published in the top-40 ranked ecology journals worldwide. The study and full rankings are online at http://bit.ly/2lQ7BBh.
Although the study shows UM ranked №5 on the list, when one normalizes the data based on faculty size, UM rises to the
№1 position in North America. Most other universities in the top 20 have faculty sizes two to five times larger than UM.
Research Reveals Importance of Gravel-Bed Rivers
Gravel-bed river floodplains are some of the most ecologically important habitats in North America, according to a study last year by scientists from the U.S. and Canada. Their research shows how broad valleys coming out of glaciated mountains provide highly productive and important habitat for a large diversity of aquatic, avian and terrestrial species.
This is the first interdisciplinary research at the regional scale to demonstrate the importance of gravel-bed rivers to the entire ecosystem.
Professor Ric Hauer, director of UM’s Center for Integrated Research on the Environment, leads a group of authors who looked at the full continuum of species and processes supported by gravel-bed rivers, from microbes and bull trout to elk to grizzly bears.
The paper, “Gravel-Bed River Floodplains are the Ecological Nexus of Glaciated Mountain Landscapes,” was published online in Science Advances at http://bit.ly/2liwicg.
Gravel-bed rivers are found throughout the world in mountainous regions, but the complexity of how they benefit species had not been extensively studied before now.
The team of scientists on the study includes Hauer; Harvey Locke, co-founder of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative; UM professors Vicky Dreitz, Mark Hebblewhite, Winsor Lowe and Cara Nelson; Clint Muhlfeld, research aquatic ecologist from the U.S. Geological Survey; Professor Stewart Rood from the University of Lethbridge; and biologist Michael Proctor of Birchdale Ecological.
For the entire Yellowstone to Yukon region, which stretches from Yellowstone National Park north into Canada’s northern Yukon Territory, gravel-bed river floodplains support more than half the region’s plant life. More than 70 percent of the region’s bird species use the river plains, while deer, elk, caribou, wolves and grizzly bears use the floodplains for food, habitat and important migration corridors.
“If we think about the Flathead River for example, flowing from British Columbia into the U.S. and along the western edge of Glacier National Park,” Hauer says, “we might wrongly imagine that the river is only water flowing in the channel. But, these gravel-bed systems are so much more than that. The river flows over and through the entire floodplain system, from valley wall to valley wall, and supports an extraordinary diversity of life. The river is so much bigger than it appears to be at first glance.”
Gravel-bed river systems provide complex habitats for species because of the system’s ever-changing features: gravel and cobbles that move with flooding, scoured and changing river channels, and a constant flow of water into and out from the gravels of the river. This water extends across the U-shaped valley bottom often hundreds of meters or more from the river channel and supports a complex food web that includes aquatic species, as well as a vast diversity of avian and terrestrial species. These processes are driven by the river’s changes in volume throughout the year.
The gravel-bed rivers also provide essential connectivity across the landscape for both terrestrial and aquatic organisms, which is critical in a time of climate change.
These floodplains also are some of the most endangered landforms worldwide. Human settlement, agriculture, industry and transportation often occur in flat, productive river valleys. While there are many protected areas in the northern Rocky Mountains of the United States and Canada, such as Yellowstone and Banff national parks, humans have altered the structure and function of the gravel-bed river floodplains outside, as well as inside, these protected areas.
“The increasing pressures of climate change mean that species need continued access to intact gravel-bed river ecosystems in order to survive,” Hauer says. “These systems must be protected, and those that are already degraded must be restored.”
UM Biomedical Center Earns $10.5 Million Grant
A University research center was awarded $10.5 million from the National Institutes of Health.
The major, five-year award will augment UM’s Center for Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics, which works to unravel the molecular foundations of biological processes in health and disease. The funding is a Phase II NIH Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) award.
“Earning this award is a major success for our faculty,” says Stephen Sprang, the center director and a UM biology professor. “I want to thank everyone who helped us by proposing outstanding science, building productive core facilities and organizing vibrant activities.”
He says the award will provide up to three years of research funding to four faculty investigators. It also will support the BioSpectroscopy Research Laboratory, the Molecular Computational Core, the Protein Expression and X-ray Diffraction Core, small-molecule X-ray diffraction services, and nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry core facilities.
“Importantly, this funding will provide substantial startup funding for up to two new faculty hires,” Sprang says. “This will fulfill critical research and teaching needs in three basic and biomedical science-oriented UM departments. Our initial Phase I funding allowed us to hire five outstanding faculty members who already have done great things here at UM, and we expect similar results from the new additions.”
He says the funding also will support the Center for Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics administrative core, which provides pre- and post-grant award service and counseling to the UM researchers who so far have been awarded about $15 million in funding from grants submitted through the center.
Funding also will continue support for the center’s seminar sponsorships, a research symposium, a summer graduate fellowship program and semi-annual grant workshops.
Students Travel to Vietnam to Study Climate Change
Eight UM students visited Vietnam in January to study climate change impacts and adaptation in the Mekong Delta during the seventh annual Winter Session in Vietnam study abroad field course.
Accompanied by Nicky Phear, program coordinator of UM’s Climate Change Studies Program, students studied with Vietnamese experts, explored national park lands and worked alongside Vietnamese farmers, who see the impacts of climate change and are innovating new ways to address its effects. Students shared their stories online at https://umvietnamstudy.wordpress.com/.
“Seeing the innovation in climate change adaptation, in a country far less economically poised than the U.S., was both humbling and inspiring,” says 2015 participant Shanti Johnson. “As we continue to debate climate science locally, in Vietnam, people are already meeting it head-on with ideas that are so simple, yet brilliant — and I’ve been telling people about them.
“A trip that, for me, started as a whim has now resulted in three years of study and work in Southeast Asia. I have to laugh, because I never thought a winter session course would have that effect.”
One of the first programs of its kind in the U.S., Winter Session in Vietnam was launched in 2011 with a grant from the U.S. Department of State. The program has continued to grow during the past six years, building on UM and the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center’s strong institutional ties with Vietnam.
Book About Osprey Project Wins National Award
“The Call of the Osprey,” a book focusing on UM’s Montana Osprey Project, won the 2016 Award for the Best Science Book for Children K-12 from the National Science Teachers Association and the Children’s Book Association.
Written by Missoula resident and author Dorothy Hinshaw Patent and featuring photos by William Munoz, the book is part of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s “Scientists in the Field” series, which fuels the curiosity children have about the natural world by showing them the cool things scientists do.
During their research for the book, Patent and Munoz spent time in the field and the lab with scientists, seeing how they analyze osprey blood and feather samples for heavy metals.
The Montana Osprey Project was started by Rob Domenech, director of the Raptor View Research Institute; Heiko Langner, a former UM researcher and director of the Environmental Biogeochemistry Lab; and Erick Greene, a UM professor in the Division of Biological Sciences. It focuses on research, education and the conservation of ospreys throughout western Montana, as well as the effects of heavy metal contamination on them.
“That the book is about our research project is incredibly cool and gratifying, and I am so proud of Dorothy and Bill,” Greene says.
University’s Wildlife Biology Program Ranked №1
For many years the UM Wildlife Biology Program has been heralded for its excellence. Now, that reputation has migrated across the continent.
Last year, the wildly successful program earned the top spot in a national analysis of places to study wildlife. UM’s Wildlife Biology Program — which offers students unrivaled access to hands-on, outdoor learning opportunities — is the №1 program in the U.S. and Canada, according to Academic Analytics.
The ranking is based on faculty productivity. UM faculty members were compared to their peers in top programs in two countries based on publications, citations, research grants and notable awards.
“Our faculty members excel as scientists and educators,” says Chad Bishop, UM Wildlife Biology Program director. “Our people are more productive scientists overall than others at peer institutions, even when some of those peer institutions are generating more grant dollars for research. That speaks volumes to me about the quality of work being performed by our faculty.”
The Wildlife Biology Program is an interdisciplinary group of faculty from the College of Forestry and Conservation, the Division of Biological Sciences within the College of Humanities and Sciences, and the Montana Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit. The program also has been recognized as one of three Programs of National Distinction at UM.
“I’ve talked to a number of people who have been on this campus for years,” Bishop says, “and they believe this may be the first time a UM program has been ranked №1 by such a distinguished organization.”
Academic Analytics is a provider of high-quality, custom business intelligence data and solutions for research universities in the United States and the United Kingdom. The Academic Analytics Database includes information on more than 270,000 faculty members associated with more than 9,000 doctorate programs and 10,000 departments at more than 385 universities in the United States and abroad. These data are structured so they can be used to enable comparisons at a discipline-by-discipline level, as well as overall university performance.
Student Earns Grant to Study Mountain Lions
UM wildlife biology master’s degree candidate Lara Brenner was awarded $20,000 last fall from the Summerlee Foundation to investigate the effects of hunting on mountain lions, which also are known as cougars.
Brenner, from Houston, will use a social-ecological approach to understand the public’s views of mountain lion hunting. She’ll also measure how stressed the cougars are by analyzing hormones in hair samples.
She is advised by Professor Elizabeth Covelli Metcalf in UM’s College of Forestry and Conservation and also will work with Professor Creagh Breuner on the stress-hormone analysis and with Hugh Robinson, who directs the landscape analysis lab for Panthera, an organization that protects cat species.
Brenner will conduct research in communities in several different states where cougar hunting restrictions vary. For example, in Montana hunting mountain lions with dogs is allowed, while in Washington dogs are not allowed. Brenner will ask residents how hunting impacts social tolerance for the species.
The Summerlee Foundation supports wildlife research projects.
Project Helps Government Protect Rare Bats
It’s not science fiction: Nate Schwab listens in on bat chats.
Schwab, a senior bat ecologist at TetraTech in California, works with UM’s Center for Integrated Research on the Environment as part of a five-year, $45 million cooperative agreement between the University and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The project is to “collect, analyze and apply resource data to implement land rehabilitation and maintenance for optimal management of public lands under control of the Department of Defense.”
Bats are the second-most diverse group of mammals in the world, providing billions in pest control, plant pollination and seed dispersal for agriculture. There are about 45 bat species in the U.S., and eight of those are listed as threatened or endangered.
The latest project builds upon a previous CIRE project conducted with the help of Schwab last summer. This first study examined only the northern long-eared bat, surveyed at 14 different U.S. Air Force bases in the central U.S.
“The difference between these two projects is the scale and habitat,” says Mike Keech, the bat ecology research coordinator for this project. “We are going from 14 to 48 bases and from one species to all threatened bat species. We are essentially looking for what’s there.”
The purpose of this research is to discover as many possible current habitats for threatened and endangered bat species in the U.S. The DOD is required to follow specific guidelines with animals classified as endangered according to the Endangered Species Act. The CIRE research team is conducting this fieldwork across the southern and eastern portions of the U.S.
The research team set up a series of acoustic monitors — five per base — that operate for several months. These have been set to automatically turn on at a pre-determined time during the hours when these bats are expected to be most active.
— Mona Nazeri
GLIMPSE
- Last fall, the UM Creative Writing Program named Bitterroot Salish tribal member, author and Professor Debra Magpie Earling its first Native American director since the program’s founding in 1920.
- UM history Professor Anya Jabour was appointed the University’s 11th Regents Professor during the Nov. 17 Board of Regents meeting in Missoula. The title is bestowed on faculty members who demonstrate unusual excellence in instruction, scholarship and service. Jabour specializes in U.S. women’s history and has been a professor at UM for over 20 years. She also serves as a historical consultant for the PBS Civil War-era miniseries “Mercy Street,” which returned for its second season in January.
- The Flathead Lake Biological Station has been awarded a $2 million grant to study diversity among insects, crustaceans and other arthropods in river floodplains and how they might be affected by climate change. The four-year, NSF award went to researcher Gordon Luikart and co-investigators Jack Stanford and Brian Hand.
- The groundbreaking climate change adaptation research of L. Scott Mills, UM associate vice president of research for global change and sustainability, was the focus of a new book by acclaimed young-adult author Sneed Collard III. The book, “Hopping Ahead of Climate Change — Snowshoe Hares, Science and Survival,” describes Mills’ 18 years of research on snowshoe hares, seasonal coat color change and the potential for animals to adapt to climate change. It is intended for ages 10 and older.
- Climate change is melting glaciers, reducing sea-ice cover and increasing wildlife activity — with some of the most dramatic impacts occurring in the northern high latitudes. New research by UM affiliate scientist Adam Young and UM fire ecology Associate Professor Philip Higuera projects an increased probability of fires occurring in Alaskan boreal forest and tundra under a warmer, drier climate. Their work recently was published in the journal Ecography at http://bit.ly/2lTxzqM.
- The National Opera Association honored the UM Opera and UM Symphony Orchestra for its 2016 production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Gondoliers.” NOA named “The Gondoliers” as the Opera Production Competition’s third-place winner during the national convention in Santa Barbara, California, in January.
- UM’s Rural Institute for Inclusive Communities has been awarded a five-year, $1.2 million contract with the University of Kansas that includes funding from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research. The contract is part of a larger $4.3 million grant received by KU. It will fund a new center that will focus on modifying home environments and enhancing the personal skills of people with disabilities as a way to increase their community participation.
- A UM team has been awarded nearly $3 million in NSF funding to develop an innovative, interdisciplinary graduate training program focused on interactions among food, energy and water. The program, “UM BRIDGES: Bridging Divides across the Food, Energy and Water Nexus,” will combine new interdisciplinary course offerings, workshops and internships, international experiences and cutting-edge research to educate future leaders at the food-energy-water nexus and cement UM’s status as a leader in this realm. UM faculty members Laurie Yung and Andrew Wilcox lead the effort.
- UM and its partners received a five-year, $20 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to address health disparities facing Native American communities in Montana and Alaska. Faculty members Kari Harris, Erin Semmens and Tony Ward from UM’s School of Public and Community Health Sciences and Lisa Blank from UM’s Phyllis J. Washington College of Education and Human Sciences are part of the grant.
- Kasper Hansen, a UM assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, received a five-year, $1.6 million grant from NIH. His research focuses on N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors in the central nervous system, which are critically involved in neuronal development, sensory processing, memory and learning.
