RESEARCH INTERNSHIP
WITH BIOSPHERE 2
Research Intern Title: Bio Systems Research
Duration: 8/25/14 – 12/18/14
Number of Internships: 10
Honors Credits: 3 – Grading: Superior, Pass, Fail
Research Faculty: Dr. Joost Van Haren
Application Deadline: 2/28/14
Hours of Research/Class: 10 hrs/week
Salary: Unpaid
SUMMARY: The Biosphere (B2) internships are suited for Honors students interested in exploring and engaging in the
scientific research being conducted at the B2 facility. B2 offers unique opportunities because of its ability to combine
varying scales, precise manipulation, and fine monitoring in controlled experiments related to hydrology, geology,
geochemistry, ecology, biology, physics, engineering, and atmospheric sciences. Continuation of projects beyond the initial
semester internship is encouraged. A B2 van typically drives from UA main campus to B2 each weekday and can be
utilized by active interns. Individuals completing this research internship will gain experience in conducting research
from the idea and proposal writing to data analysis and presentation. To learn more about B2; http://b2science.org/
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
REQUIRED APPLICATION MATERIALS
-Education – Preference given to sophomore and above
-Completed Application (see link above)
-Cum GPA – 3.2
-Resume
-Name of a Faculty Reference
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES:
-Scientific interest and background
-Desire and motivation to continually learn, reflect, improve, and innovate
-Ability to travel to B2 as needed (a minimum of one day or two half days per week)
INTERN RESPONSIBILITIES:
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:
-Meet regularly with faculty and cohort members (10 hours)
-How to work through a science/outreach project
-Work independently on a research project (135 hours)
-Techniques to measure environmental variables
-Perform analysis of environmental data
-Confidence to interact with the public visiting B2
-Assist in the creation of outreach materials to interpret
-Understanding of the science process
work to the Biosphere 2 visitors
-Understanding of science communication
-Handle B2 data confidentially and professionally
-Maintain professional relationships with fellow interns & B2 staff
-Present findings at the end of the semester
INTERNSHIP WITH BIOSPHERE 2
FALL 2014 APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS
Please submit your completed application by Friday, February 28, 2014. Email application and resume directly to Honors Internship
Coordinator Sharon Overstreet at sharono1@email.arizona.edu .
Your application should include the following:
 A completed application, including additional pages to address the six questions.
 Résumé, including descriptions of relevant laboratory, field, or data analysis experience
We encourage you to contact the researcher(s) you are interested in working with before you start the application process.
Complete all demographic and reference information below.
Name:
Student ID#:
Email Address:
Phone Number:
Permanent Address:
Summer Address:
Major(s):
College:
Class Standing:
Cumulative GPA:
Projected Date of Graduation:
Current Career Goals:
Faculty Reference Name:
Faculty Reference email:
Faculty Reference phone number:
Please use additional pages to answer the following questions:
Question #1: Why you are interested in the Biosphere 2 Honors internship opportunity? (150-word limit)
Question #2: As an intern at Biosphere 2, you would be part of a team that performs scientific research and outreach. What important
and/or unique traits would you bring to the team that would further the mission of Biosphere 2? (200-word limit)
Question #3: What role should science play in society? (250-word limit)
Question #4: Review the Biosphere 2 research project ideas (attached) that are included in the internship description, and list your top
three choices (researcher name and project topic). Describe why these topics are of interest to you. Why are these projects important
and worth pursuing? (350-word limit).
Question #5: Discuss your current extracurricular activities. (List and describe up to five activities)
Question #6: Please attach your one page resume to this document.
Please direct any questions to Sharon Overstreet at sharono1@email.arizona.edu or 520-626-5289.
BIOSPHERE 2 RESEARCH PROJECT IDEAS:
Topics for Honors interns include the areas described below. Detailed research questions, methodologies, and scheduling will be determined via
collaborative dialogue between the Honors intern and the Biosphere 2 mentor(s). The number of students that can be paired with any given mentor is
limited, so please consider having a back-up mentor or two in mind when applying. We encourage you to contact the researcher(s) you are interested
in working with before you start the application process. You are welcome to propose additional topics, but these are the ones for which we are best
prepared to support.
Ocean/Marine Research, Education, and Outreach
Rafe Sagarin, rafe@email.arizona.edu, Biosphere 2 and Institute of the Environment
Dr. Sagarin and colleagues are transforming the Ocean Viewing Gallery to house an exciting new display about exploring the Gulf of California. New
marine research, lesson plans, and other opportunities are being planned to accompany the future transition of the coral reef ecosystem to an analog
of our Desert Sea – the nearby Mexican ocean that exchanges nutrients, energy, and much more with our Sonoran Desert region. Join Dr. Sagarin and
snorkel in the B2 Ocean, learn marine science, help determine which species to introduce to the changing ecosystem, research the mangrove
swamp, and more.
Education and Outreach, Translating Research Findings for the Public
Kevin Bonine, kebonine@email.arizona.edu, Biosphere 2, College of Science, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Dr. Bonine is a herpetologist, ecologist, evolutionary biologist, and conservation biologist. He is also the Director of Education and Outreach at
Biosphere 2. Myriad opportunities are available with him to study how best to engage visitors and school groups at Biosphere 2, how best to teach
complex ecosystem principles, and how to ensure that researchers present their findings in a way that the public can understand. Talking with
visitors, generating surveys, planning nature trails or educational playgrounds, refining age-appropriate lessons, teaching school kids, and deploying
wildlife cameras can all be part of your internship experience.
Urban Ecosystems
Mitch Pavao-Zuckerman, mzucker@email.arizona.edu, Biosphere 2
Dr. Pavao-Zuckerman studies the contribution of organisms to biogeochemical cycling, one key point in linking across scales in ecosystems. The
response of organisms to their local environment reflects one way in which ecosystems directly respond to land-use change, and climate. His lab
group focuses on the connections between the structure of soil food webs and biogeochemical cycling in human-dominated landscapes and
urbanized ecosystems. The B2 campus serves as a model city ecosystem for such studies using meso-scale experiments related to green
infrastructure. He has focused on microbial and microfaunal diversity, carbon fluxes, and nutrient transformations at B2 and in wild and urbanized
environments in southwestern Arizona. Research projects for interns could focus on microcosm studies and observational studies in B2 experiments
and real world settings to investigate the interactions between the biological structure of ecosystems and nutrient cycling.
Soil Chemistry and Soil Formation
Katerina Dontsova, dontsova@email.arizona.edu, Biosphere 2
With Dr. Dontsova, students will have the opportunity to participate in one of several ongoing projects at B2 that focus on soil formation processes.
The projects range in scale from Landscape Evolution Observatory ( LEO) (340 m 2 area, 1 m soil depth) to large mesocosms with mesquite and
grasses ( 0.26 m2 area, 1 m depth) to smaller and more controlled systems (20 cm2 area, 30 cm depth). Students can observe the changes that are
happening in the rock during initial stages of soil formation as a result of water flow and biological activity. In the small mesocosms students will be
working on establishing the role of root-mycorrhizae-bacterial associations on the extent of total weathering and chemical denudation. Specifically,
to what extent does the biota (plants and microbes) contribute to weathering rock to form high surface area secondary solids while also diminishing
the loss of weathering products in solution. Interns may use direct measurements and geochemical modeling. Dr. Dontsova and her colleagues have
hypothesized that plant and microbial/fungal effects are synergistic and not simply additive. In larger mesocosms research can link measured
weathering, denudation, and carbon sequestration in the soil to water transpiration, plant photosynthesis, and plant and soil respiration; while LEO
research can focus on development of subsurface heterogeneity through hydrologic-geochemical coupling.
Ecology and Carbon & Water Cycling
Dr. Greg Barron-Gafford, gregbg@email.arizona.edu, Biosphere 2 and School of Geography
Dr. Barron-Gafford studies ecohydrology in mountain and valley ecosystems in the desert southwest. His interdisciplinary research involves
measuring leaf and soil carbon and water fluxes with the goal of better understanding how semiarid environments will respond to climatic stresses of
temperature, summer drought, and reduced mountain snow input. He and his colleagues can estimate the component fluxes within sub-canopy and
canopy species in the Santa Catalina Mountains and in the Santa Rita Experimental Range that border Tucson to the north and south, respectively.
Potential projects include measuring carbon and water exchange with the atmosphere in individual trees or whole sub-canopy plots to capture
variation due to canopy cover (a biological influence), slope and/or aspect (a physical driver), and changing climate (atmospheric
influences). Methods may include measures of plant water status, hemispherical photography (to quantify incoming solar radiation), and
leaf/plot/soil gas exchange with the atmosphere. His group is interested in how these ecosystems will perform under projected climate change
scenarios, which species might begin dominating the ecosystem, and how tightly coupled carbon uptake is to water availability in this semiarid, sky
island setting. The internship experience can include fieldwork or center on lab activities depending on student interest and availability. More
information on Barron-Gafford’s research and lab members can be found at http://www.u.arizona.edu/~gregbg/Home.html
Water Movement Across the Landscape
Peter Troch and Luke Pangle, lpangle@email.arizona.edu, Biosphere 2 and Hydrology & Water Resources
Drs. Troch and Pangle want to better understand catchment scale hydrological processes, including water transit time, through advanced
measurement, modeling and synthesis methods. The objectives of their research include: (1) Developing, testing and applying advanced observation
methods for hydrological fluxes and states at a range of spatial and temporal scales; (2) Developing hillslope to catchment scale hydrological
models for water and solute transport; and (3) Hydrological synthesis at the catchment scale with special attention to hydrological extremes. The
motivation of their work is to contribute to improved water resources management in the light of climate change and other human influences on the
hydrological cycle. Students working in their lab may work on water transit time estimation using stable isotope data from rain and streamflow
samples. The internship experience can include field work, lab work that includes running the laser spectrophotometer, and mathematical modeling
of flow and transport processes at catchment scales.
Plant Growth, Physiology, and Phenology
David Moore, davidjpmoore@email.arizona.edu, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Plants take up about half of all the carbon produced by humanity through the process of photosynthesis but there are many unanswered questions
about how long this will continue especially as spring arrives earlier, and autumn later, for some plant populations. Dr. Moore’s lab group aims to
discover the environmental triggers for major phenological events in cottonwood trees by studying patterns of leaf development, plant
photosynthesis, and growth. Interns will work at B2 using an experimental stand of trees. Depending on their interests students can learn how to
carry out physiological measurements, image analysis, spectral measurements of leaves, and other laboratory techniques.
Computer modeling of terrestrial hydrology, ecology, and climate change
Guo-Yue Niu, niug@email.arizona.edu, Biosphere 2 and Hydrology & Water Resources
To enhance our understanding of the interactions between the soil, plants, and air and their integrated behavior at hillslope and catchment scales,
Dr. Niu’s group is developing a Terrestrial Integrated Modeling System (TIMS) for modeling hydrological, microbial, geochemical, geomorphological,
and ecological processes at the Earth’s land surface. The coupled model will be used for interpreting LEO measurements and three other projects
funded by federal agencies: 1) an NSF-funded biology project for exploring the impacts of climate change and rainfall redistribution over complex
terrain on the spread of invasive species, 2) a DOE-funded Earth System Model (ESM) project to develop a global high spatial resolution land surface
modeling system for studying the interactions between climate and the global water cycle, and 3) an NSF-funded project to study the integrated
processes of energy, water and carbon in the Jemez-Catalina Critical Zone.
Smart Cities, Water Harvesting, Solar Electricity
Nathan Allen, nallen@email.arizona.edu, Biosphere 2
Allen currently coordinates the Biosphere 2 Model City research program utilizing the B2 campus as a test bed for research and development of
green technology integration including renewable energy, smart grid, rainwater and grey water systems, building management, and cyber security
systems. He studies the performance of novel solar PV installation methods; the ability of forecasting to reduce costs of variable energy generated by
renewables; the environmental impacts of large-scale solar development; and the water energy nexus. He manages corporate partnerships within the
solar PV, rainwater catchment, water and electric utilities, infrastructure monitoring and control, and data analytics industries. He collaborates with
academics from multiple universities in physics, optics, architecture, systems and industrial engineering, electrical and power engineering,
education, political science, economics, and earth, environmental and ecological sciences.
Rainforest Response to Climate Change and trace gas exchange across the soil-atmosphere boundary
Joost van Haren, jvanhare@email.arizona.edu, Biosphere 2 and Honors College Dr. van Haren studies the effect of climate change on tropical
ecosystem activity and in particular the exchange of greenhouse gases across the soil-atmosphere boundary.
Tropical forests are the most dynamic ecosystems in the world, however they are threatened by deforestation and climate change. The potential
response of tropical forests to climate change is uncertain, because little experimentation under predicted future environmental conditions
(increased temperature and decreased precipitation) has been done in tropical ecosystems. Biosphere 2 provides an opportunity to study tropical
ecosystem processes under future conditions. The student(s) involved in this project will have the opportunity to work within the B2 tropical forest to
investigate both plant and microbial responses to changing temperature and precipitation.
The exchange of greenhouse gases across the soil-atmosphere boundary greatly influences the global budgets of these gases, but is still poorly
understood, especially in regard to the influence of biology on the rates. In Biosphere 2, students will have the opportunity to measure the gas
exchange in a range of ecosystems from pure bare soil (LEO) to tropical vegetation.