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Research at BFL
The diversity and interdisciplinary nature of the research that Brackenridge Field Laboratory supports, along with its strong role in mentoring undergraduate and graduate research continue to make BFL an extraordinary and unique research unit. Faculty, research associates and graduate and undergraduate students conduct experimental studies of microevolution, evolutionary systematics and phylogenetics, ethology, population biology, physiological ecology and ecosystem dynamics. |
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BFL offers a unique ecological research opportunity to continue to expand on benchmark studies of environmental and organismal change within both an urban and near-urban context. For example, documentation of native ant communities at BFL prior to imported fire ant invasion placed BFL in the unique position to become a research center on this species. |
The extreme environmental divergence, positions the Brackenridge Field Lab at the forefront of ecosystem level studies of environmental change due to changes in climate, urbanization patterns, invasive species, and population, community and ecosystem level phenomena. |
BFL Bibliography
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| Faculty and Students from St. Edwards University use facilities at BFL |
Dr. Allan Hook, currently the Brother Lucian Blersch Professor of Natural Sciences at St. Edward’s University, has utilized BFL facilities and grounds since 1985, when he first arrived in Austin as a lecturer in zoology at UT. His research has focused on the behavior, systematics and biodiversity of solitary wasps, especially digger wasps (Spheciformes). |
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| Over the years Dr. Hook has been able to involve number of undergraduate students in field or lab studies at BFL. Most recently (summer 2006) he supervised three undergraduate students who studied the influence of temperature and parasites on the biology of the sand wasp, Bembecinus neglectus in Pedernales Falls State Park. Students spent 4 weeks in the field and then two weeks at BFL analyzing and writing up their results. |
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