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SAV Facilities
The Kemp-Murray group utilizes a series of indoor and outdoor facilities to support experiments associated with SAV research. These facilities include
  • Laboratory including ovens for drying plant biomass
  • Indoor closed system tank facility with capacity to control water temperature from 5ºC
  • Outdoor tanks equipped with bubblers
  • Greenhouse with 14 closed-system tanks which can be filled with raw Choptank River water, filtered river water, or fresh water
  • 8 outdoor ponds fed from the Choptank River; inflow and outflow can be controlled
      SAV_Greenhouse      SAV_ponds

Multi-scale Experimental Ecosystem Research Center (MEERC)

MEERC is a mesocosm facility housing 5 sets of tanks which contain continuous data monitoring devices.  The system can be programmed to control a wide range of experimental parameters.  Please visit the MEERC website for a more in-depth description
MEERC Diagrahm Past MEERC projects involved a range of experiments with experimental ecosystems (mesocosms) of various sizes, shapes and habitats. We have run a series of experiments in our "pelagic-benthic" (PB = water plus sediments) mesocosms examining how variations in depth, width, volume, water residence time, and mixing rate affect ecosystem behavior under various light and nutrient conditions and different degrees of food-web complexity.These studies have contributed to an expanded understanding of how scale effects experimental results and rules for extrapolating to nature (e.g., Costanza et al. 1993; Chen et al. 1997; 2000; Petersen et al. 1997; 1998;1999; Murray et al. 2000; Kemp et al. 2001; Gardner et al. 2001). We have also conducted a range of experiments using shallow mesocosms with submerged and emergent vascular plants (seagrasses and marsh plants). Here we have examined effects of nutrient additions in various forms, flow-routes and frequencies. We have also studies how responses of experimental ecosystems