Shoals Marine Lab hosts undergrad research program

By David Brand

Shoals Marine Laboratory, the exquisitely situated field classroom in the Gulf of Maine, this summer welcomed its first federally funded students under the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. The 10 students from across the country, including three from Cornell, spent eight weeks, June 26-Aug. 18, studying and researching subjects as diverse as snails that change sex and the interactions of sea stars, urchins, crabs and lobsters.

Research Experience for Undergraduates students Rob Hirsch, left, from Cornell, and Jarrett Byrnes, from Brown University, study organisms at the water's edge this summer at Shoals Marine Laboratory, which is operated jointly by Cornell and the University of New Hampshire. David Brand/Cornell News Service

Operated under Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in cooperation with the University of New Hampshire (UNH) at Durham, the Shoals Marine Lab focuses on undergraduate education and research. It has been awarded $192,000 over two years for a program that enables students to choose from a suite of research subjects that, in many cases, will be turned into senior honors theses.

"It has been just a fantastic program, with research going on all over the island," said James Morin, the Bartels Director of Shoals.

Shoals is on Appledore Island, the largest (95 acres) of the nine primary islands in the Isles of Shoals, six miles off Portsmouth, N.H. The island's pristine marine and terrestrial habitats, with its rocky intertidal and gravel beaches, make it an ideal location for total immersion in marine biology.

Morin, a Cornell professor of marine biology, and his wife, Myra Shulman, a senior research associate at Cornell specializing in reef ecology, applied to the NSF for funding last year.

"We didn't hear until quite late in the spring, but even so we received 61 applications for just nine places," said Morin. (The lab was able to take on a 10th student when one successful applicant received matching funding from Howard Hughes Medical Institute.)

The students were chosen by Shoals faculty, who work intensely with students over the summer, and include Morin and Shulman. Two of the REU faculty are from UNH and one is from Brown University.

Besides the three REU students from Cornell -- Walter Chen, Joanna Gyory and Rob Hirsch -- three students came from Brown, and the others from Smith College, the University of Puerto Rico, the University of Rhode Island and the University of San Diego. All are entering their senior year.

"The students told us they have never worked so hard and never had so much fun," said Morin.

In addition to their classes, they held daily and weekly meetings, sharing original literature and brainstorming individual research projects.

Said Morin: "This program is bringing in different types of students who are clearly motivated toward going to graduate school and carrying on in marine science. From that point of view the program really does make a difference."

He added that the students' research on the island will give them a distinct educational advantage "so that the probability of doing well in graduate school is very high."

Until this year, the 225 to 250 students, largely undergraduates, who have studied on the island every year for the past 34 summers have been supported by a mix of tuition and $60,000 in scholarships from Shoals, Cornell and UNH. The REU students not only are fully funded for room and board while on the island, but they also are paid $250 a week to replace lost earnings from summer jobs.

For Cornell student Hirsch, who said he has been "trying to pay for my Cornell education as I go through as much as I can," the stipend makes a big difference. Together with funding he also received from the Hughes program, "I have made up for my loss of a summer job," he said.

Hirsch's time on the island this summer was both instructive and joyful, he said. "I received so much support from faculty and students alike. This is certainly pushing me in the direction of a career in marine biology."

A biology major in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Hirsch spent his eight weeks on the island researching hermaphroditic snails called Crepidula fornicata, whose basic ecology is not well understood.

"They exist largely in stacks, and there are a whole suite of theories about why an individual should change sex," he said.

REU student Jarrett Byrnes, a biology major from Brown, spent his time on the island researching an invasive species of flatworm called Convoluta convoluta that has colonized the Gulf of Maine over the past five years. "Getting REU funding means I can stay here and get a firmer grasp on my research," he said. "Being able to come here for an extended period of time to stay in the field, with time to think, has been wonderful. You work yourself very hard."

Morin is so delighted at the outcome of the first summer of the NSF-funded program on Appledore Island that he is considering creating introductory marine ecology courses for REU students without previous experience. That would mean the students spending even longer periods on the island. Hopefully, said Morin, the extra study time would be supported by scholarship funds.