Collaborators
In addition to our campus facilities, faculty and students collaborate with a variety of agencies and nonprofits in Georgia and beyond. These collaborators provide Georgia Southern students and faculty access to a broad range of habitats, research and learning opportunities, and study sites.
Cumberland Island National Seashore. Cumberland Island is one of Georgia’s best-known barrier islands, home to biologically diverse estuaries, salt marsh, barrier beaches, and maritime forest. The National Park Service manages the site and facilities, including on-site housing. Cumberland is a frequent site for research by Georgia Southern faculty and students.
El Verde Field Station. The El Verde Field Station is located within El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico, surrounded by tropical rainforests representative of many Caribbean island ecosystems. Research at El Verde focuses on forest dynamics, stream ecology and hydrology, and ecosystem processes. Most research is conducted by the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program and by scientists from the University of Puerto Rico and universities in mainland US (including faculty and students from Georgia Southern).
Fort Stewart. Fort Stewart, the largest U.S. Army base east of the Mississippi, is a 280,000-acre facility located just south of Statesboro. Through collaborations with the Fort Stewart Division of Fish & Wildlife, Georgia Southern faculty and students have the opportunity to conduct research in some of the most extensive natural forested habitat remaining in southern Georgia, including areas that support endangered and threatened species such as Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Gopher Tortoise, Flatwoods Salamander, Gopher Frog, Bachman’s Sparrow, and Georgia Plume.
Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The Coastal Resource Division and the Nongame Wildlife Division of the DNR are instrumental in facilitating many of the research projects carried out by faculty and students. From funding graduate student research to providing access to DNR-controlled sites such as Ossabaw Island and Little Egg Island Bar, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources is an important collaborator for the department.
Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary. Gray’s Reef, located 20 miles off Sapelo Island, is one of the largest near shore live-bottom reefs in the southeastern United States. Encompassing 22 square miles of live-bottom habitat, Gray’s Reef is a submerged limestone area that attracts many species of sponges, tunicates, echinoderms, bryozoans, and benthic and pelagic fish, and is part of the only known winter calving ground for the endangered Northern Right Whale. Georgia Southern faculty and students visit the reef often as part of research collaborations with NOAA-National Marine Sanctuary biologists.
Highlands Biological Station. This field station is located at an elevation of 4000 ft in the Appalachian Mountains of southwest North Carolina (near the Georgia state line). Our department is a member institution, and this facilitates access to housing and research facilities for our faculty and students.
Mountain Lake Biological Station. Located at an elevation of 3800 ft in the Allegheny Mountains of southwest Virginia, this field station for the University of Virginia is an ideal resource for students wishing to work on montane plants or animals. Faculty from Georgia Southern teach at Mountain Lake on a regular basis and maintain research collaborations with UVA faculty.
Phinizy Center for Water Sciences. Phinizy Center’s mission is to promote environmental stewardship through research, education, and public outreach. Phinizy Center conducts research in watershed management and river basin ecology focusing on impacts to the Savannah River and its tributaries. Georgia Southern faculty and students collaborate with the center on research in the nearby Ogeechee River.
Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve. Sapelo Island, easily accessible from all of our campuses, is one of Georgia’s most biologically and culturally rich barrier islands. Georgia Southern students have worked in close cooperation with reserve staff to conduct research on vector-borne disease, forest ecology, oak restoration, and fish population dynamics.
Savannah River Site. The US Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, located about 2 hours north of Statesboro, encompasses almost 200,000 acres of forested habitat. Georgia Southern faculty and students have collaborated with scientists from USDA Forest Service, University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Lab, and Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Lab on a variety of ecological studies.
The Orianne Society. This nonprofit organization is devoted to the conservation of amphibians and reptiles, as well as the habitats on which they depend. The Department of Biology has a memorandum of understanding to collaborate and share resources in order to further the mission of conserving biodiversity in our region. Their Longleaf Savannas Initiative works to conserve the remarkable biodiversity of the longleaf-wiregrass ecosystem of southern Georgia, a system in which many of our faculty and students work.
Last updated: 4/3/2019
