NewsRelease

DR. HERSHEY RECEIVES $1.2 MILLION GRANT,
CONTRACT FOR ECOLOGICAL STUDIES

GREENSBORO -- Dr. Anne Hershey, professor and head of the Department of Biology at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, has been awarded a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct a three-year study of Arctic-lake food webs and productivity in shallow lakes. She will be conducting the study in Alaska.

Dr. Anne Hershey

The results of this study will provide information on how landscape variation and changes in land use can affect lakes across large regional scales.

The science departments at UNCG consistently look for ways to involve undergraduates in faculty research, and the project is designed to do just that. It will involve three undergraduate research assistants who will study productivity of algae, invertebrates, and fish in shallow Arctic lakes, and evaluate how these organisms respond to variability in the watershed.

In addition, Hershey has been awarded a $39,500 contract from Duke University -- funded through an Environmental Protection Agency grant to that institution -- to help develop an integrated ecological-economic model to assess the health of river basins in the Southeast, in relation to timber harvesting. Her contribution will be used toward developing a model that can be used by land managers and planners in 13 states of the Southeast to project how changes in timber harvesting can affect water quality and fisheries.

Hershey, the Julia Taylor Morton Distinguished Professor of Life and Health Science, joined the faculty of UNCG in 1998. An internationally-known ecologist, her research on the interactions between flora and fauna in Arctic, Minnesota and North Carolina waters has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the North Carolina Water Resources Research Institute, and the Minnesota Sea Grant program. She has published more than 50 articles, many in major academic journals, and is frequently invited to present research lectures in the United States and internationally.

Her recent collaboration with 14 other researchers examined the role of small streams from Alaska to Puerto Rico in controlling nitrogen pollution in lakes, rivers and estuaries --  including North Carolina, where excessive levels of nitrogen and pollutants have been implicated in fish kills. The study, "Control of Nitrogen Export from Watersheds by Headwater Streams," appeared in the April 6 issue of "Science." The study found that small streams are key to cleaning up water. The authors concluded that restoration and preservation of small stream ecosystems should be a central focus in efforts to preserve or clean up lakes, rivers and estuaries.

Prior to coming to UNCG, Hershey was a biology professor at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. She received her Ph.D. from North Carolina State University.

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