The Resource Ecology and Management (REM) Facility

The Resource Ecology and Management (REM) facility is operated by the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University. The facility is a field research facility that provides lab space for various projects. The facility has several buildings in which research experiments are conducted. Aquaculture, fish behavior and management, and biological control of exotic plant species are just a few major projects that are housed at the facility. Other users include the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Unit in the department, Extension, SAREP and other researchers from the Department of Ecology and Systematics, Crop and Soil Sciences and the Department of Agriculture and Biological Engineering.

The main building on the facility provides research and office space for students and faculty. The building contains a shop area for building research equipment, several wet labs for analyzing water samples, conducting age and growth studies on fish, and invertebrate identification. The building has several freezers for samples and storage space for research equipment.

The grounds of the facility provide an excellent place for the study of the biological control of non-native plant species. There is a greenhouse on the facility that provides a rearing place for both the non-native plants and the insect predators. Researchers have begun rearing the bugs on artificial diets in the lab and in the past few years there has been a significant decrease in the amount of purple loosestrife at the facility.

The facility has also been used in part for some other experiments that have been conducted at Cornell University. The following is a list of the projects:

• The effectiveness of capsacin on deterring gray squirrels from bird feeders and other small mammal projects.
• The viability of seeds after years of dormancy in soil
• Germination rates of garlic mustard seeds
• Biological control of purple loosestrife
• Stream diversity and habitat studies
• A comparison of the behavior, morphology, and physiology of four strains of brook trout
• Age and growth of white suckers in different lake systems
• Identification of pelagic fish larvae

For additional information about the facility please contact:

Patrick J. Sullivan, Director at (607) 255-8213, pjs31@cornell.edu

Michael Ashdown, Facility Manager at (607) 255-5469, mla14@cornell.edu