Room G128
Director: Jim Diana
Size: 340 ft²
OSEH Certified

The primary focus of the Animal Analysis lab is animal body analysis, including determining age, growth, food habits and feeding rates, lipid content, and calorific equivalents. Special equipment includes calorimeters, soxhlet extraction materials, and image digitizing materials.

Room G139
Director: Mike Wiley
Size: 680 ft²

Supports research focused on freshwater rivers, lakes and wetlands. OSHA approved for formalin preserved sample processing, equipped with negative pressure hood, and continuous DI supply.  Facilities/capabilities include:  multiple low and high power microscope stations with video imaging and measurement capacity, and supporting Phase-contrast  and epi-flouresent microscopy; Equipment for manual nutrient and basic water chemistry analysis including a scanning 2nm bandwidth UV spectrophotometer, analytical balance, micro-balance,  a variety of field and lab conductivity, oxygen, turbidity sondes/meters;  field sampling gear for benthic macroinvertebrates (ponar, Hess, Surber) and fishes (backpack , tow barge and small boat mounted electrofishing  gear); hydrologic measurement capacity includes current meters (Marsh-McBirney, Swofford, Proce), two bridgeboards, boat mounted high frequency and pulse-coherent Doppler sonars, stage and well monitoring sensors; river sediment sampling equipment for suspended and bed loads.  Adjacent computing cluster supports GIS, numerical hydrologic, hydraulic, and ecological modeling.

Rooms G554/G556
Contact: Jim Diana
Size: 1500 ft²

The Aquatic Lab is designed around twin reservoirs. It is equipped for video recording and analysis, with high speed video cameras, underwater video cameras, video analyzers, digital monitors, frame grabbers and synchronization boards.

Room 1556/1558
Director: Mark Hunter
Size: 994 ft²

The purpose of the Chemical Ecology lab is to measure plant chemistry for use with research in species population and ecosystem processes. It contains a variety of centrifuges, analytical balances, a fiber analyzer, plate reader, and HPLC Mass Spectrometer. Research projects conducted in the lab include “Environmental Gradients and Variation in the Strength of Bird Predation on Oak Herbivores” and “Managing Forests Under Global Environmental Change: Soil Food Web Controls of Carbon Storage.”

The School of Natural Resources and Environment is located in the Samuel T. Dana Building on the northeast corner of the University of Michigan diag on central campus. Prior to NRE's residence in the building, it was used for nearly 60 years as a medical training facility. In 1961, the West Medical Building was renamed in honor of NRE's first dean, Samuel Trask Dana, and NRE - then the School of Natural Resources -- moved in.

The Dana Building recently underwent a major renovation. Its hundred-year-old infrastructure was upgraded and both classroom and office spaces were added. All facets of the renovation were performed with a sharp eye towards environmental responsibility. Everything from scrap disposal to finishing materials demonstrated cutting-edge environmental -- or "Green" -- practices. Please feel welcome to stop in for a self-guided tour [PDF] so that you can see the wonderful results of this green renovation.

Room 2064
Director: Johannes Foufopoulos
Size: 340 ft²
OSEH Certified

The Disease Ecology & Conservation Biology Lab investigates the ecology of parasitism and disease in vertebrates by studying the ecological, physiological and evolutionary aspects of host-parasite interactions. The lab has an environmental chamber and is equipped with dissecting microscopes, microscope cameras, and a -80oC  ultrafreeze, as well as additional equipment for ornithological, herpetological and wildlife field research. Recent projects include “Interactive Effects of Parasitism and Food Supplementation in a Natural Population of White-Crowned Sparrows” and “Effects of Forest Fragmentation on the Distribution and Prevalence of Wildlife Infectious Diseases in the Upper Midwest.”

Room 2531
Directors: William Currie/Inés  Ibáñez
Size:  370 ft²

To analysis our field data we implement hierarchical Bayes models that quantify the effects of environmental variability on the studied species. The inferential models that we developed accommodated many unmeasurable factors that affected demographic processes and the data that derived from them.  We plan to continue the implementation of this modeling approach and are therefore committed to investigating how new developments in ecological modeling and statistical analysis can contribute to our research program.

Room G140
Director: Allen Burton
Size: 580 ft²

Investigating ways to improve risk assessments of aquatic ecosystems by better linking exposure to stressors (chemical and physical) to adverse effects in biota. Particular focus on sediments and nonpoint source runoff and controlling factors of metal and organic chemical bioavailability. The laboratory has a variety of essential water and sediment quality sampling and assessment equipment/instrumentation, such as water quality sondes, sensors/electrodes, spectrophotometer, recirculating sediment flumes and has cultures of several species of organisms which are popular surrogates for toxicity threshold determinations. Ecotoxicity studies encompass a range of laboratory to field experimental designs, collaborating with biogeochemists, hydrologists, and ecologists.

Room 3315
Director: Daniel Brown
Size: 950 ft²

The Environmental Spatial Analysis Lab focuses on the application of remote sensing, GIS, and spatial modeling tools to a range environmental and social-environment questions and problems.  The lab maintains 6-8 high end computer workstations and software licenses for current versions of Leica Geosystems Imagine and ArcGIS. Many projects focus on causes and consequences of land use change in many parts of the world, including Southeastern Michigan, Russia, China, and Africa.

Room G136
Director: Jim Diana
Size: 317 ft²
ULAM Certified

The Fish Lab is comprised of two main aquarium rooms. It is approved as a live animal holding facility and is used for holding animals requiring water, most recently in an extensive study involving a large number of frogs. It is equipped with swimming flumes and respirometers and can be used for live recording of behavior.

The University of Michigan Library is one of the largest university library systems in the United States. With 19 libraries, including the Shapiro Science Library, the Shapiro Undergraduate Library, and the Art, Architecture and Engineering Library, the UM Library system is both an invaluable resource and an inevitable destination for all students.

Room G510
Director: Don Scavia
Size: 286 ft²
OSEH Certified

The Limnology Chemistry Lab is designed for standard limnological chemical analysis, including nutrient chemistry and chlorophyll analysis. Equipment includes a two-channel nutrient analyzer, fluorometers, a sonicating bath, auto-titrator for Winkler DO, and a peristaltic pump.

With 350 acres of varied habitats and an indoor conservatory, the Matthaei Botanical Gardens make a great recreational destination, and an excellent living classroom - regularly hosting lab sections of botany courses. The gardens are located about five miles from campus, within an easy bike ride or short car trip.

Don't let its park-like setting fool you. The Nichols Arboretum is actually a "living museum," with an extensive collection of plants that includes Michigan endemics and species from around the world. Because it is adjacent to campus, the Arboretum is a favorite student venue for jogging, a Frisbee toss, or quiet rest on a blanket. Several Program in the Environment courses visit the Arboretum for lectures and laboratories.

Room 3531
Director: Ivette Perfecto
Size: 500 ft²
OSEH Certified

The Plant & Insect Lab focuses on Insect and plant sorting and identification, and preparation of soils for soils analyses. It houses a wet lab, environmental chamber, and dissecting microscopes, as well as ant and insect collection cabinets. Recent projects include, “Vector-Transmitted Diseases in a Changing World: A Dynamical Perspective” and “Matrix Quality and the Value of Biodiversity: Conservation of Bats in Neotropical Agroforestry Systems.”

Saginaw Forest and Stinchfield Woods are owned by the University and operated by the School of Natural Resources and Environment for research and laboratory excursions. The School holds its annual fall campfire at Saginaw Forest. Stinchfield Woods is home to the Peach Mountain Observatory, which has regular open houses for the public.

Rooms G528, G532, G533, G539, G540
Director: Don Zak
Size:  ~2500 ft² (total)
OSEH Certified

This state-of-the-art soils lab focuses on investigating microbial transformations of carbon and nitrogen within soil and the significance of microbial communities in regulating ecosystem-level processes. Rooms in the lab are divided by purpose and designations include two Plant & Soil Preparation labs, two analytical labs, and a molecular lab. The lab is fully outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment and director Don Zak calls it, “Simply the best facility for the biological and chemical analysis of soil anywhere.” The soils lab hosts researchers from a variety of UM departments as well as other universities. Recent projects include, “Ecosystem Response to Elevated CO2 and O3 is Controlled by Plant-Microbe Interactions in Soil” and “Genes to Ecosystems: Mechanisms Controlling Long-Term Ecosystem Response to Nitrogen Deposition.”

Room 2503
Director: Inés Ibáñez
Size: 280 ft²

Ongoing research projects in the Terrestrial Ecology Lab focus on the current challenges that plant communities are facing in the context of global change, i.e. climate change, invasive species, and landscape fragmentation.

For further information, visit the Forest Dynamics in a Changing World, Ibanez lab site

Rooms 2556/2548
Contact: Don Zak
Size: 960 ft²

This laboratory is designed to accommodate the wet lab teaching needs of all courses in Terrestrial Ecosystems.  It currently is used to teach Soil Ecology, in which students use this laboratory space to conduct physical, chemical and biological analyses of soil samples collected in a wide range of terrestrial ecosystems.  This laboratory contains an Inductively Coupled Plasma Spectrometer, which is used to determine the elemental composition of soil, plants as well as a wide range of environmental samples.  It also contains hood space for the handling of hazardous materials and ample bench space for students to learn and conduct the analyses of soil and plant tissues.

Located in Pellston (Mich.), the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS) is a research and teaching facility with 150 buildings. More than 2,000 publications have appeared in the scientific literature because of research based at the Station. The largest building is the Alfred H. Stockard Lakeside Laboratory with 24,000 square feet of space especially designed for biological research, including ethernet, a computer lab, chemical laboratory, photo darkrooms, stockroom, and large boatwell that connects directly to the lake.

Room G573
Director: Don Scavia
Size: 777 ft²
OSEH certified

This laboratory houses several camera-equipped microscopes, which are used to count, identify, and measure aquatic organisms, including fish larvae, zooplankton, and Mysis collected from inland lakes and the Great Lakes, as well as an environmental chamber, fume hood, and a -80 freezer.  Current projects include studies of the long-term dynamics of Great Lakes zooplankton; the role of Mysis in Great Lakes food webs; herniations in zooplankton; reasons for the Diporeia decline in the Great Lakes; interactions among zooplankton, zebra and quagga mussels, and fish; and effects of contaminants on larval fish and recruitment.