Itasca has sparked a passion for biology in students for generations. But deteriorating facilities put the future of this unique resource at risk.
“There’s a big difference between studying a jar of lake water in a laboratory on an urban campus and studying the same water while it’s still in the lake,” says Robin Wright, College of Biological Sciences associate dean for faculty and academic affairs. “Field biology allows students to see relationships among organisms and the physical environment.”
The University established a summer training program for forestry students on the shore of Lake Itasca in 1909. Botany and zoology faculty soon discovered that Itasca was a Shangri-La for biology education. In addition to its location at the headwaters of the Mississippi, Itasca boasts springs, bogs, and a broad diversity of flora and fauna, including orchids, fungi, lichens, freshwater sponges, insectivorous plants, waterfowl, dozens of bird species, aquatic invertebrates, and moose, black bears, wolves, otters, mink and shrews.
“In the upper Midwest, it’s as close to a tropical rain forest as we get in terms of biodiversity,” says David Biesboer, professor of plant biology and director of the Itasca station.
At first glance there’s a rustic charm to the aging buildings at the Itasca Biological Station and Laboratories that seems suited to their setting among the pines. But a closer look reveals foundation cracks, dry rot, aging plumbing and other signs of decay that are anything but charming.
Most buildings were constructed for seasonal use just after World War II. They are outdated and fully depreciated. Labs and classrooms must be replaced, according to an engineering and architectural firm that conducted a site analysis in 2006. If not, many programs, including Nature of Life, a highly successful immersion program for freshmen, will be suspended. Unlike the surrounding animal habitats, these human habitats aren’t continuously renewed by nature. They need a little help.
The University of Minnesota has approved a $25 million master plan to rebuild, renovate and expand the field station, which will celebrate its centennial in 2009. At its June meeting, the Board of Regents approved a request for $13 million for phase one of construction. That amount is now included in the capital plan and slated as part of the 2010 legislative request. The College of Biological Sciences will have to raise one third of the total amount from private donors or other sources. [Read about Itasca giving opportunities].
“The plan reflects the field station’s historic role in biology education and environmental research and its potential for growth,” says Robert Elde, dean of the College of Biological Sciences. The college operates the Itasca field station. “As we plan to celebrate Itasca’s first 100 years, we also envision its future.”
The Itasca biology program was launched in the summer of 1935. Raymond Lindeman, an undergraduate at the time, attended the program for the first two summers. In 1942, Lindeman revolutionized ecology with the posthumous publication of his Ph.D. research, “Trophic Dynamic Aspect of Ecology,” which explained how energy moves through the food chain in an ecosystem. He died from a rare liver disease earlier that year. Lindeman also left his mark on Itasca with a poem extolling its beauty and diversity.
Native Americans hunted and lived in the Itasca region for at least 8,000 years before explorer Henry Schoolcraft arrived in 1832. An Ojibway guide named Ozawindib led him to the source of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca. Schoolcraft and a missionary created the name Itasca, from the Latin words for “truth” and “head,” by combining verITAS and CAput, meaning “true head.” Jacob Brower, a historian, anthropologist and land surveyor, recognized Itasca’s unique natural beauty and persuaded the Minnesota Legislature to protect the area from logging. It 1891, by a margin of one vote, the Legislature designated Itasca as the first state park in Minnesota.
Itasca Biological Station and Laboratories got its start in 1909. University of Minnesota students started coming to the station for field biology classes in the 1930s.
When students arrived, they were greeted by facilities that were primitive, even for the period. The log buildings, constructed between 1909 and 1914, included a bunkhouse, mess hall, cabins for faculty and a barn that served as a laboratory. In 1934, a few cabins for women were added.
Lakeside Laboratory was built in 1942 by the National Youth Administration, one of President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. [The Minnesota Legislature provided $195,000 to restore the exterior of this building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The work got under way in summer 2008.]
The station did not operate from 1943–45 because of World War II. After the war, many of the original log buildings were razed and most of the 70 buildings now standing were constructed over a 10-year period.
In 2006, CBS initiated planning to renovate the campus with Habitat for Biologists, a fundraising campaign. John Tester, former Itasca director, led the effort to restore the director’s cabin, the only log building that remains. For decades, the director’s cabin—built in 1911 from local tamarack logs—was the hub of Itasca’s social life. The cabin will be taken apart this fall and replaced by a replica.
Habitat for Biologists also raised funds to rebuild a women’s cabin that had been condemned and demolished. Volunteers met at Itasca on a weekend in September 2006 to raise the walls. Among them was President Robert Bruininks, who committed $70,000 from University funds to begin preliminary design for the new master plan.
Need-to-know basis
Want to learn about the function of song in Chipping sparrows (Spizella passerina) or the chronology of Elk Lake sediments? Have questions about microstratification of phytoplankton in Minnesota lakes? Or nitrogen and nutrient cycling in Iron Springs Bog? All of this information and much more is at your fingertips via an online database of publications based on research at Itasca over the past century.
Student research papers are also stored in an online database. If you wrote a paper while you were at Itasca, you may be surprised to find it among 2,358 papers archived.
Itasca is ideal for ecology research because it reveals what Minnesota was like before European settlers arrived and development for agriculture and housing changed the state’s landscape. Over the past 100 years, researchers have visited the field station to study everything from forestry management and animal behavior to limnology and the dynamics within aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. And they have published a total of 925 scientific papers reporting their findings.
Research now underway reflects advances in ecology driven by molecular biology, genomics, remote sensing and computational biology. The Minnesota Mississippi Metagenome Project (M3P) is one example.
M3P was proposed by Dean Elde, who was inspired by Craig Venter’s 2004 voyage around the world to sample microbial biodiversity in global oceans. Venter achieved fame in 2001 when he won the race to sequence the human genome. Biesboer and Michael Sadowsky, professor in the BioTechnology Institute and Department of Soil, Water and Climate, are heading M3P.
The goal is to create a database of DNA from all of the aquatic microorganisms at the headwaters of the Mississippi. The data will provide a resource for faculty and students to study the impact of agriculture and other human activities on microbial biodiversity at points along the river, from Lake Itasca to the Washington Avenue bridge in Minneapolis to the Gulf of Mexico, where nitrogen fertilizers have wreaked havoc on the aquatic ecosystem. It will also yield information about the function of the genes, which may have uses in medicine, industry and environmental clean-up.
This summer, students from the Nature of Life (NOL) program collected water samples at the headwaters and at the U of M, filtered out microorganisms and extracted their DNA. To create libraries, the DNA will be cut into pieces about 40,000 base-pairs long, cloned and inserted into E. coli vectors. There will be seven libraries in all containing three million genes. The libraries will provide a valuable resource for exploring biodiversity and functionality using high-throughput technology on the U’s Twin Cities campus.
The project will be incorporated into the NOL curriculum. “This will provide lots of new research opportunities for faculty and students,” Sadowsky says.
Environmental microorganisms are important because they control nitrogen and carbon cycling, clean up water pollution, play a role in biogeochemistry, and form symbiotic relationships with plants and animals, Sadowsky explains. Very few of these organisms have been characterized and studied for their potential uses.
Moreover, the M3P project will be supported by the University’s growing strength in bioinformatics. Bioinformatics provides computational and algorithmic methods to manage large databases like the M3P library and helps students develop the mathematical skills needed for today’s biology.
Start-up funding of $19,000 was provided by the College of Biological Sciences, but Sadowsky and Biesboer are seeking ongoing funding from the National Science Foundation. This is the first large-scale metagenome project using the Mississippi River.
Design for the Student Education & Research Center
“As we celebrate Itasca’s first 100 years, we eagerly anticipate its future,” says Robert Elde, dean of the College of Biological Sciences.Elde envisions the new field station as a hub for cutting-edge research, using remote sensing and other technologies to address ecosystem-scale questions.
The funding provided by President Bruininks in 2006 made it possible to develop the master plan for Itasca, which will be carried out in two phases. The first phase includes construction of an administrative center, student center/library, two laboratory/classroom buildings, six faculty housing units, eight student cabins, new roadways and parking lots. Phase two will add three laboratory/classroom buildings, seven faculty housing units, seven student cabins, and an open-air shelter for classes and community events. Renovations will enable the station to operate year-round and allow more groups from the University and elsewhere to use the facilities. In recent years, Itasca has been forced to limit its offerings and turn away a growing number of groups.
Elde envisions the new field station as a hub for visionary research in ecology, that addresses ecosystem-scale questions using remote sensing and other technologies. Ultimately, he hopes to add a retreat center and cabins for scientists and scholars to use as a quiet, inspiring refuge to work on long-term projects.
Elde sees Itasca taking its place among the top field biology stations in the country. The new facilities will be an important step toward realizing that vision.
“There just aren’t many places like Itasca,” Elde says. “I think of it as part of a family of field stations that includes Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory on Cape Cod, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, and Friday Harbor Laboratories on the Puget Sound. They are magnets that draw biologists from all over the world to do science and to wrestle with deep problems across biology. That’s really my vision, is to bring Itasca into that league.” —Peggy Rinard
