Information for prospective graduate students
Updated November 2007
What is the Virginia Tech Stream Team?
The Virginia Tech Stream Team is a collaboration of professors and students in the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech who are studying various aspects of stream ecology. Fred Benfield and Jack Webster started the Stream Team in the late 1970s, and Maury Valett joined in 1998. The essence of the Stream Team is collaboration. We collaborate with each other, but in addition we collaborate with other University units and with other institutions. We currently have active collaborations with faculty in Forestry and Geology, and within the last few years we have also worked with colleagues in Fisheries and Wildlife, Agricultural Economics, Civil Engineering, Biological Systems Engineering, and Entomology. Outside the University, we have maintained collaboration with colleagues at the University of Georgia, the Forest Service, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory for many years. Through the Coweeta LTER project, we also work with colleagues at Duke University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Wisconsin. For the last few years, we have also had collaborative research grants with scientists at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies (New York), the Ecosystems Center at Woods Hole (Massachusetts), the University of New Hampshire, Loyola University Chicago, the University of Tennessee, Michigan State University, Proctor and Gamble (Cincinnati), Kansas State University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Wyoming, Arizona State University, the University of New Mexico, the University of Alabama, the University of Montana, and Oregon State University. We also have research collaborations with Canterbury University (New Zealand).
As a graduate student member of the Virginia Tech Stream Team, there is a lot that is expected of you.
1. We expect you to do well in your courses (especially if one of us is teaching the course!)
2. If you have a teaching assistantship, we expect you to do a good job. How much time you put into teaching depends whether teaching is part of your career goal. If you want to be a teacher later, you should excel as a TA now.
3. If you are on a research assistantship, you should be more than a technician just doing the work. A research assistantship can be the opportunity to be a co-author on a publication.
4. You are expected to participate fully and actively at weekly Stream Team discussions. These discussions can be more important than any course you take.
5. We expect you to be a member of the team. This means helping others with their research as needed, taking on jobs such as truck maintenance, computer upgrades, or organizing a lunch with visitors.
6. Even with these expectations, you still must be a responsible member of the department, the University, and our profession.
7. Finally, and most importantly, we expect you to conduct and publish excellent research.
Currently funded research projects and potential student projects
LTER -- The Coweeta LTER program is one of the original LTER sites started in 1982. However, research at Coweeta goes back to the early 1930s. LTER stands for Long Term Ecological Research and is a large program funded by the National Science Foundation. The program has evolved from a site-based to a site- and region-based project. The initial emphasis was on how forestry management practices affected the hydrologic cycle in small, experimental watersheds at the 2,185-ha Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory administered by the USDA Forest Service. The current interdisciplinary research integrates ecological and socioeconomic components across 54,000 km2 of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Research in the topographically complex Blue Ridge Province of the southern Appalachian Mountains recognizes a biogeophysical and socioeconomic region where evolutionary and historical processes converge. The region is an ideal natural laboratory for evaluating the synergism between the abiotic template, biology, and society that underlies the ecological patterns and processes in the region. The objectives for our 2002-2008 research are to advance scientific understanding of the spatial, temporal, and decision-making components of land use and land-use change in the southern Appalachian Mountains over the last 200 years and to develop forecast scenarios of future land use patterns. Our central hypothesis is that the frequency, intensity, and extent of land use represent human decision-making in response to socioeconomic and biogeophysical conditions with consequences that cascade through ecosystems. The Coweeta LTER project is a collaboration of the University of Georgia, Duke University, the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, and the U.S. Forest Service at Coweeta. Benfield and Webster are both involved in the Coweeta LTER project as are several of our current students. Most of our research concerns the effects of agricultural, forestry, and residential land-use patterns on stream communities and stream ecosystem function.
Leaf Exclusion Study -- This study was a long-term, whole-stream experiments begun in 1981 by Bruce Wallace (University of Georgia), Judy Meyer (University of Georgia), and Jack Webster. They were supported by a series of grants from the National Science Foundation, but we no longer have support for the study. Begining in 1993 we excluded all litter inputs to a 170-m stream at Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory. In addition we removed all sticks and logs from the stream in 1996 and 1998. In 2000 we added plastic pipes to the stream to simulate the structural role of wood. Results have shown that the aquatic insects, salamanders, and other animals living in this stream are directly or indirectly dependent on the organic inputs from the forest. After several years of leaf exclusion, animals were almost completely absent from the stream. We also showed that the absence of leaves and wood significantly affected many ecosystem processes including dissolved organic carbon transport, sediment retention, dissolved nutrient retention, microbial processes, and metabolism. Our long-term study of Coweeta streams has made it possible to use experiments such as this to understand the critical terrestrial-aquatic linkages of southern Appalachian watersheds. We are continuing to analized and publish data from this study.
Hemlock study -- The Hemlock Wooly Adelgid is a very small, aphid-like insect that will likely kill all of the hemlocks in the eastern United States. It was first discovered at Coweeta in about 2002 and rapidly infected trees throughout the basin. Hemlock is an important riparian tree species throughout the southern Appalachians, and its loss is may have severe consequences to mountain streams. Benfield and Webster have a grant from the Forest Service to study streams with heavy hemlock canopy in order to anticipate possible effects of hemlock death. We have selected eight streams at Coweeta, which all have extensive hemlock in their riparian, and we are following changes resulting from the invasion of adelgids.
LINX -- This is a multi-site study of nitrogen (N) uptake and retention in streams and the effects of human land use change on stream N retention. At each of eight different regions of the U.S., site we have three reference (native vegetation), three agricultural, and three resendential streams. In addition to many background measurements we are measuring N uptake using 15N-NO3. Additionally we are developing a landscape-level model of N retention for each region using the experimental data. Participating institutions are The University of Tennessee, Arizona State University, Institute of Ecosystems Studies, Kansas State University, Marine Biological Laboratory, Michigan State University, University of Notre Dame, Oregon State University, University of Georgia, University of New Hampshire, University of New Mexico, University of Wyoming, and Virginia Tech. Valett and Webster are principle investigators for one of the sites, the Upper Little Tennessee in North Carolina and north Georgia. Most of the Stream Team students worked on the project when we were conducting the field reseach.
Riparian --The Riparian Cut Project involves an experimental cut by the Forest Service in the Nantahala National Forest in western NC near the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory. The plan is to clear-cut a group of 9-10 hectare plots in high elevation headwater catchments leaving one of the following conditions: a 30-m riparian buffer, a 10-m riparian buffer, no riparian buffer, and references sites that will not be cut. In concert with Coweeta terrestrial ecologists, we are exploring the consequences of the forest treatments on the transfer of nutrients from the forest to streams through surface and subsurface flows, responses of stream processes (nutrient spiraling, organic matter decomposition) and stream macroinvertebrates within and downstream of the cut areas.
BAMS -- We are conducting a study examining arsenic fate and transport near an abandoned arsenic mine in Floyd County, Virginia. Waste piles at this site provide a continuing source of arsenic to a local stream. We are using a combination of field, laboratory, and modeling techniques to evaluate the controls on arsenic mobility within the stream, with specific emphasis on characterizing the role of the hyporheic zone in acting as a source or a sink for arsenic.
MTR -- We recently started a study comparing the effects of mountain top removal - valley fill coal mining on structural and functional characteristics of streams. This study is being done in the coal mining region of West Virginia. The research is funded by EPA and we are working closely with researchers at the EPA lab in Cincinatti. Our part of the work includes measurement of leaf breakdown, metabolism, and nutrient retention in five reference streams and five streams downstream of valley fills.
Student research projects -- In general we do not bring in (hire) students to work directly on a funded project -- we can hire a technician to do that. We don't think that is what graduate education is about. We accept students who show strong interest in stream ecology and lots of potential. We then work with them to develop a project for themselves, a project that reflects their own input and interests. However, it must be something that one of us feels competent to advise and something we can financially support. There is a lot of flexibility. We recently had a student with a background in engineering who had become really interested in streams through a hobby of caving. He ended up doing a great masters project on the relation of stream morphology to land use, and he is now in a PhD program at the Colorado School of Mines. We had another student who was so interested in cave streams that he chose to do his PhD research in a cave. Since we didn't have any funded project involving caves, he had to get funding from other sources including a grant from the National Science Foundation. Most of the time, our students' projects are more closely related to a funded project. Masters students often do something that is directly part of what we need to have done, but more often it is sort of a spin-off. We expect PhD students to put a lot of their own ideas into planning their research. But, we don't just throw new students out there and say find a project. We work with them individually, we integrate them into our group, we get them involved with other students, and we get them out in the field to see the things we have going on. By the end of their second semester, students should have a written and approved research prospectus, but this is a team effort, involving the student, his/her major professor, and his/her advisory committee.
Potential degree paths
We strongly encourage graduate students to get a masters degree before a PhD. We think it will much better prepare you to get the job you want when you finish your degree. With this in mind, we have five informal degree paths:
1. PhD directly from undergraduate. For a few students with exceptionally strong undergraduate research experience, it may be possible for them to go directly to a PhD program. For these students, it is very important to plan their research such that they can get publications out along the way and not just at the end.
2. PhD after an MS at another university. Not only do these students have a jump start on their own research, they also bring skills and fresh perspectives to our program.
3. Masters degree as just a step on the way to the PhD. For students who come here directly from an undergraduate degree and want to get a PhD, getting a MS may be just an early publication. From the start, we would plan a research program that leads to a PhD but includes a portion of the research that can be written up and submitted for publication and submitted as an MS thesis after about two years. There would be no stop or even a pause between the MS and PhD and in fact the research would be overlapping.
4. Masters degree at Virginia Tech, then a PhD. For many of our students, a PhD is their eventual goal, but as they finish their MS, they will make a decision as to whether they really do want to continue towards the PhD, if they want to continue here, or if they want to pursue the PhD at another school. We always advise students that it is good to diversify their education, even though we hate to lose good students.
5. Masters degree only. For some students, this is as far as they want to go at least for now. After finishing the MS, they want to get a job, take a few years off from school, and maybe consider a PhD in the future.
How long will it take?
In general we say it will take about 3 years for an MS and 4 years for a PhD, but there is a lot of variability. Let's look at a Masters program. Your first semester here you will probably be on a teaching assistantship, teaching two or three freshman biology labs. If this is your first time teaching it will take considerable time for preparation, though we do have an excellent staff to help you. You will also be taking two or three courses. In general you will find that graduate courses take a lot more time than the typical undergraduate course. Some students come here knowing exactly what they want to do for their research, but for others this first semester is a time to talk to other graduate students and go out in the field with them and find out what they are doing. During the second semester, you’ll be teaching again and probably taking two courses. By the end of this semester, you need to have chosen a major professor and committee, prepared a research proposal (working with your major professor), and had your first committee meeting. The first summer you will be supported on a research assistantship, which will require you to work about 1/2 time but will also leave you time to actually get started on your research. For many masters students, their research requires sampling for a full year, so (assuming the research the first summer was preliminary), your field research would be completed during your second summer. During your second academic year, you will continue on a teaching assistantship, maybe teaching advanced undergraduate labs, or you might be on a research assistantship. The following fall, beginning your third year, you will hopefully be analyzing samples and working up data and then writing the thesis in the spring. During that final year we will try to support you on a research assistantship and during your last semester we try to minimize your work load so you can concentrate on writing. So you should finish just one summer short of three years. This could be shorter if you do a more experimental project that didn’t require a year of sampling, or it could be longer if there are problems like a storm washed out all your samplers.
It's much harder to generalize a PhD program, but probably four years is a minimum if you are just starting here. If you are building on a masters you did here, it might be possible to get done in a shorter time.
Remember, your goal is not the degree. Your goal is to get the training and experience you need in order to get the job you want once you leave here. Our job is to help you reach that goal.
How do I get into the program?
There is no official Stream Team program. Your degree will be through the Department of Biological Sciences and you must be admitted through the department. However, before you ever apply, you should write or e-mail one of us (Benfield, Valett, or Webster). Tell us why you are interested in coming to graduate school here and send us a resume. We will give you an honest opinion whether you should apply, based on your interests and background and the possibility that we will have openings for new students next fall. We require all prospective students to visit the Stream Team to talk with faculty and students. This usually happens around Dec-Feb. We may make exceptions under special circumstances, but it is not common. Unfortunately, we do not have funds to pay for transportation to Blacksburg but we do pay for lodging and some meals while prospective students are here. We like to have students visit on Fridays because we hold our Stream Team meetings on Friday morning, but most anytime is O.K. subject to our field work schedule.
Applications to the department are accepted almost any time (the published deadlines are targets rather than hard & fast dates), but it is best to apply as early as possible. The Department likes to see applications in mid-to-late December and begins making assistantship offers by late January. However, final acceptance and assistantship offers are rarely nailed down until February or later. There are two applications required: 1) the graduate school application, 2) the departmental supplemental application. You can apply on-line or download an application from the Graduate School web site . The departmental supplemental form can be downloaded from the Biology web site and should be sent to the department. It is actually a good idea to send us (Benfield, Valett, or Webster) a copy of your graduate school application too, so we have the information as early as possible. The department requires the general GRE (we don't require the biology option but a good score there is a plus), transcripts, 3 letters or recommendation, and the Supplemental Application.