$1/4 Million Florida Tech Grant Funds Climate Change Research

– Florida Tech Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, Dr. Mark Bush, has received a second large grant from the National Science Foundation in less
than six months. This one, for $264,000, will fund ecological research in the high Andes Mountains. Work will begin Sept. 1.

Under the new, two-year grant, Bush and his team will examine sediment cores extracted from Lake Titicaca, located within Peru and Bolivia. The lake is the
highest in the world and the largest in South America.

Bush’s team will examine an estimated 800 pollen and charcoal samples on this core, which is believed to trace a continuous sedimentary sequence spanning
the last 140,000 years.

The pollen and charcoal data should reveal how biological communities have responded to past climate changes and provide information for crafting effective
conservation policies.

“Of 25 conservation hotspots labeled by Conservation International, the region most at risk from future climate change is the neotropical Andes,” said
Bush. “Learning how species here will respond to climate change in the future is an essential component in planning conservation and development strategies
for the high Andes.”

Just last February, Bush received an NSF grant of $450,0000 to document the plant life and research the climate change of Andean Peru.