Faculty in the Department of Plant Biology are located in three buildings: Life Science II, Life Science III, and IMAGE. In addition to modern laboratories maintained by individual faculty members, research facilities are also available for use in other departments as well as centrally-administered university facilities. An example of the latter is IMAGE (Integrated Microscopy and Graphics Expertise) that supports a wide variety of analytical and quantitative electron microscopic methodologies. Within Plant Biology, individual faculty maintain research equipment that permits a wide range of modern analyses in the areas of molecular biology, systematics, cell biology, physiology, phytochemistry, and ecology. An excellent collection of science journals and books are located on the fifth and sixth floors of Morris library.
In addition to individual laboratories directed by PLB faculty (Ebbs, Geisler, Nickrent, Sipes, and Wood), the Department maintains a centralized laboratory that is used for teaching various courses in molecular biology. This Plant Molecular Biology Laboratory is outfitted to allow for ultralow storage of tissue samples, tissue extraction (proteins, DNA, RNA), and gel electrophoresis (isozymes and DNA).
Room 449 inLife Science II is outfitted as a computer laboratory that contains PC computers, all of which have Ethernet connections to the internet. In addition, there is a computer laboratory in room 18 in Lindegren Hall (adjacent to LS II) that has ca. 20 networked PCs. This lab, formerly maintained by College of Science, is now run by Information Technology.
The Southern Illinois University Herbarium currently houses about 250,000 specimens. As might be expected, the herbarium's holdings are especially rich for southern Illinois, which includes the southernmost 18 counties of the state. However, the collections also come from other areas of the state and country, as well as from several different parts of the world, including Australia, Hawaii, China, Israel, Mexico, Belize, Montserrat and Brazil. The plant families with the largest number of holdings in the herbarium are the grasses, sedges, legumes and composites. In addition to the mounted plant specimens, the herbarium also houses ethnobotanical collections, the Walter Welch slide collection of approximately 5500 kodachromes, and a library of books and reprints.
The Plant Biology Greenhouses (Photo 1, Photo2) are located east of the Life Science III building. This "E-shaped" complex comprise four interconnected houses, an office, and a headhouse. Most growing space in main house consists of in-ground beds whereas the three attached houses (south, middle and north houses) contain fixed elevated benches. The collection is taxonomically diverse and consists of representatives of all extant land plants (bryophytes, lycophytes, ferns, gymnosperms, and angiosperms). The collection, maintained by Richard Cole and Karen Frailey, is used for both teaching and research.
Located on the east end of Life Science III, the phytotron provides climate-controlled growing space for plants ideal for conducting physiological experiments. This facility is currently being utilized by Dr. Stephen Ebbs who is investigating heavy metal accumulation in various plants. Here's a photo of the phytotron soon after it was constructed. This photo shows an inside view of the facility. Ongoing work by Dr. Ebbs includes screening terrestrial plants for FeCN tolerance (photo1, photo2).
SIUC / College of Science / Plant Biology / undergraduate
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http://www.science.siu.edu/plant-biology/information/facilities.html
Last updated: 30-May-07 / dln
