FACILITIES
The Department of Botany along with departments of Zoology and Microbiology, is located in Pearson Hall. Among the modern state-of-the-art botany facilities are greenhouses and a plant growth chamber facility, easy access to the University's Electron Microscopy Facility and Center for Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics, the largest herbarium in the state of Ohio, cloning, tissue culture, microcomputer room, and other preparation and analysis equipment.
The research and teaching laboratories contain a full range of microscopes and other modern laboratory equipment. Miami University owns a 184 acre Ecology Research Center where faculty and students can conduct a variety of field oriented studies, as well as a network of Natural Areas.
A wide array of instrumentation is available for research in Botany, including scintillation and gamma counters, many kinds of centrifuges, an elemental analyzer, atomic absorption spectrometers, HPLC systems, spectrophotometers electrophysiological equipment, field sampling equipment, a gas chromatograph, a flame photometer, osmometers, and respirometers.
Electron Microscopy Facility
Pearson Hall houses Miami University's Electron Microscopy Facility (EMF), which is available without charge to students and faculty, and is accessible to qualified users 24 hours/day. The EMF houses two scanning electron microscopes: JEOL 840A and Zeiss 3S VP-FEG, and two transmission electron microscopes: JEOL 100S and Zeiss 10C. The facility also has two scanning confocal microscopes. Nikon PCM 2000 and an Olympus FV500, a deconvolution system, as well as multimode light microscopes, an energy-dispersive X-ray microanalysis (XEDS), and EBSD Crystalography systems.
The Center for Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics
The Center is an interdepartmental facility for molecular biology research that is located in Pearson Hall. It has several ABI genetic analyzers for DNA sequencing and fragment analysis. The Center has a Biomek FX liquid handling system, an Agilent 2100 bioanalyzer, several thermocyclers, spectrophotometers, fluorometers, a microplate UV/VIS/fluorescent spectrophotometer, a phosphorimager, and a digital gel imaging system for the preparation and analysis of molecular data.
Herbarium
Miami University is home to Ohio's largest herbarium, the Willard Sherman Turrell Herbarium. The herbarium's holdings of approximately 625,000 specimens are worldwide in both geographical and taxonomic coverage, including specimens of vascular plants, bryophytes, fungi, lichens, algae, and fossil plants. Several thousand type specimens are contained in the collection, as well as many sets of cryptogamic exsiccatae. Exchange programs are ongoing with many herbaria worldwide to ensure the continued breadth and depth of the collection. The W.S. Turrell Herbarium Fund is an endowment which benefits the herbarium, and support for the research activities of the staff and students in systematic botany.
Computer Facilities
Botany faculty and students have state of the art computing opportunities--from personal computing and desktop workstations to a supercomputing high performance cluster that places Miami among the top 40 public universities in computing power. More importantly, Miami supports collaboration and cooperation among researchers and expert support staff that bring computational ideas in research and teaching to fruition, through programs such as the Center for the Advancement of Computational Research (CACR).
Computing facilities and resources are described on Miami University Technology Guide and updated quarterly on TechTalk. See also a list of student computer labs. Technology support for instruction is provided by Academic Technology Sevices.
Greenhouses and Plant Growth Chambers Facility
Abundant growth space for plants utilized in research and teaching is available through the existence of over 13,000 square feet of glasshouse space and the Botany Department Plant Growth Chamber Facility. The Plant Growth Chamber Facility houses a total of fourteen controlled environmental growth chambers of various dimensions, which provide ideal growth conditions for experimental plant populations the year round.
Ecology Research Center
The Ecology Research Center is located two miles from the main campus and consists of a modern classroom and laboratory building, 183 acres of land used for various field manipulative studies, and a pond lab facility.
Miami University Natural Areas
Miami University maintains over 1000 acres of Natural Areas on and near the Oxford campus that are available for non-destructive and low impact ecological field work and collections, as well as teaching and recreation. Additional opportunities for field research include nearby streams, the lake and woodlots at the Hueston Woods State Park, the Ohio River, and many other local habitats.