Native Plant Conservation Campaign News: New report highlights the benefits of federal investment in basic biological research, plant research highlighted.
June 23, 2016
On June 22, the American Institute for Biological Sciences (AIBS) released a new report:
The federal government is the main supporter of basic biological research in the United States, providing more than half of funding, Federal funding for biological research, however, has become stagnate. In constant dollars, federal investments in the life sciences declined by 14 percent over the past decade.
The AIBS report features just a few of the diverse ways that federal funding for the biological sciences has benefited the nation.
Among the examples highlighted by the report:
- Plants as Inspiration for Adhesives, Sunscreen, Medicines
Sundew catches insect prey on tendrils that secrete a powerful adhesive liquid. The adhesive is so elastic it can stretch to one million times its normal size. Researchers identified several prospective medical uses for this natural adhesive, including healing wounds, regenerating damaged tissues, coating replacement body parts, and improving synthetic adhesives.
- Long-Term Ecological Research Reveals Benefits of Dead Wood to Forests
Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites supported by the National Science Foundation – discovered new and cost-saving information about the ecological role of dead wood. Scientists found that dead wood served a wide range of functions: it was a food source and habitat for terrestrial and aquatic species, a seedbed for plants, and a source of water, energy, carbon, and nutrients. Dead wood was also important in controlling stream structure and function.
- Improving Public Health through Biological Collections
- Ecosystem Services in Urban Environments
The report showed that plant communities help manage flooding and water quality in urban environments. For example, concrete stormwater spillways do not provide any public benefits beyond the flood control for which they were originally designed. Conversely, locating a park in the flood plain along a waterway provides recreational value, increases the capacity to absorb or divert floods, and helps filter contaminants from floodwater.
AIBS will be sharing this report with congressional offices in the coming weeks as part of a grassroots advocacy event. AIBS encourages you to share the report with your lawmakers and colleagues as well.
