SURE Students have to prepare an abstract for their research as in a professional setting. Here's a sample of some previous student abstracts:

• Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a strategy of pest control which uses many different techniques to monitor and control pests.  IPM programs are beneficial to the environment because they reduce and sometimes eliminate the use of pesticides.  In order to have a successful and effective IPM programa, insect populations must be monitored regularly by scouting and sampling.  Sampling of insect populations produces a relative density of a given insect.  From this information, population distribution maps can be made for comparative analysis as well as to monitor the locations of insects.  Knowing the relative locations and populations of insects can greatly reduce the number of pesticides used.
• Temperate intertidal and estuarine zones have variable salinity regimes due to seasonal and daily fluctutations  The mud fiddler crab, Uca pugnax, is physiologically adapted to these habitats.  Crustacean growth and development are stressful and sensitive hormonal processes which may be susceptible to disruptions or changes in the environment.  This study looked at the physiological and metabolic changes in the molt cycle of U. pugnax demonstrated at certain salinity levels by assessing the survival, respiration, and tissue protein and carbohydrate content. First, male and female crabs were exposed to a range of salinity levels in an acute 96-hour exposure to assess survival and osmoregulatory ability.  Second, crabs were subjected to a limb regeneration and molting challenge under four different salinities.  For the molting study, a limb was removed and its regeneration was photographed every two days.  Six days after ecdysis, crabs were dissecte, and the tissues collected were analyzed for their protein and carbohydrate contents.  Crabs at 60 and 75 ppt seawater showed increased mortality, and 60 ppt crabs did not undergo basal growth or died during this stage.  40 ppt was found to increase crab hemolymph osmolarity, with males beginning to their osmoregulatory abilities.  During limb regeneration, abnormal limb growth occurred solely in males in maes, with the higher salinities tending to have a higher frequency.  Epithelial tissue in female crabs had significantly more free carbohydrates than males and greater protein levels at higher salinities.  While there was no evidence that salinity affected the amount of acid-soluble, arthropodin or sclerotin exoskeleton protein, it did increase the variability of acid-soluble protein content.  Crabs at 40 ppt showed elevated respiration in the post-malt stage.  Combined, these results show the physiological response of U. pugnax to the stress of high and low salinities during the molting cycle and indicate the advantages females have over males in tolerance to salinity stress. Rats and pigeons initially trained on a response-dependent schedule of reinforcement will continue to respond, at a diminished rate, when the response-reinforcer dependency is removed.  It has been shown that fixed-time (FT) schedules maintain responding at higher rates than variable-time (VT) schedules, and data indicates that behavior trained on fixed-interval (FI) schedules shows more consistency and resistance to change than the same behavior trained on variable-interval (VI) schedules.  In applied settings, these findings have been implemented in behavioral programs that are very effective at reducing attention-maintained destructive and self-injurious behavior in developmentally disabled and autistic children.  Its advantages include ease of implementation compared to differential-reinforcement-of-other-behavior (DRO) therapies, and the avoidance of potentially dangerous extinction bursting.  This experiment tested mult FIFI and mult VIVI schedules, allowing greater experimental control over reinforcement history and a more direct comparison between all contingency combinations.  Preliminary results indicate that the most important factor in response maintenancec is the response independent schedule, rather than the particular response-dependent schedule the behavior is learned on.  Current data shows that FT schedules maintain responding at higher, more consistent rates than do VT schedules.Ice Mountain Preserve, at an elevation of 700 feet, is an algific talus slope that is home to five boreal species of plants, including Cornus canadensis, which have not previously been found below 900 feet.  In order to discern why and how Cornus canadensis, or bunchberry, has survived in this potential Ice Age refugium, we are exploring the freezing tolerance of this species in the laboratory setting.  In addition, we are performing a molecular genetic analysis on populations from Ice Mountain Preserve, Spruce Knob, and other locations in the Eastern United States.  We plan on mapping the populations of bunchberry at Ice Mountain Preserve in relation to the cold air vents in the near future.  We successfully extracted DNA from the populations of bunchberry at Ice Mountain and Spruce Knob, with further analysis to come.  To characterize the freezing tolerance, we used a cryobath to freeze the samples grown in laboratory conditions at 0, -2, -4, -6, -8, and -10 degrees Celsius.  A threshold point was found between -4 and -6 degrees Celsius.  We cold-acclimated the plants at 4 degrees Celsius in a refrigerator.  After characterizing the freezing tolerance of the cold-acclimated plants using the previous protocol, no significant threshold point was identified.  It was therefore concluded that bunchberry can cold-acclimate. 
• The overall purpose of this experiment was to qualitatively test if the nematode trapping fungi Arthrobotyrus oligospora serves as a successful biocontrol agent of Meloidogyne incognita in organic agriculture systems.  Plant parasitic nematodes, trapping fungi, ,and soil were measured.  Four treatments for each experiment, each with 24 replicated beakers containing 100g soil each for sterile soil with and without the fungus and nonsterile soil with and without the fungus.  Individual beakers were inoculated with 40 J2 and 25 eggs of M. incognita.   Four beakers from each treatment were harvested and nematodes extracted at 0, 1,3,7, 11, and 18 days.  In theory, the nematode trapping fungi would have a high predation in both soils; furthermore the sterile soils would prove an inhospitable atmosphere for the M. incognita to survive past day 7.  Nematodes were counted to determine if those soils with the trapping fungus were more effective in nematode suppression than those without.  The trapping fungus did not differ from those beakers without the fungus, suggesting no biological control. 

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