Special Feature: Brackenridge Field Lab

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

There’s nothing in Texas or the world quite like the Brackenridge Field Laboratory. This unique urban field station, just a few minutes from UT-Austin’s dense main campus, provides unparalleled access to research and educational opportunities in ecology, evolution, animal behavior, and conservation biology.

The 88-acre field lab is part of an almost 500-acre tract of land originally donated to the university in 1910 by George W. Brackenridge, a former UT regent. While evidence exists that biologists used the area for teaching and research since the 1920s, BFL wasn’t officially established until 1967.

The field lab, directed by Dr. Larry Gilbert since 1980, is now an integral part of the integrative biology program and is considered the reason that the university’s ecology, evolution and behavior graduate program is among the top ten in the nation.


A research sampler. Research at BFL ranges from clam and dragonfly biology to plant and fish evolution, but the lab is perhaps most famous for the role it has played in studies of the invasive red imported fire ant. On any given day, faculty, graduate students, research scientists, and undergraduates can be found bustling around BFL’s lab buildings and greenhouses and amongst its pecan trees and prairies.

If you were to drop by the lab today, here are a few projects that you might stumble upon: 

• Larry Gilbert and his colleagues (including ranchers from Bee County, Texas) infesting fire ant colonies with parasitic flies;
• David Hillis and his students digging into the genetics of the Asian clam, a potent invader of North American aquatic systems;
• Tom Juenger and his students studying genetic strategies plants have evolved to cope with environmental stresses, like drought;
• Molly Cummings and Mike Ryan studying sexual selection in various species of fish; and
• John Abbott cataloging dragonfly and damselfly diversity.

You would also find students exploring their natural world, collecting insects for entomology, learning to identify native plants, and gaining hands-on experience designing and performing field experiments.


Vision for the future. The University of Texas System Board of Regents recently appointed a task force to consider the future of all properties that are part of the original Brackenridge Tract, including BFL. This could mean the time has come for BFL to grow and change into something even better than it is today.

College visionaries imagine that, with increased financial resources, BFL could evolve into a public outreach, educational and research powerhouse. One could imagine a new Texas Biodiversity Center, a place where visitors experience our state’s unparalleled biodiversity and natural history; a new residence field station to house visiting biologists from around the world; a new teaching and research building expanding opportunities for students and faculty in integrative biology; and new boat docks providing better public and research access to Town Lake. Already, a new artificial coral reef facility is being constructed at the field lab that will help scientists’ better study these fragile and important ecosystems just minutes from the main campus.

Whatever the future holds for BFL, the contributions the field lab has made to science and our understanding of the world are considerable. The lab’s proximity to campus, unique combination of natural and urban systems, and decades of long-term data are truly irreplaceable.