Location and Setting

Campus: SERC is a research unit of the Smithsonian Institution specializing in environmental research, education, and conservation. The campus is a 2,654-acre site located 40 km east of Washington DC in Edgewater, MD. The campus features forests, croplands, pasture, freshwater wetlands, tidal marshes and estuaries, ultimately encompassing 65% of the Rhode River watershed, a sub-estuary of the Chesapeake Bay. SERC’s location, size, and habitat diversity are ideal for conducting long-term studies and experiments on a variety of global change stressors, including climate change, water quality, land use impacts, biodiversity loss, invasive species, sea level rise, and fisheries conservation.

Climate: SERC’s climate is temperate and humid, with annual average minimum temperatures of 5-10°C (41-50°F), and average annual maximum temperatures of 16-21°C (61-70°F). Temperatures can reach 32-35°C (90-95°F) during the hot and humid summer months. In winter, temperatures routinely fall below freezing. The average annual temperature is 13.6°C (56.5°F). On average, this location gets a total of 1075 mm (42 in.) of precipitation annually.

Living and Commuting: SERC is located at the edge of the Washington DC Metropolitan area. SERC staff enjoy a wide range of living and commuting options ranging from residence in two major cities (DC and Baltimore), several small cities, suburban developments, and rural communities. The region has fairly well developed mass transit systems including a subway system, commuter trains, and buses, but access to SERC itself requires a vehicle or vehicle service unless living within biking distance.

SERC Programs

Research Programs: SERC research encompasses a wide variety of ecological research topics that span terrestrial, freshwater aquatic, wetland, and estuarine ecosystems, with a particular focus on coastal landscapes and seascapes. SERC’s scientists are highly collaborative and often work across traditional disciplinary boundaries to investigate interrelationships of atmospheric, terrestrial, and aquatic environments at a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. SERC is a member of the Association of Ecosystem Research Centers, the National Marine Laboratories Association, and leads the Smithsonian MarineGEO and temperate ForestGEO networks. Feel free to search our 3000+ publications on the SERC publications catalog and on Google Scholar.

Internship and Fellowship Program:  SERC supports paid internships for 100+ participants annually to work for 10-26 weeks in our research and education programs with funding from grants, philanthropy, and university partnerships.  Most are university students, with some high school students and some teachers also in the program each year.  Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows are also actively engaged in SERC programs through combinations of funding from grants and philanthropy.  Most SERC PIs are adjunct faculty at various nationals and international universities, which allows them to co-advise Masters and Ph.D. research. SERC’s Green Village provides on-site dorm housing to 28 interns. Typically, there are 25 post-docs and 10-15 graduate students engaged at SERC.

Participatory Science Program:  SERC supports an active Participatory Science Program with some 500+ local volunteers of all ages assisting with research and education projects at the Rhode River campus and many other field sites around the world. These volunteers process samples, take measurements and counts, and collect specimens under supervision of SERC staff. Another 1,500 participants assist with virtual projects to analyze images, proof data and other important tasks. These volunteers greatly increase our programs and geographic scope with thousands of hours of assistance annually.

K-12 Education Program: SERC provides high quality educational programs that incorporate our research with hands-on and inquiry-based learning. We emphasize environmental literacy and the practices of science, one of the major components of the Next Generation Science Standards. We offer programs to K-12 schools, organized groups on Saturdays and in the Summer, and teacher professional development.

Offices and Housing Facilities

All SERC staff including scientists, students, technicians, fellows, and visitors are provided desk space that suits their needs. SERC also offers a variety of fee-based visitor housing and dormitory options for overnight stays that include Wi-Fi, landline phones, fire and smoke alarms. Bikes are available for use free of charge.

Dorms (Green Village, Schmidt, and Annex): Dorms have single or double occupancy rooms, shared bathrooms, and shared common areas with televisions (with satellite and streaming capabilities). There are a total of 28 available beds (12 single occupancy rooms and 8 double occupancy rooms). The Green Village and Schmidt Dorms each have a full kitchen and laundry facilities. Residents of the Annex use the kitchen and laundry facilities in the Schmidt Dorm. The shared bathroom in the Schmidt Dorm and one bathroom on each floor of the Green Village Dorm are handicapped-accessible.

Visitor Cottages: There are six Visitor Cottages. Each cottage has three bedrooms (one downstairs bedroom and two upstairs bedrooms), a kitchen, common area, and laundry facilities. Downstairs rooms have one queen-sized bed and a bathroom across the hall. The two upstairs rooms share a bathroom and have two twin-sized beds in each room. Each cottage can house up to five people, with a total of 30 available beds. Cottages 1 and 2 have handicapped-accessible rooms on the first floor, as well as handicapped-accessible laundry, furniture, and appliances. There are three sets of patio furniture between the cottages and outdoor grills are available.

Asher House: The Asher House is located near the entrance to SERC. It has three bedrooms, 1.5 shared bathrooms, a kitchen, and living room area with a television (with satellite and streaming capabilities). All rooms in the Asher House have two twin-sized beds, with a maximum occupancy of 6 people. Asher House is located 1.25 miles from the main campus, with safe walking trails connecting Asher to the main campus.

Laboratory and Education Facilities

Mathias Laboratory: The Mathias Laboratory is the primary research lab at SERC and is a 92,000 ft2 LEED Platinum-certified facility that opened in 2014. It has 17 fully equipped research labs, offices, meeting rooms, a conference space, and a 1,600 square foot library housing a collection of monographs and bound journals. Smithsonian Libraries services include approximately 110 electronic journal subscriptions and other resources. The campus has many environmentally friendly features including charging stations for electric vehicles.

Shared spaces and facilities include walk-in cold rooms, a walk-in freezer, a large sample preparation room, and specialized rooms for forced air-drying ovens, tissue grinders, fume hoods, analytical instruments, centrifuges, balances, and other scientific equipment. There are designated rooms for radioisotope studies, glassware and acid-washing facilities, autoclaves, a Class 100 drying area, Class 100 clean benches, and a 5,000 ft² workshop space for precision machining, woodworking, and mechanical repairs.

Climate-controlled rooms and chambers include walk-in environmental growth chambers (EGC), reach-in environmental growth chambers (Conviron) designed for plant growth experiments with full control over air temperature, and incubation chambers with and without illumination.

Storage spaces include ventilated rooms for preserved samples, climate controlled rooms for dry samples, a mud room for convenient transfer between storage and SERC-owned vehicles for field work, and warehouse storage for supplies and gear.

Molecular Research Facilities: The genetics lab is equipped with the equipment necessary to perform molecular analyses including robotic DNA isolation (96 samples per extraction), PCR (48-96-384 samples per run), gel electrophoresis, cloning, quantitative PCR, DNA shearing (Covaris) and the equipment needed for the library preparation for high throughput sequencing (i.e., magnet plate, mini and plate centrifuges, vortex, etc.). The laboratory facility has dedicated spaces for RNA, pre-PCR, and post-PCR molecular work along with two sterile workspaces.

SERC staff have regular access to SI-operated sequencing facilities, including ABI 3700 and ABI 3730 sequencers and an array of high-speed Unix platforms that provide computational power for both phylogenetic and population genetic studies. Additional equipment, which is available to all SI researchers, at the Laboratories of Analytical Biology at the National Museum of Natural History includes: (i) Library Preparation: QSonica Q500 ultrasonic liquid processor, 2200 TapeStation Instrument, BluePippin, One Touch2 and ES and (ii) Sequencing: Four ABI capillary sequencers, three Ion Torrent PGMs, and one Illumina MiSeq.

Marine Lab: Estuarine research is supported by a full wet lab with flowing water systems and closed-loop aquaria rooms designed for invasive species containment. Access to the Rhode River is provided by a series of docks and access to other water bodies and serviced by a fleet of 11 vessels of various sizes. Numerous exterior mesocosm tanks can be used for experiments or holding tanks.

Phillip D. Reed Education Center: The Reed Center is home to SERC’s Science Education Program that supports class/ group field trips to the Rhode River site for ~5,000 school children annually. Located near the SERC Dock , the building is also a hub for 10,000 public visitors using SERC’s 7 miles of hiking trails.

Convening Facilities and Support:  SERC supports many meetings and workshops with growing facilities at our core campus. The activities promote cross-disciplinary collaboration, problem solving, synthesis, and network coordination. Current facilities include an array of meeting rooms for 10-15 people, and a seminar room for up to 75 people. Short-term overnight housing is available in the Green Village. A new 15,000 sf Information Commons building is in active design for construction in 2027 to provide quality convening spaces for large seminars of up to 175 people, 2 workshop meeting rooms for up to 60 people, and common atrium, deck and informal gathering spaces. The new building will also provide offices for central support staff and visitor services. Following the Information Commons, a Lodge will be built for up to 30 workshop participants in individual rooms like a mini-hotel on site.

Woodlawn House: This is a restored historic plantation and farm home that dates to 1735 – the oldest building in the Smithsonian Institution – located near the entrance to the SERC campus. Woodlawn is open to the public and serves as a visitors center that shows an exhibit of archaeological artifacts sampled on SERC property. The exhibit tells the story of 3,000 years of human inhabitants inhabiting the Rhode River site and their interactions with the natural resources in the context of that history. The artifacts were collected by the Smithsonian Environmental Archaeology Lab at SERC.

Field Research Facilities

Experimental Research Garden: SERC has a 10,000 m² garden outfitted with a greenhouse equipped with treated water supply, cooling, and heating capacity. The garden has ample power and water for common garden experiments, sheds to house equipment, and a deer-exclusion fence to prevent herbivory.

Stream Monitoring Stations: Five streams at SERC are outfitted with V-notch weirs to enable the measurement of watershed discharges from watersheds with varying land covers. Weir houses have electricity and house data logging and sampling equipment, including automated water samplers and water quality sondes. Most streams have been monitored continuously since the late 1970s.

NEON: SERC has been a NEON satellite site within the Mid-Atlantic Domain since 2015. The Mid-Atlantic Domain is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east and stretches down the Eastern Seaboard from southern New Jersey to northern Georgia. The domain includes two other terrestrial sites and two aquatic sites. Plot establishment for NEON’s SERC site was completed in April 2015, with an eddy flux and meteorological tower completed in 2016.

ForestGEO: The Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO) is a global network of forest research sites and scientists dedicated to the study of tropical and temperate forest function and diversity. The multi-institutional network comprises 78 forest research sites across the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe, and Oceania. ForestGEO monitors the growth and survival of approximately 7 million trees and nearly 13,000 species that occur in the forest research sites. The SERC Forest Dynamics Plot is a square 16.0 ha plot dominated by mature secondary upland forest andis bisected with a section of floodplain forests, both around 120 years old. It is a large-stature forest (up to 40 m height) and has a high richness for this part of the temperate zone, with more than 71 species. The plot was completely censused in 2011, 2014, 2019, and 2024.

Forest Chronosequence: The SERC Forest Chronosequence is a collection of 50 plots ranging in age from ~10 to ~300 years old. The objective of the Chronosequence project is to understand community and structural development of mid-Atlantic forests as they undergo succession. Core data measurements include the regular measurement of DBH and species identity of all woody stems >2cm, plus opportunistic sampling of understory plant communities, soil carbon, soil microbial communities and processes, leaf litterfall, herbivory, and insect communities. Each plot is instrumented with environmental sensors, and the experiment is regularly surveyed by the NEON aerial observation platform.

BiodiversiTREE: Planted in 2013, BiodiversiTREE is North America’s oldest and largest tree diversity-ecosystem function experiment. Sixteen native species were planted into monoculture plots (N=2 per species), four-species mixtures, and 12-species mixtures, with four-species mixtures planted as a gradient of mycorrhizal dominance. Each of the 70 plots are 0.12ha and were planted with 255 trees. Five additional non-planted plots have been allowed to naturally regenerate. The entire experiment was planted into a single weir-equipped watershed that had been previously planted with corn for 38 consecutive years, resulting in an isotopically enriched soil carbon signature for baseline soil conditions. Each plot is instrumented with environmental sensors, and the experiment is regularly surveyed by the NEON aerial observation platform. BiodiversiTREE is a member of the TreeDivNet global consortium of 32 tree diversity-ecosystem function experiments with over 1.2 million planted trees.

Global Change Research Wetland (GCReW): The Global Change Research Wetland (GCREW) is a National Science Foundation-Long Term Research in Environmental Biology facility dedicated to unraveling the complex ecological processes that confer stability on coastal marshes as they respond to global environmental change. GCREW currently supports 4 long-term global change experiments, marsh-wide observations of plant community composition and productivity, import-export budgets for dissolved, particulate and gaseous forms of carbon, and detailed surface elevation observations. GCReW consists of a 1,200 ft² research lab, a 1,200 ft² fabrication shop, five out-buildings totaling 1,500 ft², and a facility for performing sea level studies. The facility has a 1,500 ft-network of boardwalks over the marsh and ample electricity. The lab has high speed Ethernet and wireless internet service that supports data transmission to the main campus located 3 miles away.

Equipment, Vehicles, and Boats

Computers: SERC’s computer center runs centralized Windows NT servers which support file services, data storage, e-mail, and internet access. Computers are linked by campus-wide 1Gbs Ethernet connected to the Internet with a DS3 communication line. SERC researchers also utilize the Smithsonian’s High Power Computer Cluster (HPCC), consisting of one head node, two login nodes, and 80 compute nodes that add up to ~3,000 CUPs for genomics and bioinformatic computational analyses. All the nodes (head, login, and compute nodes) are connected to the IB switch on the InfiniBand transport fabric, one NetApp "filer" (FAS8040) with 4 shelves, and a dedicated device that provides disk space to all the nodes on the cluster via the two 10 Gbps ports of the network switch using NFS (200TB). Wi-fi and Eduroam are available in all campus buildings.

Share Major Equipment: SERC has a wide variety of instruments, sensors, and equipment required used in environmental science. Most equipment is shared and available to all staff and visitors with oversight. Equipment types reflect our programs that encompass terrestrial, freshwater aquatic, tidal and non-tidal wetland, and estuarine ecosystems, and experimental approaches ranging from field studies to benchtop chemistry. Shared spaces and equipment include routine sample processing such as ovens, grinders, and balances; field equipment such as trucks and boats; diving equipment; analytical instruments such as gas chromatographs and spectrophotometers; and equipment for genetic analyses such as thermocyclers and DNA and RNA processing.