I studied the vole, a population ecology model species, whose natural cycles in abundance have been an area of interest for ecologists for the past century. 

Working at KSR gave us the rare opportunity to directly manipulate population density, and study the outcome of these manipulations. We were able to construct field infrastructure to enclose and monitor distinct populations, and then replicate this work across multiple summers, giving us a unique and powerful dataset. 

The onsite housing and facilities gave us easy access to the study site (especially important for 4 am live-trapping) and storage for samples and gear before bringing them back to the university. This work at KSR was completely essential for my thesis, and resulted in four peer-reviewed publications in ecology journals.