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LEAD ARTICLES

• School of Forest Resources Faculty Look at How Fish Can Control Disease in Africa
• The New Forest Resources Building

School of Forest Resources Faculty Look at How Fish Can Control Disease in Africa

Jay Stauffer, professor of ichthyology, has been awarded a $1.6 million, five-year joint grant from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health to research how fish might be managed to control the snail hosts of human parasites. Stauffer, who has studied the biology of fish in Central Africa’s huge Lake Malawi since 1983, is the lead researcher on the project. Other grant recipients are Paola Ferreri, associate professor of fisheries management, and Kenneth McKaye, a professor at the Appalachian Environmental Laboratory, University of Maryland System, based in Frostburg, Maryland.

Most infected individuals do not die as a result of the disease, however, there is an estimated sixteen percent to eighteen percent loss of productivity experienced by infected people. Stauffer, who contracted schistosomiasis himself from the waters of Lake Malawi, has seen the disease run rampant. Transmission rates are now so high that the disease poses a high risk to the “From 1977 to 1987, our scientists from Penn State and the University of Maryland studied the biology of the cichlid fishes around Nokumba Peninsula in southern Lake Malawi and none of the team contracted schistosomiasis from swimming and diving,” he says. “In 1991, however, five of six divers were infected with schistosomiasis and I was infected in 1992.”

Stauffer says a sustainable approach to schistosomiasis control is urgently needed, especially at lakeshore villages. Potential methods include improved water supply, sanitation, health education, chemotherapy, molluscicides, and biological control agents such as fish. It is the latter on which Stauffer and his associates will concentrate.

A few countries, such as Cameroon, Kenya, Sudan, Zaire and Brazil, have tried to use fishes to control snail hosts. Fish have been shown to control schistosome snail hosts in some aquaculture ponds around Malawi.

“New regulations to prevent fishing in the breeding areas of snail-eating fishes is key to controlling the snail hosts,” explains Stauffer. “We know that it is possible to limit the harvests of these fishes at certain localities and during the height of breeding seasons by hiring local fishermen to enforce the fishing regulations. Once the regulations are in effect, local management plans can be tested for their effectiveness in interrupting the life cycle of schistosomes by reducing snail populations.”

Ideally, Stauffer adds, if such plans prove successful, they can be expanded to appropriate locales in other areas of Lake Malawi. He believes it will take three to five years for early results to be apparent.

“We are suggesting a strict management and control policy for snail-eating fishes,” says Stauffer, “since for the first time a decrease in fish abundance has been directly linked to an outbreak of human disease.”

The New Forest Resources Building

For the first time in our School’s history, we will house our three professional programs under one roof. Currently this includes 45 faculty, 21 staff, 375 undergraduate students, and 90 graduate students within our Forest Science, Wildlife and Fisheries Science, and Wood Products programs.

The new structure will include four stories, plus a lower floor, and encompass about 95,000 square feet of total space. The building will be approximately fifty percent larger than the combined areas of Ferguson Building and the Forest Resources Lab. Planning is under the direction of Bower Lewis Thrower Architects from Philadelphia. We have completed preliminary designs and are moving ahead to the interior designs of teaching and research areas. Construction is scheduled to start in late 2003, with completion anticipated by April 2005.

Teaching facilities will encompass 27 percent of the new building; research another 43 percent; faculty, staff, and graduate offices will require 23 percent; and administrative areas will be a final 6 percent. In addition, the new building will feature a fourstory atrium within its central design. Our teaching areas include:

• the Kocjancic Forest Soils and Waters Teaching Lab and three other teaching laboratories devoted to wildlife, fisheries, and wood products
• two technology classrooms with 60- and 80-seat capacities
• the Steimer Auditorium, with a 140-seat capacity
• three computer labs—two for undergraduates and a GIS graduate lab
• conference rooms with state-of-the-art communication systems
• the Edwards Student Activities Center.

Our research facilities include:
• forestry labs, including the Schatz Tree Genetics Center and others devoted to silviculture, ecology, soils, economics and policy, and forest management
• fisheries labs assigned to systematics, physiology/toxicology, ecology, and image analysis
• water resources labs devoted to hydrology, water quality, and snow/ice
• wildlife labs involving ecology, management, biometrics, and habitat studies
• wood products labs tied to wood chemistry, wood physics, business, marketing, operations research, and wood composites. Our faculty, staff, and graduate student offices will serve:
• faculty, endowed chairs, and visiting scientists
• graduate students and technical personnel
• staff and administrative personnel within central operations, resident education, extension, and research
• meeting rooms and publication work areas for outreach.

Our new building is budgeted at $20.4 million. Of this, $14.4 million was authorized by the Commonwealth and the University, leaving $6 million to be raised from private sources. Alumni and friends have already contributed or pledged more than $28 million—a commitment that has convinced others that we will reach this goal. As such, we are moving ahead on final planning and construction.
We still need $3.2 million to complete the funding on the building and otherwise maintain the integrity of our current plans. These gifts can be provided outright or pledged over a fiveyear period. Key rooms and areas within the building are available as naming opportunities. These begin at the $25,000 level (faculty offices, meeting areas) and advance to the more prominent portions of the building.

We invite your support. Our new building will insure Penn State’s commitment to the management and utilization of our forest and wildlife resources. Our faculty will advance sound graduates from our three majors and the very best in scientific studies and extension education. Now is the time to add your financial support toward this future.

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