The Brackenridge Field Laboratory (BFL) is an urban

research station Research stations are facilities where scientific investigation, Data collection, collection, analysis and experimentation occurs. A research station is a facility that is built for the purpose of conducting scientific research. There are also man ...

owned by the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

Austin Austin refers to: Common meanings * Austin, Texas, United States, a city * Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...

. Established officially in 1967, it contains 82

acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

s of land and research infrastructure. It is dedicated to studies in

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

. The extensive historical data kept about its diverse habitats has been important to the study of

biodiversity Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...

ecological succession Ecological succession is the process of how species compositions change in an Community (ecology), ecological community over time. The two main categories of ecological succession are primary succession and secondary succession. Primary successi ...

and

ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...

. Some of the key studies into the red imported fire ant (''

Solenopsis invicta ''Solenopsis invicta'', the fire ant, or red imported fire ant (RIFA), is a species of ant native to South America. A member of the genus '' Solenopsis'' in the subfamily Myrmicinae, it was described by Swiss entomologist Felix Santschi as a ...

'') and potential biocontrol agents such as phorid flies have originated at the field station. It also contains the second largest

insect collection Insect collecting refers to the collection of insects and other arthropods for scientific study or as a hobby.Manoj K., Ranjan R., Sinha M. P., Dhan A., Naaz F., Khanum G., Rani K. A., Sharma S., Raipat B. S. (2022). A Review on Insect Collecti ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

. Since 1973 the Brackenridge Field Laboratory has been a subject of controversy due to the high value of the land. In 1910,

George Washington Brackenridge George Washington Brackenridge (January 14, 1832 – December 28, 1920) was a philanthropist and the longest-serving Regent for the University of Texas. His donations of time, land holdings and wealth expanded the university and provided educati ...

donated located on the

Colorado River The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...

to the university. The Brackenridge Field Laboratory was established on of the land in 1967. A satellite field station in

Bastrop County Bastrop County is located in the U.S. state of Texas. It is in Central Texas and its county seat is Bastrop. As of the 2020 census, the population was 97,216. Bastrop County is included in the Austin–Round Rock, Texas, metropolitan ...

(Stengl Lost Pines Biological Station) is also available for biological research and teaching.

Entomology collection

The University of Texas's entomological collection of insects, located in the Brackenridge Field Laboratory, is the second largest of its kind in the State of Texas. Created in 2011 after the insect collection in the Texas Memorial Museum was merged with the one at the Brackenridge Field Lab, the site contains the largest man-made collection of

cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...

-dwelling

invertebrates Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordate subphylum ...

. The curator of entomology, Alex Wild, is the only full-time researcher employed in the collection. The collection's insects are stored in groups of grey cabinets marked by

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

s, such as

Odonata Odonata is an order of predatory flying insects that includes the dragonflies and damselflies (as well as the '' Epiophlebia'' damsel-dragonflies). The two major groups are distinguished with dragonflies (Anisoptera) usually being bulkier with ...

for dragonflies; each individual drawer contains multiple insects from their respective order-labeled row. Wild started an online image project known as "Insects Unlocked", which provides photographs of insects released to the public under the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

; it has since amassed over 1,500 photographs, and Wild has said the database has seen use by government agencies. The collection's oldest insect specimens were collected in the late 19th century, part of the Ludolph Heiligbrodt Collection which ran from 1870 to 1910. According to the official website of the collection, it contains about half a million individual pinned insects and about 1,500,000 insects preserved in

ethanol Ethanol (also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound with the chemical formula . It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, with its formula also written as , or EtOH, where Et is the ps ...

. Along with the Texas specimens located in the collection, there are insects housed there from other

U.S. State In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

, and

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

. Besides the large amount of insects, studies about fire ants along with specimens of insects using plants as their hosts for research can be found in the entomology collection.

References

{{reflist Laboratories in the United States Biological stations