Mountain Lake Biological Station

**About the Station** **What is MLBS?** Mountain Lake Biological Station is a full-service residential field station located atop Salt Pond Mountain in the southern Appalachians of southwest Virginia. Programs include [summer field courses](https://mlbs.virginia.edu/summercourses), [Research Experiences for Undergraduates](https://mlbs.virginia.edu/reuprogram), numerous faculty-driven [research projects](https://mlbs.virginia.edu/research), [scientific meetings](https://mlbs.virginia.edu/groups), outreach activities, and more. An average high-season day at MLBS hosts 50-100 people, including undergraduate and graduate students, research faculty from around the world, and family members. Everyone in the community works, eats, and lives together everyday, integrating research and mentorship in the truest sense of a Jeffersonian “academical village.” The Station is remote but accessible, and is surrounded by sharp ecological gradients and fine-scale changes in habitat-- ideal conditions for studying ecology and evolution. Visiting scientists conduct research in plant and animal population biology, behavioral ecology, life history evolution, community ecology, ecological genetics, biosystematics, epidemiology, conservation biology, and the physiology of behavior. Biologists interested in field studies are encouraged to consider Mountain Lake as a home for their [research](https://mlbs.virginia.edu/research). Station use is supported year round.