Thanks for the insightful posting, Eigen. I can see that my first step should be to decide upon what I exactly want to do. You guessed it right, my background is informatics. Sadly enough I'm not well versed in environmental theory, biology, etc. I'm considering extensive self study and/or enrolling into courses in relevant discipline once I've decided the topic of my research. But end of the day, it all depends on the options available to me from the school.