Saturn, Neptun, LUMCON - Phragmites Project

"What the fuck is going on?" - it is a citation from super charismatic Dr Jack Gilbert - microbial ecologist who decided to ID all microbes present on Earth in an ambitious called Earth Microbiome Project. There are more microbes on Earth than stars in the entire cosmos. To be precise, estimated number of cellular microbes in the biosphere of the Earth is around 10 to 30th power (10 + 30 zeros) the number of stars is estimated to be 10 to 22nd power (Purdom and Francis 2009). And we, Louisiana Phraggers Team, are a part of the research project that aims to contribute to Earth Microbiome Project by hunting microbes related to invasive success of local grass Phragmites australis. Phragmites is mostly the dweller of wetlands ecotones zones  - zones of high disturbance level that mark border between high wave/hurricane/human activity and more intact wetland ecosystems. And of course we do have our hypotheses we want to test:

H1: Increases in soil salinity will increase dominance and spread of Phragmites. Keep in mind that see level rises and climate becomes more and more volatile.
H2: alteration of soil microbes via soil water intrusion, might have stronger positive effect on invasive dominance and spread of Phragmites colonies than direct effects of salinity per se.

Well, since there are more microbes on Earth than there are stars in our galaxy you may start to assume that researching the microbes that facilitate invasiveness of Phragmites can take you to  weird places. So true!
At some sites we nearly collapsed due to humidity and high temperature. Here, Green Frog is attentively observing us taking on her Phragmites.

Green Frog inside our PVC plot marker. Credit Carolyn Schroeder.


At Bayou Sauvage site we heard of crocodiles crossing our sites and I had a chance to face off with a wild hog. But...not a alligator, not a wild hog but the local Vietnamese take-away place turned out to be the most challenging. If you ever happen to buy stuff in Dong Phuong Bakery and you turned towards that weird pink meat for your $3 sandwich - stop and think again. Lady selling them will explain you in perfect Vietnamese language that there is something in it you should be aware of. William got a diarrhoea. 

Rattle pea and Phragmites in background, Bayou Sauvage. Credit: Carolyn Schroeder.

By the time we began our field work at Pear River site Christina developed the most streamlined way of work = our mobile laboratory. Setting up a mobile lab right next to the inter-state road carries a certain risk though = risk of streaming-out questions in heads of passing-by drivers.

Mobile Lab at Pearl River site.

Following curious Mississippi guy, removing a large infringement from local police for parking on a verge of interstate road, flying the airboat with Guys from Barataria, chatty retirees at Big Brach site, eerie LUMCON site where we ran out of dry ice (frozen CO2) we managed to close the field work season 2017. Year 2018 = start of lab work on RNA and DNA of all the samples we collected in 2017 (8 sites, 168 plots, ~672 DNA/RNA samples). These samples will contribute to that very ambitious Earth Microbiome Project as well - Fuck Yeah!

On Swamp (Barataria) that sucks in. Credit: Carolyn Schroeder.

Veg Survey at Barataria. Some Greens are hard to ID.

Barataria Airboat Crew


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Glorious / Disgraceful Tuesday 19 June 2018

Image
I simply have to diarize that Thrilling Tuesday (19 June 2018). That Tuesday didn't start anything special. Following one month or so of Christina's unflattering comments on my hairstyle I arranged a meeting with a hairdresser. Here we come - the roller coaster starts accelerating. The hairdresser turned out to be a rock/jazz band singer and I could not stop asking for more details. Is there anywhere a place on Earth, except for New Orleans, where singers recruit their fans by trimming their hair :) ? Anyway, here is one of the videos of  that rock & roll hairdresser Barbarella Blue (like all well-established Kardashian-like stars in USA Barbarella Blue has Instagram too):  A chatter with Barbarella made me come late to viewing World Cup game at the Botany Lab, Tulane University. Fan W. set up the projector and the live channel before I came. Few colleagues joined us in supporting Poland against Senegal. What a disgraceful game it was for Poland! One deflection off P...
Read more

Igatsus

= missing/craving. Today I won't write a lot because I am still ill and in addition I went through stressful and very long IELTS test. Let us listen together a guy who created a band in Estonia called Sun and this song used to accompany me almost everyday thanks to "SkyPlus" radio playing loudly in my ex-workplace in "Green Fairy" Greenhouse in Tartu: Refrain goes like this: Igatsus pole süüdi Do not blame craving Igatsus teeb head Craving does good Igatsus annab teada Craving lets you know Armastus meist inimesed teeb Love is what makes humans out of us I dont have to miss my Estonia anymore. I followed my Estonia to Australia : )
Read more

Snow of Irritation

Image
Few days ago my friend Bartek sent to me this picture: It is a view from his window. Transport/communication in Lublin at the time of this white precipitation was paralysed. Bartek asked me to stop uploading pictures of sunny Australia : ) if I want to save him from depression.
Read more