Saturday Science

The day started after a good nights rest (catching up from Wolfing and Grizzing yesterday) with some encouraging results from our denitrification experiment (apparatus above). We started with invaded soils from the Cinnabar site. We applied three treatments, water, Ammonium Nitrate, and Urea. Denitrification is a bacterially mediated process by which nitrogen (plant fertilizer) can be lost from soils as gaseous forms of nitrogen (NO, N2O, and N2). NO is the first step in the process and that is what we quantified using gas diffusion tubes that detect NO. By adding either ammonium nitrate or urea (simulating a urine hit from a grazer) we could determine if soils are losing N. Well the take home is yes they do. Both N treatments produced NO with ammonium nitrate producing twice as much as urea and the water treatment had no detectable production of NO. This is a great result and we can now deploy the system in the field, especially since it is finally warming up. Tonight we are setting up a run with native soils from the remnant/Landslide creek. Stay tuned.

We then headed out to a native site outside of the park which used to be the post office for the area called Carbella. It is Bureau of Land Management land that during fire season in Paradise Valley is used as a fire camp. But it is as close to an intact system that does not have invasives that has comparable soils to Gardiner Basin. The one problem is that Bison do not graze the site because they don't have access (that's another story for another time).  We did find a small cluster of Alyssum by the side of the road where the road grader has disturbed the soil. We spent some time weeding what we could find.

This pic shows the native stand of grasses. They should be grazed.

Tomorrow we will check the weather and then deploy the denitrifcation chambers and start working on Nitrogen mineralization. Perhaps a Sunday hike to the Petrified forest.

Big Horn Sheep

Bighorn sheep used to be ubiquitious in the the American west. Now they are relegated to National parks and forests. Currently YNP has about 200 in the Northern Range and management to increase the populations is currently underway. For more information see this NPS-YELL site.

Not a predator in sight but a good day in the field.

Today we hit Gardiner Basin to sample the restoration exclosure prior to seeding with barley and to quantify soil respiration in our field simulated bovine urine experiment. Using a solar powered pump and CO2 Infrared gas analyzer we can quantify the flux of CO2 from the soil. After a few technical difficulties and several clouds we were able to quantify soil respiration in the GB agricultural field and the native remnant (still has invasives but has not been impacted by tilling). We are starting to get data sets analyzed and things are shaping up quite well. In brief, Alyssum desertorum inhibits fungal growth and in soils in which ALDE dominates the response of soil microbes to SBU is reduced. We have layed out several experiments that we will conduct after we return to campus and several still in the works for the last few days that we are here. The video below shows the stark contrast in weather from a few days ago.

Tomorrow we will set up another lab urease incubation experiment and go back out to GB to quantify soil respiration for species specific soils.

Alyssum hunting = Grizzly

We started out at noon today after "sleeping in" (it is Sunday after all) and cleaning up the lodge. We were headed out to Slough (pronounced slew like stew) Creek and the Specimen area to look for Alyssum desertorum. Using GPS data from the Univ. of Montana we had waypoints to check that had previously identified ALDE's presence. On our way out we passed a bison kill that was 10 feet off the road near Specimen, nothing was eating it but plenty of photographers were waiting for an animal to return (When we came back through the carcass was loaded on a truck to go to the carcass dump, not safe that close to the road).

The hike down the Slough Creek was nice, no ALDE, but we did see plenty of Bison a few ducks and coots and some fresh bear tracks (a little unnerving) but hiking with 7 provides safety in numbers and we had our bear spray. Slough creek is one of (if not the most, Eric?) species rich area in Yellowstone. It is my favorite place to hike. Although it can be hiked on a gravel road it gets you off of the beaten path somewhat and you can hear nature. We even heard the spring peepers today.

Just can't stop taking pictures of bison.

Above is a Bufflehead duck that was being harrassed by a Barrows Goldeneye duck (Below).

So after we finished the Slough Creek hike we headed back towards Specimen to find an ALDE waypoint. Nearly to the destination we see a load of RV's, cars and spotting scopes. We happened upon a grizzly eating an unknown (to us) kill on the Lamar river. The waypoint we were looking for turned out to be on the river bank and probably 1/4 mile from the grizzly so we didn't look for ALDE, but we got great pictures and video, once again. We are really fortunate. Seven wolves and 2 grizzlies on three different kills, all within 3 days.

Tomorrow we will be conducting another lab incubation of soils with simulated bovine urine and an inhbitor of urease. Plus we will be going out to quantify soil respiration in the field and sample soil in the restoration site prior to seeding (which may occur this week).