W&L Biology in Yellowstone

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Fall 2010

Out in the park for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem meeting. Will be talking about the Gardiner Basin invasive species vegetation restoration project. A talk that wouldn't be possible without the great efforts of the students that have traveled to YNP in the spring and worked in the lab. Things are looking good in GB. They had enough water this year for the barley and wheat to hold back the Alyssum. Eric Hellquist and I will be sampling tomorrow and Thursday (attending meeting M night T and W). I went into the park this afternoon to check out the status of ALDE at the site near the Lamar river at Specimen Ridge. Well I couldn't get to the site. Two grizzlies were hanging around. I got a good look at a tagged male headed toward Specimen Ridge and could see the other one near the Lamar. No photos. Just in my synapses.
Then on the way back I saw a Black bear sow with 2 cubs in the Yellowstone River. And then on the way back to Gardiner for dinner at the Rusty Rail I saw a bull elk bugling with a harem of cows in front of the Mammoth Lodge. Not a bad first day. YNP never ceases to amaze me. Tomorrow a quck trip to look for wildlife pre-dawn and then we will go to GB to sample.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Glad to be back, but must return soon!

I must say I am glad to be back, but I most certainly must return soon! The lack of high speed internet essentially eliminated my online activity because it frustrated me- so when the internet went inactive for the last couple of days, I had no problem adjusting; where as I watched Cozy get the shakes while she detoxed from streaming scrubs.

I will miss Yellowstone National Park and the the fun we had in Montana. The last few days went by quickly, and before we knew it we were back in Lexington. The last few days were marked with one major field experiment which used potassium nitrate and ammonium sulfate labeled with the stable isotope 15-N. This experiment was designed to measure nitrification and denitrification in field. We performed the experiment in our Remnant field site and Cinnabar field site, collecting soil cores and injecting them with our labeled salts. We collected a total of 48 samples, 16 at Remnant (8 for each salt) and 32 at Cinnabar (8 for each salt both inside and outside the exclosure). Each set had samples that were brought back to the lab for immediate procedures, and also had samples allowed to incubate in the field for 24 hours. Upon our return to the labge, we extracted each sample with potassium chloride. The following day we returned to the each field site, acquired our incubated tubes, and extracted them with KCL back at the labge. Our plethora of soils was shipped the following morning so that it would hopefully arrive by Monday for class.

On Thursday during our final week, Dr. Hamilton gave a presentation to members of the National Park Service who are working on the restoration project in the Gardiner Basin. Discussion followed the presentation and then we enjoyed a lunch at a new restaurant in town- I believe the name of the place was the cowboy lounge.

We saw most of the parks unique geological features during the final days. We hiked around mammoth hot springs, visited the mud volcanoes, stood on the shore of Yellowstone Lake, pushed Wilson into the Grand Prismatic Spring, and of course, we joined hundred of people to watch Old Faithful erupt. My favorite site was Grand Prismatic Spring, not because we pushed Wilson in, but because of the motley rings formed by extremophilic archaea. Unfortunately, the best place to view these rings is not next to it but above it; nevertheless I did enjoy!

Saturday was spent traveling from Bozeman back to Lexington. We went from a cold, dry desert region to a place where the humidity was palpable. On the ride from Roanoke airport to Lexington we all relaxed listening to the radio show House of Hair. It looked like we would coast up highway 81 without an issue when all of a sudden a mad truck driver started playing slalom with the median. We got away from that truck, ASAP!

Unfortunately on Monday our samples had not arrived, and so we came up with a game plan for the week:

Tuesday- prep samples for assays

Wednesday- Conduct assays, collect data, prepare poster

Thursday- Prepare presentation

Friday- Presentation

It will be a busy week, but well worth it, and we will let everyone know exactly what we did while we were in Yellowstone.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Pictures everywhere

The suburban that faithfully took us everywhere. This pic was taken on the first day at YNP. I assure you, it did not look this clean after two weeks of serious work.

Working hard or hardly working? Dr. Hamilton had to spend a while trying to explain what we were to do on this first day of soil sampling. Everyone went, "huh?" He is a patient man.

Peter O'Donnell, trying to get the perfect picture. We took a lot of pictures, and Peter made sure they were all taken at the right angle :)

Now that we are back we can say we went, we followed all park regulations, we did science and cannot wait for you to hear all about it this coming Friday at the W & L gymnasium. Be there between noon and 2pm!

First day of school in Lex

I thought leaving Yellowstone would be bittersweet but I was wrong. Keep the bitter, cancel the sweet. I miss the place, the lodge, the food and the great atmosphere the group created. Oh how could I forget the suburban?

The last day in Yellowstone spent as a tourist (after saying goodbye to Mary and Mr. Klaptosvky) went fantastic. Seeing the mild volcanoes was pretty awesome, but I have to say that this experience didnt top seeing wolves right behind a grizzly bear. Dr. Hamilton did a great job at explaining that we were right above a supervolcano and what would happen if it erupted. ScArY!

Thankfully it didnt erupt and we are back safe and sound. There were a few glitches here and there but we are fired up to do some lab work. We discovered more ALDE germinations in some of the soils. Man, that thing is stubborn!

Most of the soil samples hadnt arrived by class time today so tomorrow is the big day.Watch this space...

Last days in yellowstone

It feels rather strange to be back in Lexington. The weather Saturday night was the same as when we left for Yellowstone, hot and humid. I had almost forgotten what that felt like after two weeks in the cold and dry Montana air. Also strange to have to wake up and go to class again.

During the last couple days of our stay in Yellowstone, we were kept busy packing, cleaning and being tourists. The entire lab and all soil samples were packed into boxes and shipped out to arrive in Lexington. Not an easy task to say the least, and there were some minor mishaps (aka some forgotten soil that required rearrangement of luggage), but we were ultimately victorious. When we left the Bear Lair, it was as thought there had never been any people there conducting experiments with soil.

On Friday, we did a full tour of the park. It is a day which I will certainly never forget. On our tour, we saw the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Dragon's Mouth Spring, Old Faithful, Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone Lake etc. I particularly enjoyed looking out over the iced and snow covered Yellowstone Lake. It was very calming staring into the distance at the snow covered mountains beyond the snow covered lake. Ate ramen while watching Old Faithful go off, bet not too many people can say that. Watched a mildly successful ambush by Thomas III with a bow and arrow on his father. Saw some epic bridge building.

Despite the cold, I have grown to love Yellowstone. I can now confidently say that I see why people had wanted to preserve the park. Between the long hike up Specimen Ridge and losing myself while staring at the mountains in the horizon, waking up at 4 AM to catch glimpses of wolves and grizzles, meeting and listening to the people for whom the park is more than just a patch of land and a collection of animals, or a spot on Google Maps, I will truly miss being in Yellowstone. Hopefully, someday I will be back.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Back in Lex

No problems with our flight from Bozeman to O'Hare. Will and I don't remember take off. Our quick layover of 1.5 h got extended. Another plane at our gate then a delay for customer service and we took off at 6:52 instead of 6:10 and arrived at 9:15 instead of 8:46. Headed over to Enterprise and they were closed, so much for giving them flight information and calling them from O'Hare to say we were delayed. Thankfully Hertz had a Kia Sportage (a little smaller than the Suburban) and we made it back to Lexington by 10:50. I will try to get more pictures up later today.