Feeding Trials – Round 2

Things have been trucking right along with the project, so much so that I’ve barely had a moment to myself, much less a moment to update the site. So I’m sure all of you, my loyal boggers are probably on the edge of your seats just waiting for some news…right? Well I won’t disappoint. The following covers just about everything that has been going on with the project since January. Enjoy!

Feeding Continues…

All through January and February the plants were fed according to their grouping. Because it can be a long and tedious process I ended up recruiting several helpers on more than a few occasions to help get the job done. Thanks guys! Although it may seem like I gripe about the feeding, it is actually probably my favorite part of the project. The real work comes when I have to take measurements. As I mentioned in the last post, this involves regular monitoring of specific health factors such as each plants’ growth (or lack of growth) which is represented by height (mm) and new growth, represented by the number of new traps and new phyllodial (non-trap) leaves. In addition I am also measuring the pH and temperature (C°) of each trap of each plant… talk about work that can become tedious…

However the work is certainly starting to pay off as I am already starting to see some interesting trends in my data. And while I can’t state anything definitive until I  have collected all my data and then run all my statistical analysis, I can say that I am getting excited to see my final results!  How about you? Have any thoughts on what the data might tell me? I’d love to  hear your thoughts. I especially love hearing from my young scientist friends who have been collaborating and following the project. Take a moment to send your hypothesis in the comments section at the bottom of the post! I will make sure to address it in my next post! The best ideas and comments I get will get included in the Students Speak section of the Bog in a Box curriculum! So put your thinking caps on and get to writing!

Round 2 Begins

The first round of feeding trials wrapped up at the end of February. At that point I began to analyze my data, looking for patterns while my plants, troopers that they are, took a rest before the second round of trials. If it sounds like I am humanizing my plants, I probably am and do. I know I have caught myself talking to them during long hours alone in the lab. But I’m not ashamed, after all who doesn’t become attached to their work? (haha!) Do you ever talk to your house plants? Do you think it helps them grow? I happen to think it does, and there are many who agree with me, including the show Mythbusters. For those who prefer a more scientific resource over a television show however, there has actually been a by-the-book scientific study done by the Royal Horticultural Society that published the same conclusions. So maybe me talking to my research plants isn’t so nutty after all!

Okay, back to my preliminary data: For those of you following the project from your classrooms, think about what it means to analyze data and look for patterns. What might I be looking for? Do you remember my hypotheses? If not jump over to the About the Project page and take a quick look to refresh your memory. Remember that my primary concern when I designed this study, was to determine if an introduced invasive species like fire ants, would end up causing detrimental ecosystem-wide effects to the mountain bogs where my rare plants are an anchor species. In case you have forgotten, being an anchor species for an ecosystem means that you provide important ecosystem services to so many different members of the community that without you, the system falters and eventually collapses. This makes anchor species extremely important when it comes to conserving specific habitats. The Mountain purple pitcherplant provides a safe haven for the larval stages of many invertebrates found nowhere else. These invertebrates then become food for a number of small reptiles, amphibians, birds and even mammals that make the bog their home. Ecosystems are both complex and simple in that they involve many characters, but all are in balance with one another like a house of cards. Remove one and the rest will come tumbling down.

After nearly a month off, it was time to put the plants to work again and so Round 2 began on April 2nd. It was nice to get back into the lab, and back to feeding the plants after several weeks of just looking at graphs and trying to analyze what can seem like miles and miles of numbers… otherwise known as my data. Don’t think I wasn’t busy though. The warmer weather brought  with it the return of many types of insects, awakening from their long winter dormancy, including ants. For me that means a return to the field to trap fire ants for Round 2. This time I didn’t have to travel far to find the mounds, as there were so many right in my own neighborhood. I am thankful that I pretty much have my method down after so many false starts during Round 1, and so far I’ve captured almost enough ants for the entire second round of feeding with no bites (yippee!) so far.

In addition to trapping ants and analyzing data, I have also been working on the Bog in a Box program, outlining the project curriculum, refining the existing K-12 activities and adding new ones. I have been lucky in that I have gotten to work with some great students and teachers during this time, and so far the Project is shaping up to be even better than I ever hoped it would be. Once finished there will be a complete curriculum addition for K-12 focused on resource conservation, ecology, life science and biology that meets the state science standards for each grade accordingly. If you are a teacher or student interested in using the curriculum, make sure to keep checking the Bog in a Box page for updates and activities. The final project should be uploaded sometime shortly before the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year. Have an idea or want to contribute to the project in some way? I am always open to collaboration with both students and teachers. Leave a note in the comments section below, on the Bog in a Box page or send me an email and I’ll be sure to get back with you!

Working with Future Scientists

I have had the honor and privilege of working with several different groups of students over the last couple of months, so I want to take a moment to thank them for not only taking an interest in the Project, but for taking an interest in conservation-ecology and science in general. No matter where they go in life, or what they choose to do for their own career, they will go forward from here, right now and today with an excellent understanding of conservation, what it means to them, why science is important, and how it relates to everyday life and the things they care about. Seeing their faces light up each and every time I visited a classroom, hearing their ideas on creating a better, more sustainable future and working with them to learn about creating their own Bog in a Box, truly made me feel like I had made a difference in their lives. They certainly  changed mine…for the better. So I want to send a very special thanks to the Ms. Drummond’s 3rd grade class at Winterville Elementary, the 7th graders at Hillsman middle school, and of course the kids right here at Statham Elementary.

Interested in having me come out and work with your students or group? Leave a note in the comments section here or on the Bog in a Box page. You can also send me an email.

Okay, it is time for me to get back to the plants for now. But stay tuned as the end of the project is drawing near!! I will leave you with these images: Progress pictures of one of my plants…first photographed before the feeding trials, another in the middle and then one during the waiting period between feeding trials, and the last at the beginning of the second feeding trial. Can you guess which group this plant is in?

1-18-13

2-8-2013

3-21-2013

4-1-2013

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want…But If You Try Sometimes, You Find You Get What You Need”

Yes it is a Rolling Stones song (one of my favorites by the way), but it is also an incredibly apt and timely statement to make right about now. A few days ago I was fairly convinced that even though I had put everything I had into my project, it simply wasn’t going to translate into success via The Scifund Challenge this time around. While not ecstatic about it obviously, I had already decided not to let it get me down, as this research means entirely too much to me.

Then it seemed that those that have always been there for me decided to bring out the big guns and show the world (and me) that we weren’t going quietly into the night yet. With only a few days and then hours to go, amazing things began to happen. First, the project received an immensely generous donation from Melanie Craft, bringing the project to almost the half-way point. Then long time pal and founder of the awesome t-shirt company BAN T-shirts , Duncan Carson chipped in and began spreading the word through his own social networks. Then a lovely woman named Mary Canady let me know that her company, had chosen my project as one of four featured in their Scifund Holiday Challenge where the winner with the most votes gets the top prize, a $300 donation! (By the way you can still vote!)

So now with 32 hours to go, regardless of whether I reach my funding goal or not, I will still have enough to cover the most expensive equipment which was the most critical component of my research. And knowing that the Bog Community, those that have been following along and supporting me through every step of the way, are still cheering and pulling for me has really made my entire day, week, month and year!!!

Thanks Everyone!

Moving Day

Going Dormant

With things moving slower with The Scifund Challenge than expected, I have had to make decisions regarding the plants in order to extend the field season in the face of dropping temperatures. One of the things that has always fascinated me about pitcherplants is that they take cues from the amount of daylight hours they receive. In the winter when they begin to get less and less exposure to the sun’s rays they enter a period of dormancy that can last for up to three or four months depending on their location. During dormancy the plants just  shut down and do not feed or produce new tissue. It is just as well since there are few insects around in winter in most habitats. The fact that the plants shut down based on the amount of day light hours rather than say temperatures is much like the act of hibernation you would find in mammals, which to me, makes my plants all that much cooler.

This coolness though was recently threatening the integrity of my study however when you consider that my research involves feeding my plants and so I kind I of need them to stay happy and alert and well…not dormant.

So what’s a poor researcher to do? Well I will give you a hint…it involves trickery…and electronics…but mostly trickery and frolic (Okay the trickery is based on science but I frolicked while doing it so I am claiming that one.) Yes, what I am referring to is using a set of specially designed lights referred to as grow lights that are attached to a timer to fool my plants into thinking that the days are not in fact getting shorter; That Mr. Sun is happy in the sky for a full 12 hours each and every day for as long as I need to get things figured out. Soooo…

Time to Move to The Grow Lab

Okay, so let me back up for a minute so you can understand a little about how I got to all the frolicking and trickery to begin with. So now that you know something about the behavior of purple pitcherplants, let me tell you a little something about Mother Nature. First off though, know that I have the ultimate respect for this beautiful planet and everything in it as I believe that there is a brilliant design in even the tiniest microcosm of a habitat within a droplet of water in a spider’s web. Therefore understand what I am about to say is said with humor but in complete seriousness, with a side of reverence many a researcher, conservationist and ecologist will understand. I think Mother Nature would get it too.

First and foremost, never trust a weatherman’s forecast and make plans of any sort based on it (and especially not any for ecological research) because Mother Nature works spectacularly hard at making the Earth run the way it is supposed too and trying to act as if we tiny humans are in any way capable of doing a better job is really a slap in the face  and will only make your life and everything in it meet with mass resistance from Ms. Nature herself. Case en point: Living in the south, particularly north Georgia from October to March is enough to make anyone think the one at the controls is more than a little bi-polar. Cold.Hot.Freezing.Balmy.Rainy and Dreary. Drought! One day you are wearing a scarf, mittens and Pea-coat paired with your favorite boots  while you hunch against a bitter wind and literally the next you’re sporting one of your many retro national park tee shirts, jeans and Tevas and bopping to the iPod while working in the garden in the bright sunshine. Someday’s I wake up and the first thought that crosses my mind is that between God and Mother Nature, someone lost a bet. Because of this, all good botanists and ecologists, everybody really, knows doing research with plants can be a little frustrating during this time and that it’s just a much better bet to try to get things accomplished during Spring and Summer. Those seasons are really not any more predictable, but for some reason Ms. Nature just seems a little more relaxed…

I knew this of course when I began my work but you know that little thing called “Murphy’s Law” that states, “If anything can go wrong, it will”? Yeah that essentially applies to most parts of my life and definitely to the project, often in ways that become hugely humorous later…as I laugh and cry and recount all the lessons I have learned along the way…but I digress.

So without the money for the equipment (specifically the pH meter) to continue the study and nothing on the horizon from The Scifund Challenge I made a decision to move the plants to the Grow Lab. The Grow Lab is exactly what it sounds like, an area specially designed to help plants grow by exposing them to light for a set period of time. By moving the plants I would be able to have them exposed to 12 hours of light on a daily basis, more than enough to trick them into thinking it is still fall for a little while longer, extend the field season and buy myself some time to keep the project going while I figure out what my next steps are.

Decision Time

The trade-off of course is that the plants are in-doors now rather than the greenhouse, so there are not a whole lot of bugs around and the plants look a little hungry. There have only been two since I have moved them four days ago…I am reluctant to dip into my research supplies (ants) because that will mean I will have to capture more once I get the pH meter and can start the trials (feeding them fire ants too), which might prove difficult as it is much harder to collect insects in the winter, part of why the plants go dormant in the first place.

I could buy insects but even that small expense at this point might be counter-productive if I can’t get the rest of the equipment soon. Additionally another effect of the grow lab is that my plants are growing and it looks like they will soon need to be transplanted into bigger pots. As it is they are already requiring much more distilled water and much more often since they were moved and while not expensive, it does add up for 45 plants. (Distilled water is a requirement of the study primarily because the water at the State Botanical Gardens has such a high pH that it isn’t good for the plants and two I need to remove as many confounding factors as I can as far as things that may affect the health of the plants.)

Mural on the new outdoor classroom wall (see the pitcherplant?)

I never like to end these posts on a bum note and I won’t do that tonight either. I posted on the Scifund Project page that no matter the outcome of the challenge, the project will continue and survive…primarily because I refuse to let it fail, and also because one way or another I am graduating in May and this project will be completed, period. And the good things that are happening because of this project (Bog in a Box, Bog Conservation) will continue way beyond graduation, the Scifund Challenge or the University of Georgia because doing this has changed both me and conservation for the better and changed how I will leave my mark on this wonderful, beautiful planet.

Thanks to all my wonderful supporters, especially to new friends like Todd Palmer of the The Palmer Lab who just recently donated to the project. I couldn’t have done it without all of you! Still want to help? You still can by logging on to the project page and clicking the Fuel this project link.

Inoculation Time – Prepping my Plants

Things have been moving along swiftly and a few days ago I was able to take a huge step forward with my research plants. Because my plants were propagated artificially, away from the safe haven of the mountain bog I needed to inoculate them, or in other words treat them with fluid collected from wild grown pitcherplants. What this meant for me was that 1) I got to spend a whole day in one of my favorite places and 2) my plants will now theoretically have the same communities living within their pitcher traps as those found in wild plants.

How did I do this you might be wondering? Fairly simple process. I visited one of the bogs in the mountains of North Georgia, and carefully collected fluid from the traps of several plants. This fluid was then used to treat each of the pitcher traps of my research plants back at the Botanical Gardens. After my plants have some time to adjust, I will take samples of the fluid and take a look under a microscope to see how successful the treatment was. 

So be sure to check back and see how the plants are doing. And if you are in a giving mood this holiday season, remember that the project is in need of a pH meter in order to finish the research – and you can help. Check out our Scifund Challenge page to see where we stand!