Last night we were fortunate to go to Mike Weintraub's sight where his team is studying soil nutrients at accelerated snowmelt plots just north of camp (I'll be featuring his study in a future entry). Mike is a very animated guy from the University of Toledo who I've described as a walking sound bite. Our team will be examining the organisms found in soil samples from each of Mike's study plots.
Amanda Koltz and Mike Weintraub discussing soil sampling.
Soil is primarily sampled by coring. Essentially you pound a sharpened metal pipe into the ground and pull out a nice plug of soil. Since we are on the tundra and we don't want to disturb the organisms that could be squished or will flee, we chose a unique method of soil sampling. We cut square slices of tundra with a bread knife! We then gently removed each sample in an effort to not disturb the organisms living in the soil.
Holding a slice of tundra! You can see how far down I was able to cut before hitting solid ice.
This morning we started working with last night's soil samples. The first step is to set up large Berlese funnels. I have made these for my classroom using 2 liter soda bottles, but these soil samples are large and very wet so we are using 5 gallon buckets. Each bucket contains a large metal funnel, wire mesh inside the funnel to set the soil samples on, and a small cup of ethyl alcohol at the bottom to kill the organisms that fall out. Each bucket then has a brooding lamp (like the ones used for raising baby chicks) placed on top.
Berlese funnels for drying out our soil samples and collecting soil organisms.
Each soil sample was measured, weighed, and wrapped in cheesecloth. We will need these measurements to determine the density of various organisms.
Kiki Contreras weighing soil samples.
A cheesecloth wrapped soil sample sitting in a Berlese funnel.
Now we turn on the lamps (heat) and drive our soil critters to the cups below. We'll have to wait several days to analyze our samples.
Our afternoon was spent in the field on a beautiful day. We set out to place open top chambers (OTCs) over half of our mesocosms. The OTCs work like a mini greenhouse, warming the air inside them. This will allow us to examine the effects of temperature on the communities in our mesocosms.
A mesocosm with an open top chamber (OTC) over it. The tricky part is trying to get the OTCs level with the very uneven tundra.
I was thrilled to end my work week by wearing shorts and a t-shirt roughly 160 miles north of the Arctic Circle in early June. Our last task of the day involved running around the tundra hunting wolf spiders with cups. It's not the typical way we capture spiders, but we needed to introduce some to our mesocosms.
My first wolf spider!
Most people at Toolik work 6 days per week and take Sundays off. So the end of the work week and the beautiful weather changed the atmosphere into a very relaxed one as people began to gather outside and socialize around the weekly bonfire. This really is an incredible place, and I feel very lucky to be here!