Society for Freshwater Science - Headwaters

Issue #4- Gretchen Wichman

StayFresh2 — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 15:14:12 +0000

Monday, February 8, 2021

James Guinnip

It’s a pleasure to introduce the first undergraduate researcher featured on the Headwaters blog! Gretchen Wichman is a wundergrad at California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB), where she has been a member of Dr. John Olson’s Watershed Environments and Ecology Lab for the past three years. Dr. Olson is also her advisor for the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center (UROC) Scholar program at her home institution. Gretchen moved to Kansas during the summer of 2020 to complete a National Science Foundation (NSF) - Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) project with Dr. Walter Dodds at Kansas State University. Her project was funded by the Kansas NSF Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) award, Microbiomes of Aquatic, Plant, and Soil Systems (MAPS).

Gretchen discovered the REU opportunity by meeting James Guinnip, PhD candidate in the Dodds lab and author of this blog post, at the 2019 SFS meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah. She attended his talk about how nutrient export by intermittent streams is affected by characteristics of the dry period, then approached him in the hallway to ask if he knew of any summer research opportunities. To his surprise, she was willing to move from sunny California to The Sunflower State where she became an invaluable member of the Dodds lab. Here’s what Gretchen had to say about becoming interested in researching freshwater ecosystems as an undergraduate, her experience with the REU program, and her goals for the future:

Although I was not frequently exposed to streams during my childhood, I am discovering my interest in freshwater systems during college. I grew up in the coastal community of San Diego, California where I was dropped off at the beach in the summers. My first semester in college, I joined Dr. John Olson’s Watershed Environments and Ecology Lab. This is when I discovered my curiosity about how rivers function. I started helping with hydrology monitoring at the Santa Lucia Conservancy in Monterey, California. A year later, I started leading the hydrology monitoring project. The project helps to better manage groundwater pumping by comparing monthly and previous (1990s) stream discharge rates to maintain similar streamflow. My involvement in this project has reinforced my career goal to become a government researcher to manage long-term streamflow projects.

My involvement in research during high school guided my journey to finding Dr. Olson’s lab and majoring in environmental science. I joined the 500 Women in Science group while in high school, where members connected me with a research lab. I started by helping master’s students with their research at San Diego State University Coastal and Marine Institute. I gained valuable research skills as well as mentorship through the college application process. The master’s student I worked most closely with advised me to go beyond the basic campus tour when visiting schools. When I visited California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB), Dr. John Olson’s Watershed Environments and Ecology Lab stuck out to me because his students showed me rehydrating moss from dry streams. My interest in working in Dr. Olson’s lab led to my environmental science major concentrating in watershed systems. The past three years working in Dr. Olson’s lab has exposed me to interesting research ranging from eDNA collection to detect amphibian species to assessing streamflow in the central Rocky Mountains.

The Instars Program supported my attendance to the SFS meeting in 2019. This was my first time at a conference. The familiar and smiling faces of the Instars mentors made the conference feel smaller. Ultimately, the Instars program helped me feel at home in the freshwater science community. I’m excited to watch the Instars Program expand with new year-round mentoring opportunities.

At Kansas State University, my REU project is centered on the question: what determines the capacity for nutrient retention/release in streams and their associated riparian zones? There's been a lot of progress in the past 2-3 decades on what governs nutrient retention in streams, although riparian zones have largely been ignored by stream ecologists. Integrating knowledge of ecosystem function in streams and riparian zones will provide a more comprehensive understanding of riparian corridors.This project will further our understanding of the role that riparian vegetation plays in trapping nutrients and sediment to protect water quality.

Kings Creek is our experimental site, located on the Konza Prairie Biological Station, which is also home to the NSF-funded Konza Prairie Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) station. This tallgrass prairie land was never tilled for agricultural use because of its shallow, rocky soils. Kings Creek is the only site in the USGS Hydrologic Benchmark Network with a watershed consisting entirely of pristine tallgrass prairie. Kings Creek is monitored by LTER Network, National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), and MAPS sensors.

Originally, a rainfall simulation experiment over the riparian zone was conducted by Brittany Kirsch for her master’s thesis at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Dr. Jessica Corman and Dr. Andrea Basche advised her research. Dr. Walter Dodds became interested in expanding this project after listening to Dr. Corman’s seminar about Kirschs’ work. She spoke about “making it rain” over the riparian zone in streams flowing through agricultural and restored prairie landscapes. They detected a pulse of nitrate, ammonium, phosphorus, and suspended sediments in the stream channel. A bromide tracer was used to account for the pulse of added water from the simulated rainfall. Kirsch led the field experiments, even designing the rainfall sprinklers. The custom rain sprinklers were mailed from the University Nebraska-Lincoln to Kansas State University so the Dodds Lab could try the experiment at Kings Creek. Active collaboration is one of my favorite characteristics of the SFS community!

For my REU project,I led a rainfall simulation experiment over the riparian zone at Kings Creek. Our rainfall event was about 6.3 cm of total precipitation over a period of 1.22 hours with a 6.4 x 3.2 m rainfall footprint. We used deionized spring water as our “rainwater”. We added 15NO3- isotopic tracer and NaBr conservative solute to our “rainwater” to trace hydrologic flow paths and nitrogen uptake. Stable isotopic tracers like 15N are differentiated from 14N which has a substantially greater natural abundance in nature. The conservative solute and the isotopic tracer allowed us to tell the difference between our rainwater in the stream and the pre-existing stream water. Plus we could follow the fate of the added nitrate. We sampled stream water 21.7 m upstream of the release, 8.5 m downstream, and 68 m farther downstream. We sampled stream water over a time course to characterize nitrogen uptake in the stream channel and the riparian zone. We evaluated the role of riparian uptake and transport by sampling soil water chemistry before and after the simulated rainfall. Riparian grasses were sampled to determine whether the 15N label was incorporated into the grass biomass. This sampling regime allowed for the assessment of hydrologic flow paths. It also tracked the movement of material transport (i.e. nutrients, ions, and suspended sediments) from the riparian soils to the stream channel.

Shaun Baughman, a technician in the Dodds lab, and I used the LINX II protocol to extract and measure dissolved 15NO3- in the sampled stream water. Shaun processed riparian soil and grass samples for subsequent isotopic and other chemical analyses. Lane Lundeen, another technician in the Dodds lab, helped by filtering the water samples for determination of suspended sediment concentrations. Analytical chemistry labs processed the water samples for nutrient and ion concentrations.

We found the flow paths of the simulated rainfall did travel through the riparian zone and into Kings Creek! Although we detected 15NO3- and NaBr in the stream channel, we did not detect a pulse of nitrate, chloride, sulfate, fluorine, or suspended sediments. The pulse of sodium bromide traveled from the riparian zone and into the stream in about 9 minutes and then traveled downstream 60 m in about 40 minutes. Conversely, Kirsch’s experiment in Nebraska did detect a pulse of nitrate, ammonium, phosphorus, and suspended sediments. One reason we may have observed different results could be that Kirsch’s sites were in an agriculturally-influenced watershed while our site was in a prairie dominated watershed on the Konza Prairie LTER.

These results suggest that the strength of the riparian-stream connections is related to land use. Riparian corridors provide ecosystem services such as protecting water quality by retaining nutrients. We know that the disruption of riparian zones can lead to more nutrients entering freshwater systems. However, we do not have clear ideas of what determines the capacity for nutrient retention/release in streams and their associated riparian zones. This project will benefit from decades-long records of stream nutrient chemistry and hydrology for Kings Creek. The results may help generalize our understanding of riparian zone function and how it relates to land use. Stay tuned for further results!

My favorite part of my REU experience was the sense of community. It was so cool to work with researchers at Kansas State University and the Konza Prairie Biological Station. Specifically, on the field experiment day it was apparent how many people were supporting our research efforts. Eight people from multiple labs helped us collect and transport samples. Prior to the field experiment day, Konza Prairie project managers, Patrick O’Neal and Jim Larkins, helped me troubleshoot equipment issues. Many people helped me with my REU project and made me feel a part of the research community. I’d like to give a special shout-out to Shaun Baughman, the newest member of the Dodds Lab, because she helped a lot with my project and is furthering her journey in the field of freshwater science.

Prior to visiting Kansas State University, I had little experience doing lab work. Usually, the only time I was in the lab was to find field gear. Adapting to daily lab work was a steep learning curve. As a result of my REU experience, I not only gained lab work skills but I also gained an understanding of the endurance required to complete start to finish research. A specific example of a challenging moment is when I was half way through processing samples in the lab when a hot plate caught on fire and the sink plumbing started gushing water. We overcame the obstacle by using one less hot plate and a different sink.

Overall, my involvement in undergraduate research has inspired my career goals. I am an undergraduate studying environmental science, technology, and policy concentrating in watershed systems. I am in my third year and attend California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB). My REU experience has motivated me to learn more about riparian corridors and how to better manage them. The most eye opening component of my REU experience was visiting the KSU biology department and the Konza LTER. I would like to continue to visit new places to conduct freshwater science research. I’m interested in attending graduate school in Queensland or New South Wales, Australia to engage in an international research network. I plan to begin a master’s program in fall 2022 to support my career goal of becoming a hydrologist for the United States Geological Survey (USGS). I intend to develop a thesis that will inform river management in coastal watersheds.

If you’d like to talk with Gretchen, you can reach her via email at gwichman@csumb.edu. You can also view her ePortfolio at gretchenwichman.com. Check out her Instagram takeover here!

Issue #3- Caitlin Bloomer

StayFresh2 — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 17:44:09 +0000

Monday, December 7, 2020

Lauren Wisbrock

Headwaters

We end this year's Headwaters Highlights with the wonderful Caitlin Claire Bloomer (she/her). She is currently a second year MSc. student in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences (NRES) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) with Dr. Chris Taylor, and a proud member of Crustacean Nation!

Caitlin shared with us about her road to graduate school and the research that she’s working on:

Hailing from Ireland, I grew up by the coast and fell in love with all things aquatic. I completed my BSc. in Marine Biology at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. While I was there, I did some exciting research in hermit crabs and marine diatoms. However, I also gained experience in aquatic macroinvertebrates and stream health; ever so slowly I was pulled across to the freshwater science side!

After spending some time interning at Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Texas, I took the plunge and moved full-time to the U.S. to tackle my graduate degree in Illinois. I love spending time wading through streams, getting mucky in the mud, and finding any and all stream dwelling creatures. I’m currently researching burrowing crayfish so the SFS instagram is going to see a lot of crayfish action!

Burrowing crayfish are incredibly productive and provide a host of benefits to their ecosystem. They serve as important predators, and as prey to over 200 species in North America alone. Their burrows can be used by several other animals, including snakes, frogs, macroinvertebrates and even the federally endangered Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly. Excavating these burrows provides soil aeration and nutrient mixing which in turn supports a wider range of plant life. However, they are consistently understudied and looked over when it comes to federal conservation and protection. Without gathering habitat, distribution, and life history data on these species, it’s impossible to make an argument for their conservation.

These crayfish are often found in conservation areas and wetlands managed for waterfowl. We’re hoping to see their response to common practices so we can better inform management agencies on how they can best protect their crayfish communities. We want to know: How do burrowing crayfish respond to conservation management practices like flood manipulation, controlled burning, and disking?

I’m studying at a couple of conservation areas in southeastern Missouri. The Missouri Department of Conservation has taken a real interest in crayfish conservation and is very supportive of this research. We’ll be surveying areas that undergo different management practices so we can evaluate the burrowing crayfish presence, abundance, and species diversity. This will involve setting up transects to survey crayfish and collecting habitat data including plant cover, canopy cover, temperature, etc. Other aspects include creating habitat suitability models for specific burrowing species to try and locate new populations within the state.

There are nearly 100 species of burrowing crayfish across the world and yet there is often little to no information about them. We are hoping our research sparks interest in studying more of these interesting organisms. Furthermore, we are hoping the results we find from these studies help inform management decisions on conservation and agricultural lands, helping managers to protect their crayfish communities.

If you have questions or want to reach out, Caitlin can be found at bloomer3@illinois.edu, @BloomerCaitlin on Twitter, and @call.me.crawdaddy on Instagram. Check out here takeover of the @freshwater_science Instagram here!

Issue #2- Isabelle Andersen

StayFresh2 — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 20:11:57 +0000

Monday, November 9, 2020

Lauren Wisbrock

Headwaters

This month’s Headwaters Highlight is the brilliant Isabelle Andersen (she/her/hers). She’s currently a first year PhD student working with Dr. Thad Scott at Baylor University.

Isabelle shared with us about how she became drawn to freshwater ecology research and about the work she’s doing now on algal blooms:

I became quite familiar with the outdoors at an early age with some of my fondest memories growing up being my family’s camping trips. While I love all aspects of the natural world, my interest for aquatic ecology didn’t come to the forefront until high school. As part of my AP environmental science course, I got involved with the Caring for our Watersheds program (an education program that engages students in preserving and improving their local watersheds through student-led solutions). I submitted a proposal to the Caring for our Watersheds program that addressed how to reduce thermal pollution and prevent soil erosion into Mill Creek, a highly degraded tributary of the Ohio River. I was chosen as a finalist and, with the help of volunteers from the Wyoming Environmental Stewardship Commission and funding from Agrium (now known as Nutrien), planted over 600 tree saplings along the riparian zone of Mill Creek. This experience was so rewarding, I knew that learning more about our freshwater environments and how to preserve them was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Freshwater cyanobacterial blooms are becoming a predominant water-quality threat to human health because the frequency and magnitude of blooms are increasing yet predicting the occurrence of toxic blooms remains elusive.

Forecasting toxic blooms requires an understanding of which phytoplankton species will dominate the assemblage of freshwater ecosystems given the complex interrelationships between nutrient supply and grazing pressures. Although large-scale ecosystem studies have indicated that nutrient-rich lakes with relatively low N:P ratios are at greater risk for toxic cyanobacteria blooms, small-scale laboratory experiments have suggested that the opposite condition of high N:P is needed for maximal toxin production. This apparent disconnect is magnified by the virtual absence of medium-scale field experiments testing the effects of N and P stoichiometry on toxic cyanobacterial blooms. Therefore, medium-scale in-lake mesocosm experiments are needed to understand how phytoplankton assemblages, and toxic cyanobacteria populations in particular, will respond to varying N:P ratios in lakes. What I’m trying to find out is what effect nutrient stoichiometry has on phytoplankton biomass and assemblage structure, fixation rates, and cyanotoxin production in mesocosms.

My field site is located at the Ole Miss Biological Field Station (Oxford, Mississippi, USA) where I use 3 of their experimental ponds. Each experimental pond has 4 limnocorrals which extend from the surface down to the bottom of the pond to allow for sediment flux. We dose the limnocorrals at 4 different N:P ratios by adding the same amount of P and increasing amounts of N. The N:P ratio treatments are 2.2, 16, 55, and 110 (molar).

Once a week, I filter the water samples onto 25 mm filters to collect particulate carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, d15N (to measure N fixation, Baker et al. 2018), and toxins (specifically microcystins). I ash CN filters and rinse particulate P filters with a few drops of 10% HCl and DI water prior to filtering. Additionally, I filter chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) onto 47mm filters. I also save the filtered water to measure for dissolved toxins, dissolved delta 15N, and dissolved nitrogen and phosphorus. I also collect unfiltered water for total nitrogen and phosphorous measurements and for phytoplankton counts under a microscope (preserved with lugols). I use a type of fluorometer called the PhytoPAM to determine the chlorophyll concentration (ug/L) and irradiance curves for 4 algal groups: cyanobacteria (blue green algae), chlorophytes (green algae), diatoms, and cryptophytes. Additionally, I have sensors in the limnocorrals measuring dissolved oxygen, temperature, and light intensity 24/7.

While I just finished my field season and am just starting to look into my data, through my study, I seek to help better predict the occurrence of toxic cyanobacterial blooms. I hope my research provides insight on how to manage our freshwater ecosystems and their watersheds to preserve our water quality.

Isabelle can be found @is_Andersen on Instagram and @anderbaena on Twitter. She can also be reached at isabelle_andersen1@baylor.edu. Make sure to check out how she takes over the SRC Instagram this week!

Issue #1- Lauren Banks

StayFresh2 — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 15:57:16 +0000

Monday, October 5, 2020

Lauren Wisbrock

Headwaters

We’re so excited to present to you the first of many student highlights through the Headwaters blog! Today we are highlighting the wonderful Lauren Banks (she/her/hers). She’s currently a second year PhD candidate working with Dr. Adam G. Yates at the University of Waterloo.

We asked Lauren to share her personal experience, from getting interested and involved in freshwater science, through to her current PhD research. Here’s what she had to say:

As a former indoor kid who spent all my time playing video games, watching television, or being on our family computer, I came to appreciate spending time in the woods and on a lake at my parent’s cabin in my early 20s. I began canoeing and going for walks in the forest and started to wonder about what I was seeing. What plant is this? What is beneath the surface of the lake? I found my answers through academics and through spending time outdoors.This general curiosity led me to work with wildlife, on honeybee nutrition, and organic agricultural practices, and eventually to agricultural wetlands. This work was my first contribution to a peer-review article, and I am so grateful to have had this experience as my introduction to freshwater ecology (Lieske et al 2017).

I also love identification, getting to stare at beautiful flora and fauna, and knowing ‘who’ they are immensely satisfying. A project with the combination of freshwater ecology and aquatic plant identification led me to my MSc work on the role of biodiversity and environmental conditions on aquatic plant decomposition dynamics using a stoichiometric (C:N:P) lens in lakes (Banks & Frost 2017). After my MSc, I felt I wanted my work to have a direct application beyond knowledge generation, so I spent over 2 years working in Cambodia and Malaysia for an INGO called WorldFish, doing research on impact of community-based fisheries in the Mekong River and developing solutions to improve environmental sustainability of aquaculture production in developing nations (Henriksson et al 2019, Tran et al 2020). Working abroad and researching ‘wicked’ problems has expanded my understanding of how to integrate research and application, and ignited a desire to ensure my future research career incorporates global partnerships in my approach to freshwater research. However, I found that working with qualitative data was not as natural for me as quantitative data, and wanted to shift back to answering ecologic, rather than environmental-economic, questions.

It was kismet when I saw an advertisement on the Canadian Rivers Institute Facebook page for a PhD position in Dr. Adam Yates’ StrEAMS Lab, and I found myself back in Canada working in yet another new-to-me freshwater ecosystem. Before my PhD, I hadn’t even taken a course in stream ecology. It’s been a lot of fun, and effort, to learn the ‘fundamentals’ of stream ecology, and I’m really enjoying working in a growing lab. Though switching fields means learning theory and methods from scratch every time, I find I’m able to take a more interdisciplinary approach in my research, and I have come to appreciate having diverse experiences in freshwater ecology research.

My current work focuses on how spatial heterogeneity in environmental conditions, such as water temperature, velocity, and chemistry, affects stream biofilm structure and function over spatial and temporal scales. My sites are in streams in Kintore, Southwestern Ontario, Canada, a highly agricultural area with riparian zones of low lying grasses, shrubs, mature and immature trees. For this work, I define structure as diatom community composition, stream biofilm ash-free dry mass [AFDM] and chlorophyll-a [chl-a], and define function as organic matter breakdown and respiration. A variable not commonly measured in stream biofilm research is groundwater. Groundwater inputs can influence water temperature, creating cooler conditions in summer and warmer conditions in winter, and can create local subsites of nutrients and organic matter. My research is a multi-scale (segment, reach, and microhabitat, and 4 season) evaluation of the impact of groundwater on stream biofilm structure and function. The work I did just this last summer and will be sharing on the Insta takeover this week is focused on the microhabitat-scale.

We chose a reach that has variable permeability in the sediment, and did some preliminary work to determine that there is groundwater flux (input and output) in that reach. Our collaborators measured streambed temperature transects, which we use as a proxy for groundwater flux.

I used their streambed temperature mapping to select 50 sites, which covered the range of streambed temperature. I then deployed my artificial substrates to grow stream biofilms, and in-stream and buried cotton strip assay (Tiegs et al 2013) at each site. The artificial substrates consist of 3 ceramic tiles, each for diatom community composition, stream AFDM, and chl-a. I measured tensile loss and respiration for both in-stream and buried cotton strips. We also measured PAR, flow, surface water nutrients and chemistry. Our collaborators also measured streambed temperature and nutrients at different depths in the sediment. Additionally, they did a geophysical survey to create a highly accurate 1 meter sediment profile.

My study applies a hierarchical experimental design that will be the first to simultaneously link multi-scale patterns in groundwater flux and stream biofilm heterogeneity. My work will provide new knowledge on spatial and temporal linkages between stream biofilm heterogeneity and groundwater flux in agricultural landscapes. Further, my research will inform future work providing fundamental information on the extent algal communities differ between areas of groundwater flux, and the role of habitat (i.e. riffle, run, pool) type in mediating these effects.

The outcome of my research will provide insights on ecological impacts of groundwater at multiple scales in agricultural streams, allowing for new modelling approaches and techniques to be developed, and ensuring Canadian inland waters are protected as agriculture intensifies and climate changes.

Even today, in the midst of my PhD, I still hold on to my inner indoor kid, and love to watch television (especially reality tv) and keep up with popular culture, interests I haven't found common among ecologists. But now that I’ve grown up, I have developed the part of me that loves to explore the outdoors, especially near water, and enjoy conducting my research primarily ‘in the field’.

As a final thought, to become an ecologist, you don’t ‘always’ have to have loved being outside or have ‘always’ been passionate about your specific field of study. All it takes is curiosity and interest, and the rest can happen over time with the help of inspiring mentors and supportive colleagues.

Lauren is @RealityLauren on Twitter and can be reached at this email: laurenkbnks@gmail.com