Wetland Invasion with Commodore puddles

A journey to discovering the secrets of Cattail plants. blog and other invasive species' news.

[commodore-puddles]

I am going to a conference!

 I know you may be thinking, how do I have anything ready for a conference? I am a little behind in reporting on tumblr because I like trying to post things weekly, and I am further along in my thesis than reported so far (sorry it just worked out this way). But I am going to the IAGLR conference at the University of Guelph next week!  It may take a little while on here to be caught up with how far along I actually am in my thesis, but If you would like to see my progress as it stands currently come visit me. The poster session will be Tuesday June 7. you can see all of this at the IAGLR website :   http://iaglr.org/iaglr2016/

my abstract for the poster : 

SZABO, J.L., FREELAND, J.R., DORKEN, M.E., and PIEPER, S.J., Trent University, 2140 East Bank Drive, peterborough, ON, K9J 7B8, CANADA. Environmental factors can help explain the domination of wetlands by invasive hybrid cattails.

In northeastern North America, native broadleaf cattail T. latifolia hybridize with introduced narrow leaf cattail T.angustifolia to form the invasive hybrid T. x glauca. One mechanism by which T. x glauca reduces wetland plant diversity is through the production of copious amounts of leaf litter, which decomposes and leaches into the water system while reducing available sunlight to germinating seeds and young seedlings. In the summer of 2015, we used a common garden experiment to test the effects of T. x glauca leaf litter on the hybrid plants and both parental species. Seeds from parents that had been identified to species from their genotypes were germinated, and young plants were transferred to 20 ponds that were randomized for four treatments: 50% shade, application of litter from T. x glauca stands, a combination of shade and litter, and a control (no shade or litter). We measured plant growth for six weeks and assessed final productivity from above-and-below-ground biomass. The results provide insight into mechanisms that help invasive Typha hybrids to outcompete parental species and dominate wetlands in the eastern Great Lakes region. These results provide guidance for managers on the importance of clearing litter from wetlands that are increasingly dominated by hybrid cattails. Keywords: Biological invasions, Wetlands, Environmental effects.

[commodore-puddles]

Sorry for the delay, I have been a bit busy. 

If there’s one thing my thesis has taught me is that you constantly have to adapt your plans because things never go as planned, or ideally. But I think I handle most problems well, finding better solutions for different situations. 

So when I had to take the cattail plants out of their ponds because the experiment was done after 6 weeks (see earlier post for very unhappy frogs); plants were supposed to be separated into paper bags for above- and below-ground biomass. It was raining when I decided to harvest my plants. so I brought them inside because the bags kept ripping... I have access to two labs, one a genetics-based one, and the other a prep room... logic appeared to have escaped me because I brought it all into the genetics-based lab instead of the prep room(Fig. 1). I did manage to take off all the above-ground biomass before my supervisors came in (Fig.2).  Needless to say, my supervisors were not impressed.  I moved the plants into the prep room and then spent the next 2 days cleaning/ sanitizing everything because I didn’t want to contaminate the work-stations.

After moving everything, I began taking everything out of their pots for below-ground biomass. To save the drains (they got plugged once despite my earlier attempts to block the drains). I would dump the pot into a plastic tub, and then pour water on it to separate the sand from the plants  and let them air out before putting them in the oven (Fig. 3-9). Water and sand that came out of every pot was placed in buckets and then dumped in a designated location. Man are buckets of wet sand heavy... I must have carried at least 40 buckets back and forth, before thinking of a better option which was putting about 6 buckets (at a time) on a trolly and pushing/pulling to the dump spot... although I did have to mop the floors after doing it this way because the buckets would splash. This whole process took a few days, and the oven process took 3 days to dry them out completely. I then spent a couple more days to weigh out all of the 900 samples (300 plants separated into above and belowground biomass, and then below-ground biomass was subdivided into rhizome vs roots, so essentially 3 samples per 1 plant) . 

Good news is the next step was to restart my growth of seedlings for the second experiment and then do the data analysis...

[commodore-puddles]

Well, it’s time to wrap up my first experiment, and reset my ponds for the next one. So I took potted plants out of their ponds and tried dumping the water out of the ponds. Upon lifting one pond, a horde of angry frogs jumped out, after dumping out most of the water I put the pond back on the ground...  a few frogs remained and glared into my soul, they were really unimpressed. Don’t worry frogs! I will renew your habitat once again in the next experiment, if only for another temporary period of time. 

[commodore-puddles]

A daily online news service committed to providing the most indepth and comprehensive news, sports and arts coverage for the region of Nelson, BC, Canada.

“Each week, the Invasive Species Council of B.C. will also highlight ways that British Columbians can take action against invasive species:Week 1: Don’t Let It Loose! focuses on risks associated with releasing unwanted pets and aquarium plants into the wild: http://bcinvasives.ca/resources/programs/dont-let-it-loose/ Week 2: PlantWise helps gardeners and people involved in the agriculture, ranching and horticulture industries learn how to prevent the spread of invasive plants in B.C.: http://bcinvasives.ca/resources/programs/plant-wise Week 3: A focus on outdoor recreation will remind campers and other outdoor enthusiasts to use locally sourced firewood : http://bcinvasives.ca/resources/programs/buy-it-where-you-burn-it and follow Play Clean Go guidelines to remove debris from sports equipment to prevent the spread of  invasive species: http://bcinvasives.ca/resources/programs/play-clean-go Week 4: The Clean Drain Dry program helps educate boaters about invasive species such as zebra mussels, quagga mussels and invasive aquatic plants: http://bcinvasives.ca/resources/programs/clean-drain-dry”

[commodore-puddles]

Some plants in  a couple of the ponds have died! This is very exciting, not only because now I have left to measure... haha I’m so lazy, but more exciting because these dead plants are exposed to the invasive species leaf litter, this could potentially lead to interesting results! Is the leaf litter the cause for the death or  is there some other variable coming into play? 

I look forward to seeing the data unfold! 

[commodore-puddles]

Plants grow so fast! It is so neat watching my plants grow!  and now for a list of figures : 1) day 6, 2)day 13, 3) day 21, 4) day 30, 5) day 37. As you can see , plants are growing fast. There is also an algae bloom within my ponds so that is the radioactive green colour in the water ... It’s okay, there isn’t anything Actually radioactive, but the colour is similar haha. By the time the plants got as big as day 21, I needed to put down some bricks to keep the plants propped up. As you can see in fig 5 (day 37), no matter how many bricks, they still fall over. 

Other ponds have similar results, so I hope there will be good results !  

[commodore-puddles]

One of my observation days, my roommate helped me measure my plants. It was pouring all day with the occasional wind gust. We froze where it was too hard to even write, and had to continuously go inside to warm up. The help was appreciated. Even if it wasn’t freezing that day, it still took us several hours to measure, needless to say, my roommate didn’t volunteer again for obvious reasons.  It rained so much my ponds were flooded and I had to bail out the water the next day. 

[commodore-puddles]

Eradicating Invasive Species One Sushi Roll at a Time

The chef Bun Lai serves nonnative seafoods, meats and vegetables on the menu of his pop-up restaurant in Miami Beach.

An interesting way to get rid of invasive species, try eating it for sushi! A man with a plan! Chef Bun Lai has dedicated an entire restaurant to the consuming of invasive species !

[commodore-puddles]

A non-thesis related cattail that I found in a ditch.  It is a bit strange because it has two inflorescences side by side instead of one on top of the other. I’ll call it the twin-cattail. 

[commodore-puddles]

 I love getting little visitors in my ponds. It makes me feel like I have created a good sample pond. In a day that takes many hours to measure 300 plants, it brightens my day a little to see these little guys (and sometimes talk to them)... one pond had like 5 little froggies :) 

[commodore-puddles]

University of Guelph Summary: Harnessing an invasive fish species sounded like a promising conservation tool to help reverse the destruction wreaked by zebra mussels on endangered native mollusks in the Great Lakes -- except that it won't work, says an ecologist. This image shows a handful of native Great Lakes Mussels. Credit: Prof. Joe Ackerman

[commodore-puddles]

A small note on time management

Washing seeds in preparation for germination is a lengthy process you let beakers of seeds settle (20 mins) and get incrementally smaller beakers until ready to go in Petri dishes.  Some may find this process tedious and mindless, however, I think of this as an opportunity. If you think of this more as an assembly line where  as soon as one station is free you can work on another set of samples, and also while you are waiting for a station to settle you can prepare another set. This task takes less time if you can properly optimize your time. If you can’t prepare samples and you are just waiting, this is an opportunity to get some much-needed reading done. 

I don’t know why but I can’t retain any information for long. If I read any number of journal articles, within a couple of weeks I have to read them again because I’ve forgotten what they were about. This is a pretty big issue considering that I need to be able to recall background information when talking to others about my research, or in writing. 

I seem to have an issue designating time that I should be reading background information. This is primarily because my brain works in terms of tasks at hand, and the most impending deadlines; so the readings that are crucial to my research tend to get put on the back burner because I have more important things to do. Either way, I appreciate days that I have seemingly mindless tasks to accomplish,  for while I wait I can refresh my memory on things or read new sources. 

At the end of the day doing mindless work or readings, it is always nice to look at the results of your hard work, then you can cry out “ LOOK! SEEDS!” as you nod to yourself for your daily accomplishment. 

I firmly believe that every day can be a good day. If you make yourself a small daily goal or a small set of goals that you can feasibly finish in a day, then at the end of the day as you cross off your list you can say “ Today was a great day because I accomplished my goal!” As I mentioned before your goal has to be realistic, otherwise you may end up disappointing yourself. It may take a little to figure out exactly how productive you can be when you put your mind to it, but after a while, it will be a rewarding experience to go to bed everyday feeling accomplished. :)

[commodore-puddles]

Captain Invasive_Jessica Szabo

This video is about Captain Invasive! a hybrid cattail dominating Canadian wetlands. a brief description of my research to determine whether captain invasive...

Well, I finally figured out how to make it smaller. its a shame that the video is too long to post here .... So THE NEXT BEST THING! here is my youtube link. **PLEASE NOTE** the first ~25 seconds are not mine they are “toast to tomorrow-by blackmore’s night” so I hope that’s okay. Please watch it and hopefully enjoy it

[commodore-puddles]

Technical difficulties

Hello Lovely people... 

Yesterday (April 4th) I was going to post a video I made, about my research, for a class , but I fought with my computer literally all day, and still couldn't figure out how to get it to upload... Just goes to show you how my great plans not working out transfers into my technical ineptitude. I made a great big movie with slides and audio and music to go along with it , so it was less boring....but low and behold, it was HUGE i mean for 1080p quality it was ~700Mb... in 520p the lowest quality (for a slide show it didn’t make a difference in quality) it was still about ~280Mb... Tumblr and all other media sites don’t let you post anything bigger than 100Mb ... so unfortunately I have nothing for you for yesterday. Today I will battle to try to compress it somehow but I really don’t know how. youtube videos suggest exporting to QuickTime to make it smaller, but iMovie version 10.1.1 does not let me... if you have any suggestions, or helpful hints, I would greatly appreciate it. As an added bonus if you can help me sort this out, you will get to see my video. I hope it lives up to expectations, it’s my first go at trying to add music and make a video, so i think it’s great because I spent countless hours playing with settings and fighting with my computer ... but in reality I don’t know  how well people will like it... either way a little off tangent... please help if you can. 

Thanks a bunch, 

commodore puddles

[commodore-puddles]

Invasive Species that are unwanted, and useful alternatives

A useful guide to those looking for plants for their gardens, this will help avoid the spread of invasive species and bring awareness for things to avoid planting. 

[commodore-puddles]

Every day, hundreds of different plant species -- many of them listed as invasive -- are traded online worldwide on auction platforms. This exacerbates the problem of uncontrollable biological invasions.

It’s an older news post but I think it’s still valid to increase the awareness of invasive species being sold online, My study plant (Typha) wasn’t on the online list but since you can buy them from nurseries I’m sure you can buy them online. 

[commodore-puddles]

Life doesn’t always go as planned, but you have to make the best of a bad situation. I find more often than not in my field work that whatever could go wrong, probably will. This is probably due to the fact that I tend to work alone, help is appreciated when it comes, but I find helpers come few and far in between. Many mistakes can be attributed to me being not as handy as I would like to be. Although my plans for my treatments looked great on paper schematics, unfortunately, not so easy in practice.

This was a frame  I built with shade cloth for a 50% shade treatment for my plants, that had collapsed (Figure 1). It has subsequently been fixed and reinforced but there was a lot of difficulty with making these. My site is out in the field,and there weren’t any power outlets close by, also my hand drill ran out of juice, so all of these were built away from the field (Figure 2).

I made 10 frames in the end and all of them had to be carried out to my field site... now I am 5′6″ so about average height for a female, but these frames were 6′x6′ so I’m way out of my depths when it comes to carrying it out alone (Figure 3).  so it’s no wonder that they may not have been the most stable. 

Common sense also sometimes eludes me... since the frames were upside down when I attached the shade cloth, I accidentally stapled the shade cloth on the wrong side of the frame. The cloth was, therefore, sagging onto my plants when I flipped the frame upright (Figure 4). I have fixed this issue, and the duct tape was a temporary measure until I bought brackets to reinforce the frames. 

I can honestly say that I have spilt blood, sweat and tears throughout the process of setting up my field site, and improvising repairs for things that broke. But I have persevered and eventually got to stable frames that worked and could be adjusted as the plants grew (Figure 5).