When Tanner handed me a tea steeper and a piece of a plastic channel and said "connect this somehow..." I quickly harnessed my MacGyver-chi and went searching around the lab for parts to complete this engineering task. About 15 minutes of grumbling and mumbling, fumbling with rubber bands and zip-ties, I emerged from the lab with a Frankenstein-esque work of biomass-catching art. Conveniently detachable for easy removal, I might add. And the best part is, these puppies cost $0.00; all of the materials can be dismantled and put right back in the lab. Cup-holder to come on edition 2.0. We installed them the next day on Tanner's channels, and what do you know, they work!
The idea was that there was a lot of biomass being schluffed off the channels and we wanted a way to capture it as to get an accurate representation of how much of what is actually being grown/moved around the tiles. The result is this (quite colorful) hodge-podge of pencils and baskets and rubber bands.
That is beautiful!. . . and the export question is really interesting - important implications for effects of warming on downstream flux. cool.
ReplyDeleteValha!
ReplyDelete