A productive visit!

The Montana crew was recently graced by the presence of our friend and colleague, Dr. Jill Welter from St. Catherine University (see her team's blog: here). We're collaborating on an exciting paper about nitrogen fixation in the Hengill experimental streams.

The upshot: we found that nitrogen fixation 'amplifies' gross primary production in these streams. The idea is that nitrogen fixers (such as cyanobacteria - see This Post) bring in a 'new' source of nitrogen to the ecosystem by changing dissolved nitrogen gas (N2) into a form that can be used for growth. Because these streams are so nitrogen-limited, this new source of nitrogen fuels a much higher level of primary production that we would expect in the absence of nitrogen fixers. This general idea has been developed by others in terrestrial ecosystems (see: Interesting paper in PNAS), but our work is among the first to test this idea experimentally in a highly controlled fashion.

We're closing in on the final draft!

Group writing. . . .a new experience.

Go Bobcats. . .

Fluffy white goodness to clear the mind

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