The channels have been running for a whopping 45 days now
(which is basically years in “channel time”), and things have been going great
at the site. The hotpot that was giving us trouble in the beginning has been
stable, which means we have consistent temperature treatments, and our biofilm
has been busy growing under the varying temperature and nutrient treatments.
Heath and I have been busy maintaining the experiment during this time, as well
as collecting samples for our biomass time series. These time series data can
show us differences in biofilm growth rates among the nutrient conditions
(i.e., low-N vs. high-N treatments), as well as whether these nutrient effects
change under different temperature regimes. We won’t have answers until the
samples are processed back at OSU, so for now it’s lots of scrubbing biofilm
off tiles and filtering the samples for transport back to Ohio.
A quick look at differences in biofilm growth among channel treatments
We’ve also been taking background water chemistry samples
for each channel, to ensure that the nitrogen and phosphorus additions for each
treatment are at the correct concentrations.
But perhaps most importantly, we’re busy gearing up for
our first round of metabolism, nutrient uptake, and nitrogen-fixation
measurements. This will be a 4-5 day push with the entire team involved in the
sampling efforts. During sampling, we incubate the biofilm in small plastic
chambers, so we’ve spent the last few days ensuring the chambers and equipment
is in working order.
Chambers: Geared up and ready to sample some biofilm
Things are looking good so far, and we should be ready for
sampling in the next few days. Check back for pictures and updates of the main
event!
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