Pictured: Happy Biofilm!
The channels have been getting lots of visitors recently- the Ring of Fire crew stopped by to conduct metagenomics sampling, which will give us insight into how bacterial communities change over temperature and phosphorus gradients in stream ecosystems. The Ring of Fire is a group of researchers that study geothermal regions in the Arctic to understand how stream ecosystems can act as sentinels for climate change, and we're excited to see the results of this sampling!
We've also begun our main sampling events at the channels for the summer, which include nitrogen fixation, metabolism, and nutrient uptake measurements. These metrics will help us answer the question of how stream biofilms are influenced by increased temperature and phosphorus inputs, and how these biofilm community responses drive processes such as nutrient cycling in aquatic ecosystems. Sampling has been a full group effort, and with everyone's help we've successfully completed the first round of these measurements and are gearing up for the start of the second round of sampling tomorrow.
The crew admiring their work after a long day
The summer has flown by and the channel experiment only has a few days left, but we'll be busy up until then finishing sampling and enjoying our remaining time in Hengill!
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