Even though we’ve only been here for a few days, our projects are already underway. The Stream Team (Erin, Kate, and Travis) is continuing work from last summer’s progress towards understanding nutrient and carbon processing in small streams in the area. Last year, we focused on trying to understand what nutrients (nitrogen or phosphorous) were most important for the bacterial community in the stream. We were also interested in studying whether there are differences in nutrient limitation between 2 different types of streams – yedoma streams underlain by Pleistocene deposits, and floodplain streams underlain by younger Holocene soils.

The Stream Team

This year, we will continue to study nutrient demand in streams, but also try to assess how carbon transformations in these streams may be constrained or limited by nutrient availability. Travis will be studying how carbon and nutrients change over the length of the stream. Erin will be studying the metabolism of carbon in a series of lab experiments that manipulate the carbon and nutrient concentration to try to understand whether these cycles are connected. Kate will be studying the possible carbon inputs into streams, and attempting to understand what sources are most labile in the stream environment. As a group, we will also be performing whole system experiments that will tie our projects together. We hope that our projects provide a broad understanding of how carbon is transformed and transported in stream ecosystems.

We are excited for our first field day tomorrow! We will be sampling a stream at an experimental site in the area and testing out our methods. We can’t wait to get started! Erin, Kate, and Travis