Third Lab Journal

During the third lab, things went slightly differently than during the previous lab trips to the farm. For our last lab, we were supposed to finish up our videos of our BioCube, collect samples, repeat the 15 minutes of silence, and again observe and document biodiversity. For my swamp group, our BioCube was not replaced after it was destroyed during the week between the first and second lab trips. However, we guesstimated where our BioCube would be and how much space it would take up to observe some of the organisms present in that area.
Starting off for this lab, we went to our initial BioCube location to observe what would be different and what we could find. Right away, we noticed that it was much muddier and the water level had risen significantly. The isolated section where we had initially put our BioCube in was actually overflooded and blocked off by a tree that had fallen. Everything was also much greener, with less dead-looking grass present in the swamp area and more green grass becoming visible. We did not see too many organisms, and those that we did see were pretty much the same as those in the last lab. A lot of the biodiversity we observed was in the plants. There were a few new plants that we found, but I mostly saw that the ones from last week had grown significantly. The skunk cabbage was much taller and the leaves had opened up even more. Their smell was also becoming much more present in our area as well. Within the area of our BioCube, we could see that there were bugs close to the mud once we disturbed the water and mud at the bottom. As well, for our samples, we decided to collect some of the mud and water as well as dead grass. Within these samples, as we packed them away, we could see that there were bugs and small organisms present there with varying phenotypes. We also decided to collect some samples closer to the edge of the swamp where the treeline was. We made sure to get the roots of certain plants included in the samples. When we dug up some of the plants, we also found other organisms, including other bugs and some worms, which we also collected to bring for sampling.
We also decided that it would be interesting to travel to different areas with swampland to see if there would be any differences in biodiversity. We traveled over to the swamp area closer to the beaver pond and the bike trail to see what differences we could find. Ultimately, we saw most of the same things for the swampland there, but we did see some differences in the types of plants there. While over in the beaver pond area, we continued filming for our BioCube video and also did some of our silent time there. It was really interesting to hear that there were different sounds present in this part of the farm. A couple of bird calls were heard and they sounded mostly the same, but there were a few new ones. One sounded like a woodpecker, which would make sense considering how much closer the forest was now. We could also see more birds, mostly present in the branches of the trees in the forest. They were mostly small and not very colorful birds and they often blended in with the branches very easily.
After doing some more observing at the beaver pond swamp area, we decided to go back to our initial swamp area to collect more samples and finish our minutes of silence. When we went back, we saw that there were now two geese coming up the stream towards us. We decided to use this time to have more silence so as to not scare away the geese and also observe how they interacted within this ecosystem. For the most part, they were just swimming up the stream. However, they did actually walk up onto the opposite bank of the stream and appear to be kind of nibbling at the grass that was growing on the side of the bank, which was cool to see. During this time we were also listening for the sounds of our ecosystem. Again I could hear a lot of bird calls and some water movement, but for the most part, a lot of it sounded much the same as last week.
Once we had finished the minutes of silence, we continued to pack up some of our samples. We obtained more mud, grass, water, and plants from our BioCube ecosystem and packaged them away in our containers to identify in next week’s lab. I’m hoping that we can find some things we don’t expect to see but who knows!

Posted on 18 de abril de 2019, 07:58 PM by nina132