We are a group of freshwater ecologists from the Biology Department at St. Catherine University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Our research takes us to Iceland and other arctic regions where we are working to understand how temperature influences nitrogen fixation rates and metabolism in cyanobacterial assemblages. Nitrogen fixation is extremely sensitive to temperature and therefore nitrogen gas from the atmosphere may become more accessible to freshwater ecosystems as the climate warms. We are working to understand the potential ecological and environmental implications of changes in cyanobacteria species composition and nitrogen fixation rates in arctic lakes and streams.
We are in the final stages of packing the lab and getting all of our field equipment ready for the trip to Iceland. We have quite a bit of equipment to take with us, including a sixty pound gas chromatograph that we will house in a lab at the University of Iceland and use to make our measurements of nitrogen fixation. Beyond that, we have lots of vials, bottles, balloons (also for our nitrogen fixation measurements), gas-tight chambers, power transformers, and so on....to a grand total of nine full containers! We are eager to see how things go at the airport with all of our equipment and we are hoping that everything runs smoothly. We will be there very soon! We look forward to staying in touch with everyone through the blog. So, please post comments!
Hellooo!!
ReplyDeleteI hope your airport adventures went smoothly. I look forward to the blog updates as they come in :) In the mean time, enjoy the slime ;)
Paula