Follow-up Pictures

As promised, here's a picture of the berlese funnels we used to collect bugs from vacuum samples!

And not so pretty... the spiders are hatching.  Oh horrors.  They're all riding on momma's butt.  A hundred of them.  Ick.

Momma spider with accompanying dinner of fruit fly maggots

Buckets of Dead Spiders are Always Impressive

We've been pretty busy doing science and not so much sightseeing the past few days.  That and the weather hasn't been all that great - rainy and cold,  more like what you'd expect from Iceland.  It's gotten in the way of at least one experiment: vacuum sampling.  Vacuum sampling is a way to see what arthropods are in our plots.  What we do is take a leaf blower that has been modified to work in reverse and suck up everything in a given area.  Then we put everything into a canvas bag with a mesh in the middle and a little baggy of ethanol at the bottom.  That canvas bag gets hung over a light bulb - the arthropods will crawl away from the hot light, fall off the mesh, and end up preserved in the ethanol.  It's a good way to get just the bugs without all of the leaves and dirt that is inevitably sucked up along with them.  The only problem is that we have 40 light bulbs, and 150ish plots to sample, and the samples need to hang on the light bulb for 48 hours, and we can only sample on a perfectly dry day.  It will probably take a few weeks to get everything done, but luckily we only have to do this once a summer.  All the canvas bags hanging on light bulbs actually look quite beautiful, like a lantern festival or something!  I didn't have my camera with me for the first round, but I will be sure to get pictures next time.

The drizzly weather means I've been doing a lot of bug counting.  The highlight was when a neighbor and his daughter asked me what I was doing and I had a nice full cup of dead arthropods, mostly spiders, to show them.  They were suitably impressed/grossed out.  Here's some of the stuff I've been looking at - actually, these are the bugs I took pictures of because I couldn't identify them.  Hopefully I will get help with that tonight!

Our first round of sampling happened at the midge addition plots at Hel - does the addition of midges change the arthropod community?

One of our transects at Hel

The dirt road to Hel is somehow dustier than all the others

And it's important to take breaks while counting - there are upwards of 50 ducklings on the pond just outside the research station!

The bug counting will continue for quite awhile, but hopefully I'll get to do some more explorations of Iceland soon!

Soil Incubations!

I started my independent project this week - everything is going smoothly thus far and the bulk of the work is underway. As quick refresher, my project is to study the respiration rates of soil microbes at different levels of plant productivity around Myvatn.  Higher productivity levels should correlate with higher levels of respiration, since that means the microbes are more active and are decomposing more things to provide nutrients to the plants.  The first step was to collect soils from the different plots - a lava field, a grassland, and two types of heathland - and to measure plant productivity with LAI.  That stands for leaf area index and measures the amount of vegetation covering the ground.

The lava field plots

 We took two types of soil samples.  The hammercore sample was bigger and was used to measure the amount of mineral soil vs duff (plant material on top of the soil) and to measure the amount of water contained in the soil.  The smaller cores were used in our actual soil incubations.  Before I could run incubations on those, I had to sift all of the roots and rocks out.

Sifting

Picking out the smaller roots

 After that I was ready to run my incubations.  We are measuring the rate of CO2 production as an indicator of decomposition and microbial activity.  I put a standard amount of soil from each plot in a small beaker and put each into a larger container with a rubber septum.  At times 0 min, 15 min, and 30 min, I pulled gas out of the chamber and placed it in a vial.  We'll have to bring the vials back to Madison for analysis, and we'll use the three vials at different time points to get a rate of CO2 production.  These soils will be sampled periodically over a month, so we'll be able to see how the rate changes over time. 

The easiest way to do this is to sample an incubation chamber every minute.  It was hectic at first but it didn't take long for me to get the hang of it!  The sad part is that I won't be able to get any data until we get back to Madison.

Vindbelgur

Vindbelgur is a cindercone right on the shore of Myvatn and is a landmark that can be seen from nearly every where in the area.  You've probably seen it in a lot of my pictures.

Last night after the 4th of July festivities, a few of us decided to climb Vindbelgur to see the midnight sun.  It was a bit cloudy, so we didn't see the sunset/rise, but a gorgeous fog rolled in.  It was amazing to be up on the mountain in the middle of the night - the views were some of the most beautiful things I've seen in Iceland, and that's really saying something. 

A cindercone is basically a pile of sand created by volcanic activiy, and it was a fairly difficult climb, although very short.  It looked like a moonscape. 

Tons of pseudocraters

Fog rolling in, and rising from the Laxa River

  This was definitely worth staying up late for.

Click for larger image

Fourth of July

Yesterday was America day, and we celebrated our home country with style.  There weren't any fireworks shows available, but we had a grill out and played games!

Preparing dinner

Not exactly traditional July weather

Icelandic marshmallows aren't great for roasting

Ptarmigan (partridge in North America) poop - the ornithologist mentioned during his visit that ptarmigan droppings can be used an incense.  The scent varies depending on what the ptarmigan has been eating.  The ornithologist was back in Myvatn for a couple days and brought us a present.  It actually did smell good!

We also have a little friend - there's a lamb that's been showing up at our house wanting to play and/or sample our landlord's garden for the past few days.  It's really cute and friendly! 

She loves ear scratches!

The lamb plays soccer! No, seriously, she was headbutting the ball.

After some games, a few of us went on a midnight hike up Vindbelgur - more pictures from that later!

Roughing it

Hey folks, the Internet is down at our house, so I won't be able to blog very much for an indefinite amount of time.  There is Internet at the research station, but I won't be able to be here much in my free time.  Hopefully, we will be back online soon.

In the mean time, I've collect soil and am cleaning it today for my independent project!  I have been documenting the entire process to show you guys.

Also, we will be celebrating the 4th of July with a grill out and a bonfire tonight (if it stops raining!) It is strange to be out of the country where no one else celebrates this holiday!

Feel free to send me emails, just know it may take awhile for me to respond. Fingers crossed that everything will be fixed when I get home tonight!

Akureyri

A couple days ago, we went to Akureyri, the nearest large town, to pick up some more people at the airport.  We also did our grocery shopping and stopped at the hardware store while we were there, as well as walking around down town and visiting the official cafe of the Myvatn Research Station, the Blaa Kanne. 

Downtown Akureyri

Akureyri has a population of 18,000, so when I say "large" town, I mean large-ish, which means that there's a grocery store.  But it has a lovely main street with shopping and restaurants, and also a unique looking church.

Akureyri is ideally located in a large bay, so it is sheltered and has mild winters and summers. 

If I understand Icelandic legend right, I also found this statue of Fjalla Eyvindur, a famous outlaw.  Fjalla and his wife used to spend their winters in the Highlands, a formidable, barren volcanic landscape.  The legend has been very romanticized and is famous throughout Iceland (and is going to have a Bollywood movie made of it!)