Mason: The Worm Plan

For those who don’t know me yet I am Mason Sylvester and I am doing a project on earthworms and how chemical fertilizers impact them. I am measure this by how many die in a fish tank over a three week period. Time might change but is going to be around the time frame. The types of worms that I am going to be using are night crawlers which are the most common type of earthworm we have around here or that everyone is familiar with.The picture to the right is a night crawler. Their vertical burrowing earthworms which is perfect for my project. The way I am going to be doing this is I will have 4 fish tanks that are five gallons each and then I will put soil from my backyard that is not been fertilized and then put ten worms in. From their I will spray water four times a week, that number might change but should be around four. I will then put fertilizer into three of the tanks and using the instructions on the fertilizer so I don’t have anything that is different from any of the tanks except the amount that is being applied. The type of fertilizer I used will be in the link I provide (fertilizer) . The fourth tank will not have any fertilizer. They will be place in a dark area with no sunlight so they don’t fry.  After three weeks I will count the number of dead worms for each tank and record the data into a graph for comparison.  I will also put organic matter into each fish tank for food so that they don’t die of starvation instead of the fertilizer.

Angela, CUR - Freshwater Jellyfish?

I'm still looking for my ideal long-term garbage research location up here in Oregon. This weekend I visited Dorena Lake, which unexpectedly turned out to be a trash mecca, but is located 50 minutes too far from my house for weekly research on my currently limited gas budget.

Dorena Lake

In addition to the usual suspects: plastic bottles, Styrofoam cups, wrappers, and cans, I came across a myriad collection of broken glass. In my two and a half years of collecting trash I have never seen so much glass; however, something else I found had me more confused.

Bryozoan Colony?

Bryozoan Colony with Statoblasts?

It seems the dam holding back the water in Dorena Lake had recently been opened to release some of it because the shore was incredibly muddy and littered with dozens of jellyfish-like blobs. After some googling, I believe these blobs are Bryozoans, which according to the Missouri Department of Conservation are "microscopic aquatic invertebrates that live in colonies." Fascinatingly, as gross as they look, these filter feeders actually help keep the water clean. I was wondering if the little black spots in the last image are fish eggs, but - according to the Encyclopedia of Life - the individual organisms in the colony reproduce via "seedlike statoblasts", thus I am assuming the black specs are offspring.

Mason Sylvester, UR: Tremors

I plan on taking four fish tanks (size TBD) and collecting worms for each of the tanks. My initial estimate is ten worms per tank to make it an easy number but may change after calculating the cubic feet of soil space to make sure to have a round number of worms per cubic feet.  I will then put fertilizer in three of the tanks with soil that has not been fertilized and in the fourth tank will have just the base soil soil.  I will place the ten worms (TBD) into the tanks and record their behavior for a specified amount of time (TBD), recording their behavior, including mortality in a worst case scenario.

After gathering my base soil to use in the tanks, I will test to make sure it does not contain any fertilizers.  The three tanks that will contain fertilizer will be marked to contain less than the recommend amount, the recommend amount, and more than the recommend amount to cover the three scales of fertilizer use.

My next blog will include the specific details as in the amounts of worms, fertilizers and soil.  I will also include the type of worms I will be using and the fertilizer brand I have chosen.  After a little research I was planning to use this brand of fertilizer but am not 100% sure yet.  It has a 32-0-4 ratio of nitrogen, phosphate and potash respectively and is measured by percentage (ex. Nitrogen has 32%).

Cathy CUR, Plastic its Everywhere!!

Over the past few weeks I have been working on developing my method, and locating plastic in the sediment samples. My method has come along way I have learned that when I am wet sieveing the samples I need to only sieve a small amount about 200mL at a time, to reduce the smallest sieve (75um) from clogging. I have also determined my sampling locations, a natural out fall and a man made outfall. My natural out fall is in Spruce Creek by the south bridge, and my man made is in the Canal st canal in New Symera Beach.

Scanning Electron Microscope of the yellow stuff

Once I sieved the sample from the Canal St location, I took a sample of the sample and viewed it under a microscope. As I begun looking at my sample I stated noticing a high amount of yellow particles about 100 flecks in about a teaspoon sample. Every time I tried to isolate the yellow stuff from the rest of the sample or remove it, the yellow stuff would crumble. But I did manage to isolate some of the yellow stuff. So once I got what I felt was enough about 0.001g, I sent it off with Paul to analyze it with the scanning electron microscope. The chemical makeup of the stuff showed that it contained high amounts of silica, and calcium. So far the more I look at the Canal St sample under the microscope the more plastic I find.

Plastic found so far in the Canal St sample

More Fun to come, I do have my Spruce Creek sample sieved I plan on investigating it in the coming week. I am also meeting with Paul to gain a better understanding of the yellow stuff, and I plan on exploring down town New Symera in search of where the yellow stuff would come from.

Samantha, UR--Capture of the V. Aureus

     Phytoplankton come in all different shapes and sizes. Some are bacteria, some are protists, and most are single-celled plants.  In my continuing research to identify phytoplankton in and near the Indian River Lagoon I have come across some different types of these plankton that I would like to discuss with you.  My first successful  invasion was in a smaller river in Volusia County, the Tomoka River.  On September 18, a cloudy day out in the river I casted my plankton net out in the open river and immediately after went back to the lab to see what interesting organisms I may have found and boy did i find.  

Volvox and Copepod floating together

   

   Volvox, which are freshwater blue-green algae was of the first organism I was able to spot.  Volvox are mostly freshwater organisms and having been a cloudy day and a lot of precipitation in the water may have been the cause of these organisms in my plankton samples.  This organism was also the most interesting and relevant to my research.  The sample that showed up numerous Volvox organisms were taken closer to a canal where there were houses with "beautiful" green grass, assuming that this grass stays so nice due to mass amounts of fertilizer.  The problem with this is, most fertilizer used on the yards of these homes are located on the river, which the fertilizer will runoff into the surrounding water causing an overabundance of Nitrogen, which is a core ingredient in most fertilizers.  Why would this have anything to do with Volvox being present and why is it important? Well, Volvox contribute to the production of oxygen and serve as a food for a number of aquatic animals.  Volvox Aureus, the most commonly found volvox and the species I found in my plankton sample can form harmful algal blooms in warm water with high Nitrogen Content.

Volvox spotted in my plankton sample

Volvox and Copepod floating naturally in my sample

Jody OCE2905, What am I'm doing this semester????

What I'm doing is setting up a continuous water quality study of three tributaries that discharge into the IRL. Titled---Establishing Sampling Sites to Conduct a Continuous Study of Water Quality of Three Fresh Water Discharges into the Indian River Lagoon

Names and locations are, a natural discharge Spruce Creek at the crossing of the southernmost bridge on US1, (Man-made) Canal Street discharge at New Smyrna Beach, and (Man-made) Tenth Street Canal at the New Smyrna Beach and Edgewater city limits on Riverside Drive Bridge. While water quality data was collected on site and included water temperature, salinity, pH, and dissolved O_2, as well as observations, tide level and direction, wind speed, and air temperature were also recorded. Water samples were then collected using a Van Dorn, samples were then transferred to 500ml Nalgene Bottles placed on ice then transported back to the laboratory and analyzed for turbidity, total inorganic nitrogen and total phosphates. Next I built a excel spreadsheet containing all the data, and then I will build a graph displaying the pertinent findings.
More to come!!!!

Excel Spreadsheet

Mason: The burrowers

USDA Worms

So I have happened to come across an article by the United States Department of Agriculture and they have done some research on the benefits of earthworms and what impacts them. I have found out that there are three categories of earthworms but two of them help with your everyday garden or lawn. The Endogeic type of worm is a topsoil worm and eats most of the organic matter on the top. They create a maze of tunnels in the soil which they can use to spread nutrients to all parts of the plant. The other kind that beneficial is Lumbricus and is a deep burrowing worm. These are the worms that make drainage tunnels to the deeper parts of the plant to provide nutrients to it. All of the worms create cast rich in nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Another interesting fact about worms is that if you use harmful pesticides on the plants and the chemicals runoff into the drainage tunnels the worms actually slow down and block the tunnels so that the chemicals don’t go further down into the soil. Also if you put lime on your plants it can increase their population in the area because they like their soil in with a neutral ph level and they also like to feed on calcium.  That’s all I have for now I will they a link to the article for you guys to see.

Samantha, UR--Oxygen is a big deal !

   Is it possible that tiny microscopic single cell organisms could be greatly effecting our water? Although these organisms may not be able to be seen with the naked eye they are one of the most critical organisms of marine life. Phytoplankton have an intense impact on a healthy area of water, and an over abundance of nutrients could lead to an imbalance of phytoplankton and cause major problems. Along with the data of water quality in the area I have been working my way to capture and identify plankton in certain body's of water specifically in canals. In doing so I will be attempting to compare species of plankton present in a man made canal opposed to a natural canal.
     
        My identification process is still in progress however I have developed some important crucial data during my field research that could  have a huge impact on a mass amount of plankton  present and could eventually lead to something known as an algae bloom.  A bloom occurs due to mass amounts of nutrients being deposited into the water creating an ideal environment for phytoplankton activity. Algae blooms can be very harmful to marine organisms causing fish deaths as well as effecting humans causing Nausea or sickness.  I traveled to two different canals in the area one being Spruce Creek South Bridge (SCSB) located in Volusia County, this is a natural canal as well as Canal Street, canal in New Smyrna Beach (Volusia County), which is a man made canal.

             While out in the field, I began to take water quality samples, checking salinity, pH, oxygen levels ex.  In doing so I came to realize a significant detail of the water quality in which could greatly effect my research of plankton identification.  Canal street canal seemed to be hypoxic ! This meaning that the levels of oxygen were so low that there is basically no oxygen in that particular body of water. If phytoplankton populations grows to an excessive amount, the amount of unstable oxygen  in the water can be depleted. Oxygen deportation has two algal bloom related causes; respiration and decomposition.  Algae and Cyanobacteria consume oxygen at night when there is no light for photosynthesis to occur.  If there is a bloom, the phytoplankton can consume more oxygen than produced. Likewise, if large portions of the algal bloom die off at once, bacteria will start to consume oxygen in order to decompose the dead algae.  This can reduce oxygen concentrations to below sustainable levels.  If oxygen levels get too low, fish and other aquatic creatures may die.

Mason, UR--a wormy situation

 So I have done some research on what worms do for the environment and it turns out that when they go into the soil to burrow they also make these holes that provides water and carbon dioxide to enter into the deeper parts of the soil. They also make these cast things, I think it is their poop but don't know for sure now that fertilize the soil. They get the nutrients from the organic waste by eating it and then making the cast. I also found out that when you put fertilizer on soil with worms in it can kill the worms. It makes the soil acidic and kills them. I will try to keep you guys up to date.

Samantha, UR: Wanderers

135 manatees, 300 pelicans, 76 dolphins have been snuffed out of the Ocean in the last decade due to what Scientist are calling "The Perfect Storm."  Cold snaps in the Indian River lagoon in 2009, 2010 as well as 2011 with temperatures dipping as low as 39 degrees fahrenheit are believed to be accountable for the deaths and injuries of the marine organisms who call the lagoon their home.  







 ( Image of blue-green algae blooms in the Indian River Lagoon)

 

                                      

             Aside from the cold snaps, Scientists believe that a major impact of these mortalities come down to one main issue, pollution. This semester  I will be researching and observing different types of phytoplankton (ocean wanderers) living in these lagoons especially the toxic plankton contributing to a very critical "bloom" in Central Florida's lagoon systems.  These blooms are caused due to an overload of nutrients wasted out into our water systems as a result of human activity. The blooms are hovering the surface of the sea, intervening with the food supply and photosynthetic process of seagrass, a main source of nutrients and food for the herbivores of the area.  With knowledge of amount of chlorophyll in the waters along with the different species of plankton present, my goal is to be able to link these species of phytoplankton to specific blooms in the river and Educate others on the importance of Toxic water runoff.