Closing in on triumph at #RUC
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Project expanded! We decided (that is Morten did – and for that I am grateful) to run PI-curves at 5 and 25C as well. That means we’ve got results from five temperatures. The kelps grown at 20 C for three weeks are still alive, but the general impression is that they are more perforated and fragile than the rest.
Read more HERE
Poetry from the lab: Photonblues revisited @ #RUC
I actually wrote this while finishing my master thesis the summer of 2007. Being stuck in the lab trying to get some results at the end of my fellowship as a PhD student at UiO, it reappeared quite vividly in my mind.
Before reading this, you’ve got to know a couple of things. First, I’m a nerdy marine botanist. Second, when my mind starts to wander it quite often does so in verses – for some reason. You should also know that quite a few Norwegians struggle attempting to pronounce LOW correctly. It usually comes out as LOVE. At least coming from the mouth of the lecturer at the course Light Climate and Primary production in Arctic environments – incredibly amusing when you’re hyped on coffee and to little sleep due to Arctic midnight sun and attending a master/graduate course spanning four intense and exciting weeks at Svalbard… And especially with the backdrop of your lecturer explaining the reaction centres of the photosynthetic apparatus (RCs) by referring to Monty Pythons sketch on “the machine that goes BING“… Oh, man… priceless.
If you want to know more about light and marine “compensation” levels (E~1%**), THIS is a great place to start. Anyhows and anyways… here it goes:
Photonblues revisited
by: kelpRmy
I’m staring out the window
where I see the mocking sun.
Throwing all those photons at me,
but hitting me with none.
There is this wall between us,
this fucking drag of a thing.
It’s called a shitload of work
and keeps my machine from going “BING”!
My RCs are all open, you know
they’re ready for some love…
But these love-light conditions, man
are really way below (E 1% **)
Well, as you can tell from hearing this,
i’m doing rather swell.
Excuse me while I ask my ambitious self,
to go take a vacation – IN HELL!!
Tomorrow I’m taking the night off to go see a movie. Obviously needed :)
Surprising results from the lab at #RUC. Kelp freakout!!
Woah, these algae really puzzles me. The PI-curves run at different temperatures (10, 15 and 20 C) before acclimatisation (10 C kelp) are incredibly similar – huge surprise! The first thorough analyses and views of the data with proper calibrations performed on them shows almost no difference in respiratory rates!! What the fuck!? One would think…
Read more HERE…
Update from #RUC experiment
Thursday, May 20th, 2010 Kelp, Marine biology, PhD, Science None
Notes from the lab at #RUC
These are the two chambers we use. The oxygen electrodes are the rods you see coming out on the right side of the chambers… The temperature in the surrounding water is kept stable by a heater with a thermostat (the grey box), and a cooler (not visible). We regulate light intensities by shadowing with decreasing layers of black nets (above the chambers) until full light.
These past days have been really hectic. We’ve had our share of problems. Yesterday, one of the thermostats supposed to govern one of the 10 C batches started whining – really high pitched tone. I turned both the cooler and the thermostat off and went home, being as the culture room itself holds about 10 C. I spent the night in agony, really wondering why the fuck I bother doing this. On top of that frustration the lighting in the culture room was off today, and we discovered even more problems…
Read more HERE
In Roskilde doing Science
Well, it finally happened. My trip to Roskilde was set. Just before, or more correctly in the beginning of our Easter holiday, I got the message: You are expected. I had to jump into my field gear, ditch all other plans and catch a plane to Bergen (the west coast) to collect some juvenile kelp (- about 200 individuals!)… One of my supervisors joined me a couple of days later by car to Grimstad in the south to get some individuals from there as well. Just before leaving for Denmark we collected some individuals from Drøbak (close to Oslo). On April 7. my two supervisors and I drove down from Oslo to Roskilde, which is my current location :) Next week it’s down to business. Hard core science! I’m going to run PI-curves (by O2 measures) at 10, 15 and 20 C to see where the point of compensation lies (where photosynthesis in the kelp meets its respriation). Then we’re going to let the kelps acclimatise for two weeks at 10, 15 and 20 C to run another set of PI-curves. EXCITED! The results may provide the backing I need for stating my hypothesis on why the kelp is disappearing – with confidence!! :D
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