Lights, Camera, Action!

This week I hit the ground running with the pilot experiment, and as you can see from the picture, it has been a glowing success so far...well, mostly. I started the pilot on Sunday, but due to difficulties with some of the materials, I had to dump out all of the luminophores and find an alternative solution. The luminophores that I made clumped at the water surface, which is likely related to the fluorescent paint. In theory any paint would produce the same issue, as paints tend to be hydrophobic, which is why your walls don't soak up water after they are painted. I returned to the drawing board and went all the way back to the start of the luminophore process, and realized that the pigments I purchased could, themselves, act as luminophores. I ran some tests at home, and was very happy with the outcome, which allowed me to start the pilot anew on Tuesday.

While the resolution of this uploaded version isn't the greatest, I want to point out a few important aspects of this picture. The luminophores here are glow in the dark sand-like particles, and you can see them glowing a light aqua color under the UV light. There is some plant debris at the top of the jar, but the luminophores are flush with the sediment surface. Additionally, you can spot three areas where the luminophores have traveled below the initial sediment surface, which may be indicative of bioturbation by the animals living in the mesocosm. I've adjusted the brightness and contrast so that you can see these areas more clearly. While I don't have arrow pointers, if you orient to the dark gray area of sediment in the middle of the jar and move toward the surface of the sediment, you'll notice these few spots of aqua just below the surface, which are potential areas of bioturbation.

The next steps in this process are image analysis to measure the depth changes of these luminophores across each mesocosm (12 mesocosms x 4 pictures per mesocosm x 8 time points) and to maintain the integrity of the experiment by refreshing the aquarium water, as needed. I'm also using this time to make notes regarding the successes and failures of aspects of the experiment to create a more successful experimental design later this summer.

Stay tuned for more!

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