We Did It!

After two weeks of data collection and working desperately to maintain the environmental conditions we set in the experimental chamber, Adele and I have finished our mesocosm experiment. This experiment had some unexpected challenges at the end, largely because the ocean conditions during sediment collection were so warm, that we had to maintain those same conditions in the environmental chamber. These warm conditions meant that the air conditioning system couldn't effectively dehumidify the chamber, so our microsensors were challenged right until the end. 

While the data collection aspects are complete, I still have work to accomplish before I can claim this experiment is fully finished. Since each mesocosm came from an individual sediment core in the field, each mesocosm represents a community of organisms that may not be the same as the rest of the mesocosms. Therefore, I need to identify and count every single animal present in the mesocosms in case differences in the animal communities caused differences in either the oxygen penetration or the bioturbation. This process, along with collecting their biomass measurements, will take a few months and I am hoping to wrap up this phase by winter break in December. In the meantime, I will be writing up some initial results to send to the Ocean Sciences conference committee in hopes of presenting this work at the Feb 2024 Ocean Sciences meeting in New Orleans. This conference is the flagship conference for the ocean sciences and is a great opportunity to share interesting work and to network with professionals and meet other students. By the time the conference happens, I will be done analyzing all the data for this work, so it will make for a great time to talk about this cool research I did and how microplastics may alter benthic ecosystem functions.

Not the most beautiful picture to close out the blog this week, but instead, a ducks-in-a-row picture of the former mesocosm containers (left), macrofauna containers (middle), and meiofauna tubes (right) all ready for sample processing which will start next week.

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