April Plot Reflection

Yesterday we went to the plots. I was very excited to see all the changes that happened since we were last there. The ground of the plot was very dry and the leaf litter had gone down probably due to decomposition. As the arborist I noticed that a lot of the small trees that had disappeared during the winter still hadn't come back. The larger sapling sized white pines had only grown a little bit in width. Two of these white pines had vines twisted around them which at the top of the trees sprouted into small green leave. This vine also snaked across the ground of the plot. We also found a single odd looking purple leaf that had sprouted up from the ground with a smaller one a few inches away. The back the leaf was green with strange dark spots. What kind of leaf is this? Could the spots be a growth/fungus or are they part of the leaf its self? Another thing we found that was interesting was 4 small shallow holes at the base of one tree. Could it be a small mammal? Or possibly something used for reproduction for an insect?  Finally, the moss that we had found earlier this school year seemed to be dying. We think that this could be because of the cold snaps we have been having right after bursts of warm weather. I really hope to find out even more about the plot next month since it will be one of the last times we are going. 

January Plot

As we walked onto the plot for the first time in around 2 months we noticed that our plot was very different. Even more of the baby trees had disappeared, but the young pines had grown. Due to the fact that it was a VERY rainy day the ground was wet and there were puddles every where, the temperature of the soil to be low.The leaf litter height has grow, but the pH has stayed the same from the last time we were there.  While we were at the plot we noticed that the 2 different kinds of mosses were still thriving as well as many ferns. We also notices some foam at the base of one of our trees; could this be from the rain or maybe an insect? In one of the grown trees on our plot there was a hole in which it seemed some type of fungus was growing, but we were unable to reach it. One thing that we found that was particularly interesting was a chirping sound coming from under some leaves. We were unable to find any birds but think it might have been a hidden nest. We also found a frog that Simi caught; it was dark green/brown and was probably a result of the rain. I look forward to seeing once again how this plot has changed, but hopefully in dry weather.

Scientist Research

Andre W. Visser is a Professor of Physical Oceanography in Denmark, at the Technical University of Denmark. I chose this scientist because I have always been interested in marine biology and I had never heard of biomixing( the action  of swimming organisms in mixing the worlds oceans) and it caught my eye.

The journal I read was debating biomixing the oceans with small organism. It is contemplating if small organisms are exerting enough energy to make up for the heat they are putting off. The article also posses the question that if the small amount of mechanical energy can substantially mix the water. It tells that biomixing is controlled by "the scale at which turbulent kinetic energy is imparted to the flow", "equivalent to the rate of work done",and "a measure of the stratification of the water column" and how each of these factor into the equation. The article concludes in saying that small organism do not have great enough efficiency to sufficiently mix the oceans.

I have many questions about the article including: What made you want to research biomixing? What type of tests have you done on this? Is there a substantial difference between different small organisms? Have you tested this with larger organisms? and finally Do you think that it would be harder to get larger organisms to swim at a consistent rate?