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Expectations

Posted by Benjamin Soltoff on 2009-06-19 - no comments
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Before I started the Howard Hughes program, I had dabbled in a couple fields of academic research, including field ecology, so I had a good idea of what I was in for: a lot of physical work, some tedious lab chores, and a bunch of acronyms, tree species, and other lingo to learn. Still, there were a few surprises, which is unsurprising because surprises are inevitable in anything related to science. For example, I knew I would be taking tree cores, but I did not realize how many. I was thinking it would be a number in the double digits, but I soon realized it would be a few hundred at the very least. I also didn’t realize how much work it was to process a tree core. After I get it out, I have to glue it to a wooden blank, let it dry over night, sand it down, do a preliminary count of the rings, and then use a stage to measure the distance between each ring. I also have to enter the data I collect into the computer and check the tree’s species and ID number against the information in the records, which takes a lot more time than you might think. All together, I spend a lot more time processing a core than extracting it.

However, in the long run, these surprises are really just details. What I’m doing in the Clark lab is more or less what I expected. The real potential for surprise will come once the program is over, when I look back and reflect on what I got out of the experience. Right now, I expect that I will have a somewhat better grasp on the principles of ecology, and a much better grasp of what it takes to develop those principles. This expectation is pretty vague, but at this point I have no way of knowing the specific things I will learn or the more intangible impact that the program will have. It only took a couple weeks for me to figure out what my research would be like, but it will probably take at least all eight weeks for me to figure out its effect on me.
 

Tagged: clark, Duke-forest, ecology, expectations, field-research

Week 1: What I've Learned So Far

Posted by Benjamin Soltoff on 2009-06-12 - no comments
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On Monday, when I got back to my apartment, I found a small black object embedded in my leg. I pulled it out, and it wriggled its legs for a few seconds until I washed it down the drain. It was a tick, and it was one of many that I have found on myself over the past week. How did all the ticks get there? They came from hours spent plodding around the Duke forest identifying tree species, measuring diameters, and taking cores to analyze back in the lab.

My name is Ben Soltoff, and this summer I am working in Dr. Jim Clark’s lab doing ecological field research. Over the next seven weeks, I will be doing a lot more identifying, measuring, and coring, which means that I will also be picking out a lot more ticks. That brings me to the first thing I’ve learned so far about field research: always wear long pants. Apparently human legs are both a jungle gym and a buffet for all sorts of insects, especially ticks, so it’s best to keep your legs covered. That won’t make the insects leave you alone, but it will at least make them less of a distraction.

The second important thing I’ve learned is that things don’t always work out the way you want them to, especially in the field. I’ve had a lot of trouble this week with the increment corer, which is a T-shaped tool that you twist into a tree trunk in order to get a sample of the core. When brought back to the lab, you can count the rings on the core and the distance between them, which tells you a lot about the tree’s growth history. Coring, however, is very difficult and a lot can to go wrong. Trust me. Just in the past week I’ve had cores get stuck in the corer, I’ve had the corer get stuck in trees, I’ve had cores left in trees after I pulled the corer out, and most commonly, I’ve come across trees that have been almost impossible to get into. The pace I was going at had been a bit discouraging, but with thanks to Jim, the PI (principal investigator), and Peter, the lab technician who’s been helping me out, I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of it. Today I got more cores than any other day, and I didn’t run into any major snags. I barely even found any ticks when I got back. Like ticks, problems can be minimized with adequate preparation, but inevitably I’ll always find a few here and there. It just comes with the territory.

Tree cores in the lab, being prepared for analysis

An increment corer and DBH tape (used to measure diameter)

A cored tree (the hole to the left of the tag is where the corer went in)


 

Tagged: clark, core, Duke-forest, ecology, field-research, increment-corer, problem, tick, tree
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