Evergreen Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) students Angie Froedin-Morgensen and Iris Garthwaite had opportunities to work with Dr. Deb Finn from Missouri State University in summer 2019. Photo by Carri LeRoy.
Collaborator, Dr. Deb Finn (@streambug), Assistant Professor at Missouri State University, has provided many assets to our research program, far more than strictly field work. Connections like these provide Evergreen students with unique networking opportunities.
Dr. Deb Finn, measuring hyporheic depth in a shirt that matches the beautiful monkey flower in Forsyth Creek in 2019. Photo by Carri LeRoy.
Working with Dr. Finn on the Pumice Plain means we had the opportunity to study the hyporheic zones of new streams at Mount St Helens! Undergraduates learned how to install and monitor hyporheic wells along the streams.
Evergreen undergraduate Iris Garthwaite checking hyporheic height in a well on the Pumice Plain of Mount St. Helens in 2019. Photo by Carri LeRoy.
Assessing hyporheic zones generated a lot of data for our team to better understand the novel watersheds at MSH. It turns out that 40 years isn’t long enough for most hyporheic zones to develop but we gained insight into up and downwelling and the potential for hyporheic habitat development!
Litter bags filled with willow leaves and flowers prepped for deployment and deployed in streams at Mount St. Helens. Photos by Carri LeRoy
Litter bags filled with willow leaves and flowers for undergraduate Iris Garthwaite’s independent research project as part of the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program. We use metal ID tags to track willow identity, plant sex, and weevil attack status.
Willow leaves incubated in the streams of the Pumice Plain decompose and skeletonize over time. Photo by Carri LeRoy
Litter bags installed in streams help us determine decomposition and organic matter cycling rates. Willow leaves and flowers are colonized by microbes and aquatic macroinvertebrates that eat microbes and shred leaves. SURF student Angie Froedin-Morgensen focuses on invert ID.
Our research truck turned solar-powered drying oven – our solution to drying leaves at a remote field site! Photo by Carri LeRoy.
The whole crew gets involved when it’s time for peak leaf fall! Our studies are often limited by how much leaf litter we can catch at abscission. On multi-day trips, we get creative about drying leaves – we converted our research truck into a solar-powered drying oven!
A group selfie after a long field trip! Wrapping up our field work in late summer 2018! Photo by Carri LeRoy
The past 3 years our team has been working under an NSF EAGER grant to Dr. LeRoy which allows undergraduates at The Evergreen State College to gain amazing field experiences and research opportunities.
Our team is composed of undergraduates, SURF students, research assistants, faculty, and many wonderful collaborators (stay turned to learn more about our collaborative work) that dedicate their summers to exploring the landscape of Mount St. Helens (MSH).
MSH is an exemplary ecosystem for our team to study how the flora and fauna are responding to large, intense disturbances as well as their processes of early succession.
We hike in all kinds of weather! Hiking along the Truman Trail at Mount St. Helens to field sites on the Pumice Plain. Photo by Carri LeRoy
Over 20 undergraduate students at Evergreen have been able to collaborate on this project! Three students at left with collaborator Joy Ramstack Hobbs from the Science Museum of Minnesota at right. Photo by Carri LeRoy
The Leaf Litter Lab had the honor of presenting a small glimpse into each individual scopes of research to Christine Hoffmann, who works for the Public Relations Outreach here at Evergreen.
With focuses on the National Science Foundation-funded ecology research of Mount St. Helen’s, undergraduates have been able to take on multiple approaches to conduct individual research projects.
Iris Garthwaite is a Senior who takes on both a peer-mentor and leadership role. She’s conducted an entire project around willow catkin and aquatic invertebrate interactions to investigate flowers as detrital resource for stream ecosystems. With the end of her research project she has been working hard at picking a graduate school and writing her first first-author paper!
Brandy speaking about the Norman H. Anderson macro-invertebrate samples.
Brandy Kamakawiwoole is a Junior working on aquatic macro-invertebrate sorting, stream GIF imaging, and analyzing historical BMI records. The historical records are from the 1981-1982 Norman H. Anderson Collection Samples, making them the first aquatic macro-invertebrate samples collected following the eruption of Mount St. Helens!
Angie Frödin-Morgensen is a Senior who has an interest in freshwater ecology. She spends most her time working hard at a microscope sorting through leaf litter to identify aquatic macro-invertebrates. Her research focuses on macro-invertebrate community differences between female and male Sitka willow leaf litter!
Angie discussing the important roles of macro-invertebrates as bio-indicators of streams.
Maddie Thompson is a Junior with interest in environment studies and ecology. She’s been continuing the research on canopy covering influencing in-stream ecosystem function. She also takes part in her research project that focuses on Willow DNA extractions to identify microbial communities.
Lauren Thompson is a Junior studying ecology and environmental studies. She’s continuing the research on how environmental conditions influence organic matter processing across Mount St. Helens watersheds. She works jointly with Maddie in assessing condensed tannin’s and Willow DNA extractions.
Stay tuned… Iris, Angie, Maddie and Lauren plan to attend and present at the 2020 Society for Freshwater Science Annual Meeting!
Dr. Carri LeRoy and research students navigating through a stream of Mount St. Helens.
Check out our latest paper “Plant sex influences aquatic-terrestrial interactions” featuring undergraduate co-authors!!
Learn more about the awesome collaborative work NSF funded student-faculty scientists are working on how sex of dioecious Sitka willows influences aquatic-terrestrial interactions in early successional headwater streams of Mount St. Helens.
