smidge of midge

Lots 'O Midges I

2012-01-27T17:07:00.006Z

One project that I have been spending a lot of time working on of late is what I usually refer to as "The Lake Paper." This is a rather abstract title since it really is not about the lake exactly, though as will everything we do, ultimately it has its origins there. This "Lake Paper" is an attempt by a group of us from the wider project to come up with a highly accurate estimate of the number of midges that are emerging from the lake and where they are being distributed on land. This sounds like a very simple question to answer, and perhaps it is, but we have taken a creative modelling approach that takes into account such factors as wind direction, distance of open water upwind (fetch), distance from upwind shore, and rates of midge emergence and "infall" that should tell us what we want to know.

As this project wraps-up (hopefully we are close!) I am going to tell you about some of the insights that we have had as a result of our work and, if I am lucky, show you some cool images of where the midges are going. It is a lot of fun to work on a collaborative project that pulls people with very disparate abilities and perspectives together towards a common goal. It can also be highly frustrating but thankfully I am usually mostly frustrated at myself than with my colleagues.

For now I am going to post some of our best pictures of midge swarms to remind you and I of just how amazing this phenomenon really is.

Bless!

Jamin

Lots of midges in 2008.

Dr. Einarsson in a swarm.

A haul from 2009.

Collecting.

Swarms from afar in 2010.

On the side of an island.

Tanytarsus forming a fog over the ground in 2010.

Revisiting the Past

2012-01-20T21:11:00.005Z

The Westfjords are beautiful.

As Madison is wrapped in a layer of snow today I bring to you a short tale of one of our adventures from this past summer, a story that has been waiting months to be told...

Up close and personal with puffins.

As part of our research we were visiting lakes in the west of Iceland, looking specifically for more midge lakes. As we drove towards the setting sun from Mývatn leaving sticky traps in our wake we found ourselves at the gate to the fabled Westfjords, the last major part of Iceland that none of us had ever seen. Even before we departed home base we had decided to take a few days off to explore the oldest part of the island.

Taking a peek.

After setting up our last transects we turned north leaving the relative comfort of the ring road behind us. It didn't take too long before we were climbing steep, winding gravel roads as rain bursts poured down upon us. We were travelling in convoy with the Pajero and Corolla snaking our way up and down the fjords along the south coast facing Breiðafjörður. Our ultimate goal was a campground just east of Látrabjarg, the tallest and some say largest bird cliffs in the North Atlantic. After making camp we drove the last few precarious kilometers to the westernmost tip of (political) Europe. There was only one other small group of photographers who didn't venture much past the tiny parking lot leaving us to enjoy the cliffs, midnight sun, puffins, razorbills, guillemonts, and all the other cliff denizens all to ourselves.

Playing in the surf.

The next morning we broke camp after spending an hour down on the beach. The Hoekmans did not come to the bird cliffs with us "big kids" the night before and they decided that they were going to go while the rest of us (Page, Kyle, Maddy, Hilary, and I) were going to make a break forDynjandi and later the island Flatey in the middle of Breiðafjörður to spend the night. This took a fair bit of driving, but the vistas were spectacular and at one point we even saw a whale from the road. Boarding the ferry to Flatey we communicated our desire to send the Pajero all the way through while we would jump off at the island. Obviously the boat workers and I were on different pages...

Ladies man.

... As I rushed to the top deck of the ferry I could see new people on board and feel the boat moving. When I reached topside I asked if we were casting off to which they replied "yes." I immediately proclaimed that we had been waiting for someone to let us into our car (that part was lost in translation at the dock) because our equipment for staying the night was in there. After a quick communication with the captain the dock hand shouted "You have two minutes!!" and ran to the hold of the ferry to help us get our things. He was literally tossing us out of one of the loading doors of the ferry within seconds. The people on the ferry had a good laugh, but we were left with no food for the night!

The wayfarers.

After setting up our tents in what I believe to be the only campground on the island we went looking for food, finding it at the local hotel. Talk about "island prices"! The only grub we could find was a full course meal for nearly $90! After convincing ourselves that it was a small price to pay for a once in a lifetime experience we took the plunge, and I have to say that we were greatly surprised at the quality and I think that they were surprised that such obviously out of place 20-somethings who looked like total cheapskates ante'd up to their culinary challenge.

On the ferry to shore.

It was a cold and windy night we spent on the little island. Fortunately that was followed by a beautiful Icelandic summer day during which we explored the little island. By the time we boarded the ferry for the mainland (finding our food and water bottles right where we left them!!) we had pretty much seen every square meter of the island. We landed on Snæfellsnes, found the Pajero, and in no time were rolling down Route 1 headed for Mývatn.

Bless!

Jamin

Case of the Mondays...

2012-01-13T23:43:00.000Z

Hello All! I have to apologize for not getting a post up last Friday. I will try to get back into the SoM groove by the end of the week. As you might suspect we are currently still on break here at UW-Madison, at least technically speaking. Functionally many if not most graduate students have already been back for weeks trying their best to get a head start on the semester yet to get underway. Curiously the first two weeks of the year saw some very warm weather here, with temperatures around 10C (50+F) at times. More recently we have gotten some snow, keeping the ice skaters/fishermen and nordic skiers happy.

David and I are often trying to keep Claudio happy, and at the end of the day this means that we need to be working on papers. For the last couple of months, however, David and Claudio have been working very hard on a National Science Foundation grant pre-proposal. Things at the primary federal funding agency for the type of science that we do are in flux and there is a new format this year that requires a very short preproposal to be submitted to cull the truly unfundable grants on the front end of the process. This grant is focused on future directions for our work in Iceland, and represents a synthesis of knowledge that we have gathered over the last four years or so. Let us hope it does well in review!

Bless,

Jamin

New Year, Old Photos

2012-01-09T19:02:00.005Z

The 2011 crew in all our glory!

Welcome to 2012 SoM readers! As is common at this time of year we are often caught between looking forward and looking back. Recently I was looking back at a few photos from this past summer and I thought I would put some of them up here (in no particular order) for you to enjoy.

Claudio

Hilary

David

Maddy

Us (we waited all summer for this shot!)

Field station & Pajero (& Karri)

Pizza at Daddi's

Team Midge meets Team Stream

As Team Midge looks forward to 2012 there is much uncertainty surrounding our return to Iceland. David and I are nearing the twilight of our respective careers here at UW-Madison (at least according to some sources!) and we do not know if we will be going back this summer. Kyle and Maddy will be holding down the fort, however, so at least they will be able to report from on the ground this summer even if David and I cannot. Until then we'll continue to keep you posted on our progress here in Madison and how things look to be shaping up for the upcoming field season.

Bless!

Jamin

Bless Bless 2011!

2011-12-21T22:42:00.002Z

As David and I prepare to leave Madison for West Michigan I bid you Happy Holidays from Team Midge.

See you in 2012!

ESA Bulletin

2011-12-15T15:34:00.000Z

A companion "paper" to our recent Ecology article about the arthropod responses at Helluvaðstjörn just came out in the Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America. This is like a show-and-tell for ecologists where recent papers from ESA journals are highlighted by providing some photos with brief descriptions. Some of these photos may be familiar to long-term followers of this blog, but I'll post the Bulletin pages below so you can see the layout. Many people who have been involved with this project are in the photos including Maddy, Hilary, Kyle, Ted, Jaclyn, Jamin and Bre (see if you can find us all :).

I had to convert the pdf into a jpg to get it to show up on the blog and decided bigger was better even though it cuts off a little bit of the page. Here is the text from the first page:

Aquatic insects are a common and important subsidy to terrestrial systems. Hoekman et al. simulated lake-to-lake insect deposition in a field experiment in northern Iceland. They hypothesized a positive bottom-up response of detritivores that would be transmitted to their predators and would persist into the following year. Midge addition resulted in significantly different arthropod communities and increased arthropod densities, especially detritivores. By manipulating the nutrient pulse delivered by midges, they were able to elucidate food web consequences of midge deposition and subsequent spatial and temporal dynamics.

Ecology Hats and Spider Shirts

2011-12-09T22:46:00.006Z

Order your Wisconsin Ecology hat today!

One of my many responsibilities as a graduate student is serving as the co-chair of the Wisconsin Ecology graduate committee. "WiscE" ,as some of us have taken to call it, is a group of students and faculty at UW-Madison that get together to promote research and collaboration on a campus where ecologists are spread out in over two dozen departments. The graduate committee is generally tasked with getting the graduate students together and putting on a couple of big productions during the spring semester; the Ecology Job Fair and the Spring Symposium.

Can you say "machinmanship"?

Well one of the fun things I get to do is work on our merchandise. It is something of a long story, but we needed to get at least a dozen things embroidered and some of them, after a bit of discussion, were winter hats. This saga has dragged on, in part because we don't have unlimited funds(!), but this morning I finally took delivery of our new hats! Now, just a few hours later, we only have a few left and I am hopeful that they will all sell quickly so that we can get more hats and shirts in the future.

I love spider-themed t-shirts! Still bitter at Joey Slowik for outbidding me for one of the best ever at AAS in 2007...

It also happened to be my luck while I was picking up the hats that the company who made them, Wildwood Productions, was having a dirt-cheap t-shirt sale to get ride of their old stock and misprints. I was immediately attracted to a bit of spider web poking out from beneath a stack of shirts. After digging a big I was rewarded with a glow-in-the-dark spider shirt, adorned with two species commonly referred to as the "garden spider", Araneus diadematus andArgiope aurantia. Perhaps you recognize these two beautiful spiders yourself, though you might have to wait until next summer to spot them again.

Nice detail of the Araneus diadematus abdomen pattern.

Bless!

Jamin

Water Foul II

2011-12-02T08:59:00.001Z

Fall in Madison.

As I have mentioned before one of the great things about spending time in Iceland has been coming to know the place; the plants, animals, and geology of the area. It struck me sometime towards the end of the summer that I know so much more about Mývatn than I do even the place where I grew up. In some ways this makes total sense; I am not doing a PhD in or near West Michigan. On the other hand it seems like one should be at least partly responsible for knowing what is going on in a place you lived for 20+ at least as much as one you have only lived in for little over a single year. It seems to me that this is not just a matter of academics either, because I believe that you appreciate Life that much more when you have a grasp of your own situation. The thing is that ecology is taking place all around you all of the time, whether you know about it or not, so you might as well learn something about it and be amazed. Amazement is, in my mind, the inevitable outcome of learning about ecology but of course I am biased!

A pair of Mallards at my Aunt and Uncle's house.

Well I was amazed two days ago when I spotted some ducks reminiscent of Mývatn on Lake Mendota here in Madison. As mentioned two posts ago, David and I have been keeping an eye out for ducks along the south edge of Mendota for the last month or so. The most numerous birds there at the moment are American Coots and Mallards. But there are also many Canada Geese as well. Knowing of my love for Bucephala David has been telling me about someBuffleheads that he has been seeing lately. Then at the beginning of the week he told me that he had seen a Northern Shoveler! There are only a handful of Shovelers at Mývatn and they hide out in a bay where the landowner was supposed to be rather protective of his land. Of course I come to find out this summer that it is the man that "Extreme Ecologist" Ted named "The G" and I am pretty sure that he would love for us to come see his Skeiðönd. Taking David's tip I stopped by the spot where he said a single male Shoveler was hanging out and "I seen it" as they say.

Coming in for a landing.

The next day as I was leaving my apartment in the morning I loaded up my camera into my bag hoping for a look at these Buffleheads. That effort was in vain because it was really windy and there was hardly a duck to be seen. The next morning I tried again and this time the weather was beautiful. I passed where I normally turn off to go to the lab and rode the next few hundred meters to the duck hangout. As soon as I got there I knew I had hit paydirt since I spotted some Buffleheads immediately. I took a bunch of photos of them and some geese coming in for a landing. I moved on, searching unsuccessfully for the Shoveler, and when I doubled-back I found the Buffleheads even closer to shore. They are vary wary animals however (or maybe I smell bad!) and move away quickly once you make it plain you have your eye on them.

Goldeneye!

When I got back to the office I was quickly looking through my photos and I noticed some strange looking ducks. What I thought were some Buffleheads turned out to be another member of the genus, the Common Goldeneye! I have seen many Buffleheads, and of course a myriad ofBarrow's Goldeneye, but as far as I know Bucephala clangula is a new one for me. Of course if I had seen them before, or even know they were on the lake, I might have known as soon as I spotted them. But uninformed as I am I had to wait until I was back in the lab to discover the truth. I guess it is time to start paying more attention, which seems to be the key to unlocking the not so secret beautiful truths that surround us everyday.

Take a close look at the heads of those drakes. They are beautiful!

Bless!

Jamin

Finally in Print

2011-11-18T19:41:00.004Z

"David's" paper...

I have been talking about two papers that David and I have been working on for quite a while now, and I am happy to tell you that both of them have now made it to print (more or less anyway). David is the lead author on a paper about our midge addition experiment, and I am the lead author on a paper about our transect study. David actually beat me to press about a month ago (jerk!). Publications are the gold standard of scientific output, and these are the first Iceland papers to find their way into the literature. I think that the next year or so should see many more.

"My" paper...

As you might be able to tell from this brief post, I am somewhat harried at the moment. I also do not anticipate posting next week due to the Thanksgiving Holiday. But I am sure I will be back with more news from Team Midge come 2 December and I hope that you will check back then. In the meantime maybe you would like to read our papers...

Bless!

Jamin

P.S. Many, many thanks to everybody who was involved in these papers, one way or another. Special big shout-outs go to the field assistants (Erica, Jaclyn, Heather, and Kyle) that helped us count all those samples!

Water Foul

2011-11-11T14:30:00.004Z

Muskrat

As I have probably mentioned somewhere along the way I ride in to campus most often along the Lakeshore Path, a foot/bike route that runs along the edge of Lake Mendota. David lives on the west side of campus and I on the east but we both skirt the lake during our two-wheeled commutes. One of the great things about riding along the lake is noticing the activity that is going on there. This is especially true now that David and I are amateur duck watchers having been converted after all of our time in Iceland. For the last month or so the most prominent birds on the water have been American Coots. Coots are not actually ducks, they are members of the Rail family, but they look and act something like ducks and as the saying goes, "If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck..." Well maybe in this instance we would have to say swims like a duck or something because I don't think that Coots sound like ducks, but you get the idea. They travel in groups called "covers" or "rafts" and we've been seeing lots of covers and rafts along the water lately.

Great Northern Diver

Another friend on the water that we have been observing lately is the Great Northern Diver, or as we call them, the Common Loon. Actually as I look it seems that Wikipedia is trying to straddle both worlds by calling Gavia immer the "Great Northern Loon." That name has its feet squarely in both camps. In any event there are a number of what I take to be solitary, non-breeding plumage Divers hanging about Lakes Mendota and Monona at the moment. Divers are lovely birds and I have noticed that people feel very attached to them for whatever reason. My own family has more that a couple Diver likenesses decorating our lake cottage.

Sigur Rós has a new documentary out.

Knowing that Coots and Loons are about this past Monday I took my camera along with me on my ride to Russell Labs. I made it to the Center for Limnology when I spotted a Diver and I rapidly dismounted Coco (my bike) and whipped out the camera. I started out on the CFL dock when I noticed something smaller but closer in the water between myself and the loon. It was a muskrat, stealthily swimming towards me. I thought that I would try to get some photos of her too, and I was rewarded because she kept coming closer and closer and I got some nice shots of her. The loon was rather far away for my limited lens to handle, so I followed up the path a bit and tried for a few more photos and was rewarded with images better than those I had taken on the dock.

David and I greatly enjoy observing the birds on the lake, and once in a while we compare notes on what we have seen recently. Maybe next year Árni will include us in the bird count!

Bless,

Jamin

Graphic Design

2011-11-05T02:19:00.003Z

The past week has been a busy one, and I think that we are doing a decent job of keeping our heads above water. Of course treading water, which is often how we might feel, is not exactly forward progress. Hopefully this week for me has seen a little bit of both. A few jobs that have kept me occupied this past week involved making some visual materials for the Iceland Project, as well as for the Gratton Lab as a whole. One of the great things about being a grad student and scientist is that you have to learn, if not become proficient in, a wide variety of skills. These include writing, speaking, mathematics, and even visual presentations. I have a lot of fun working with visuals, and though I claim to be no pro, I am definitely much more adept at creating them now than I was when I arrived. This is nothing to say of the actual quality, only that I am much better at manipulating the necessary software!

One of the banners from my website.

One of the things that I have been working on lately is website design. I have recently designed my own website, which for good or ill remains something of a work in progress. I have to say that I had a lot of fun learning something new, and today I am capable of at least conversing about websites and able to manipulate a framework such as Wordpress in a way that I was completely incapable of doing only two weeks ago. Following this "success" I took up the cause of the Gratton Lab website, which should be unveiled in about a week's time. Hopefully I make the lab happy with my efforts!

Who wants free pizza?!

The other fun things that I have been working on recently are posters. In the past week+ I have made promotional posters for three events; the Dreyer Bros. talk at Hope College last week, a social event for Wisconsin Ecology (of which I am a graduate committee co-chair), and an effort by our college to recruit students for international internships. You can see from my work that I prefer dark presentations; it must play to the black parts of my soul. Maybe after seeing these you want to get involved. Or maybe you think they are total crap. I certainly wouldn't fault you for thinking the latter!

Bless,

Jamin

Hope College

2011-10-28T14:23:00.004Z

The color in Holland was very nice.

I apologize for being a bit late on the SoM post for this last week. Things were a bit hectic last week, and Friday was very busy for reasons that I will soon relate. So please accept my apologies! On Wednesday afternoon David and I drove to our hometown, Holland, Michigan, where we both had engagements at Hope College which also happens to be where I did my undergraduate work. It is always fun to go home and see my parents and friends at the college, and this trip was no different. It started out on a high note too as David took the opportunity of having me trapped in his van to finally learn some Harry Potter as we listened to the Sorcerer's Stone on the drive from Madison.

The flyer I made for the Dreyer Bros. talk.

Thursday evening my brother Austin and I were scheduled to give a talk to Hope Biology students about how to get research jobs and/or a graduate school position. We both had a lot to say after spending over six years cumulatively in grad school. We weren't sure how many kids were going to show up but when Austin pulled into town a couple hours before the event we still had to figure out exactly what we were going to say.

I was "that guy" chasing squirrels with a camera on campus.

In true grad student fashion we pulled things together at the last moment which was good because we had a great turnout of over 30 students from all classes. We were shooting for a 75min talk but that ballooned to 90min, however we still had a good crowd hanging there at the end and got some great questions. It was fun to share some of our insights with them and after talking to some Hope profs who were there it sounds like the students found it to be quite valuable. As some might say, "Mission Accomplished!"

Hilary introduces David.

David came to campus on Friday to have lunch with a handful of students and meet with some professors. At 3pm he gave the weekly Biology Department seminar and I think that it was quite warmly received. It was nice to share our work with the professors that I once had as a student now over five years ago. After the talk David, Austin, and I went downtown for some food and drink with the Biology faculty. This is a weekly tradition and one that serves to unify the department a bit and give them another chance to interact with the speaker and ask some questions.

Lifting this lift cost me part of one of my front teeth.

Yesterday I made my way back to Madison after making a quick stop at Hutchins Lake to remove our boat lift. In the process of attempting to move it I slipped a bit and knocked my bottom jaw on one of the crossbeams, taking out a small part of one of my front teeth. I am slightly annoyed by this, especially since I will likely have to go to the dentist and I was just there on Wednesday morning. In Madison Halloween was being celebrated yesterday evening and one of the many who came to town was our man and Team Midge 3.0 member Ted. It was great to see him again and I hope he returns soon!

Ted got lucky and met Yanni last night in Madison.

Bless!

Jamin

Repetition

2011-10-21T13:43:00.009Z

My current location.

I have been mentioning a couple of our papers that should be coming out from time to time and I am happy to say that last weekend one of them, what we often refer to as "the HEL paper" was published in Ecology about a week ago. It is nice to see some of our things starting to come out, especially after thinking and talking about it for a number of years. One of the fun things about being on this project is starting from close to scratch and seeing our understanding grow. Of course like all things the more you know the more you realize you don't know, but for now at least we can enjoy a tiny victory.

Steve "The Powers" Powers

At the moment I am up in the Wisconsin Northwoods with two of my best friends Lucas and Steve. These guys are both grad student compadres of mine; Lucas is a microbial ecologist and Powers in a biogeochemist. Or put another way Lucas studies bacteria and Steve studies nutrients. We decided to come up here for a few days and have a work retreat at the CFL's Trout Lake Station. I've been here twice before; both times for Iceland Retreats. I also worked in the Northwoods during the summer of 2007 when I worked as a field technician at Notre Dame's UNDERC, which is figuratively, if not literally, just up the road. Things are rather cold up here and we have already done a fair amount of work and have a few more days left. Maybe the sun will pop out eventually.

Page is working up at Trout now as part of the NTL LTER crew.

Others in the lab are also dispersed, but they have gone south. Claudio, along with labmates Kaitlin and Rachel, have all gone down to Sapelo Island for the classic UW-Madison field ecology course "Problems in Oceanography." AKA "Sapelo" or "Sap Flow at Sapelo" if you went in 2009 as I did. Over the course of four decades this class has become legend, and it will be fun to hear the 2011 tales when everybody gets back to Madison at the end of the month.

A dragonfly warming itself on the lab.

Next week David and I will be travelling to my alma mater Hope College where he will be delivering the weekly Friday Biology Seminar. I will be going back with him because Hope is in my hometown and my brother, a Michigan State grad student, and I are working with Hilary and others in the Biology Department to put together a program to pass on some of the wisdom that we have learned in the last few years.

Lucas "The Beaver" Beversdorf

Well, the sun did come out after I originally posted so I went out and snapped a few sunny photos. Much better than the ones I put up earlier this morning.

Bless!

Jamin

Keeping it in the Dark

2011-10-14T08:00:00.000Z

"This looks like real science!"

This week just flew by and we have moved from sunny and 80F to rainy/cloudy and 60s. Hilary has come and gone. Leaves are falling. But some things remain the same, like Team Midge forging ahead. One person who is doing just that (not that the rest of us are not, but perhaps in less tangible/photogenic ways) is Maddy.

Soil extractions.

Maddy has been working very hard processing some soils that we collected from the HEL experiment this summer. Many of the samples that she collected have already been processed, but some remain. Right now she is working on extracting phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) from the soil. Following the extraction and some analysis in sensitive machines she will be able to tell how many and what kind of microbes are present in the soil. We hope to see big differences as we have in almost everything else that has been measured in the midge addition plots.

The Limnos on Lake Mendota.

In other news David and I are waiting for two of our papers to make it to print, he is preparing to submit another, and we are working on one together at the moment. Gotta feed the beast (aka Claudio!)!

Bless,

Jamin

Personal Notes

2011-10-11T13:30:00.004Z

Mireia, Hilary, and Maddy on State Street.

As I have mentioned in the that couple of posts Hilary has been visiting us in Madison this weekend. Yesterday four of us (the above sans moi) had lunch together. Later we walked to the capitol and made a lap around the observation deck. I think that Hilary has been having a fun and productive time here.

Always nice to see friends.

Surveying their domain.

In another note of Team Midge personal interest, all of us would like to extend our congratulations to Árni and Unnur on their wedding which took place this past Saturday (also Claudio's birthday!). I am jealous that Erica and Yann were able to attend!

Bless,

Jamin

For Distant Viewing

2011-10-07T13:15:00.006Z

Brandon taking a gander at some geese on goose pond.

This has been a busy week for myself and the rest of Team Midge here in Madison. The week started off following a big win by the Badgers over our new Big Ten rival (is it too early to say that?) the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Then we broke into a wonderful streak of warm and sunny weather that is both a work motivator and a distraction. There has been a lot of lab activity over the last few weeks and that looks to be continued. Finally we had a campus visit by a Nobel Laureate, Elinor Ostrom, which is definitely an event of note.

Saturday morning Farmer's Market with some hints of color.

Some Badger fans expecting a big win.

Color on State Street.

Brandon the tour guide.

I have been bugging my postdoc friend Brandon to take me out to his experimental sites for a while. Actually I wanted to go years ago with the previous Ive's Lab postdoc Jason who left for a job at North Dakota State but that never got off the ground because I guess I was too busy or lazy or too something. Brandon roomed with David and I in Austin and it has been a lot of fun to get to know him, so I figured it was high time I got a better idea of what he does in the field. That and I had never been to UW's Arlington Agricultural Research Station where many of my colleagues in the Gratton Lab work or have worked over the years.

A lady bug larvae munching on aphids.

Brandon has been overseeing a bunch of experiments at Arlington since he came to UW-Madison two springs ago from the Schmitz Lab at Yale. Some of them were begun by Jason and others have only been going for one summer. Most of them are concerned with the ability of predator species to control pests such as aphids. In one experiment they are trying to test the idea that a habitat of crops is more likely to maintain predator populations that are capable of keeping pest levels down. So far that experiment has not been, shall we say, 100% effective at getting an answer to that quetsion.

Brandon and Julia spotting some waterfowl.

A lot of Brandon's research has been concerned with the food web effects of global climate change. Also known as "what eats what when it warms up" (that is what I might say, not sure what he would say. Don't want to put words in his mouth!). One cool experiment that he ran this summer involved two species of aphid farming ants; one that is heat tolerant and one that is not. Both of them interact with the aphids in distinct ways so that when you experimentally heat their corn stalk habitat you get vastly different outcomes. "Balla" as they say in the biz...

You can see why it is called Goose Pond.

Despite being from Idaho it seems that Brandon is taking very well to Wisconsin. After visiting Arlington he took Julia, who is visiting the Gratton Lab from Hanover, Germany, and I to see some of the local sights. My favorite was a stop at a place called "Goose Pond" where you can see lots of geese, but also some nice ducks. Of course after spending some time at Mývatn you automatically come to love ducks so it is also a pleasure to observe them.

The Bossman looking the part.

Speaking of observations for those of you that know Claudio it is very rare to see him "dressed up." I have never seen him wear a tie, and I cannot recall the last time that I saw him in a jacket. Yesterday was a big day for him since he was speaking at a biofuel conference at Monona Terrace here in Madison before giving a short introductory talk this afternoon. The latter was at a talk by Dr. Elinor Ostrom who was invited to campus by Wisconsin Ecology, the pan-departmental umbrella organization for ecologists here on campus since there is not department of ecology as there are at many other schools.

Panel discussion, Dr. Ostrom in the center.

Dr. Ostrom's work concerns the management of common-pool resources. She earned a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (the first woman to do so) in 2009 for her work showing that the "tragedy of the commons" is not an inevitable outcome. The talk was interesting and well attended, and I also had the pleasure of interacting with her a bit at both a graduate student lunch and a Wisconsin Ecology reception on Wednesday evening. It was very inspiring to see such an active woman of her age and if I make it that far I will count myself lucky to be half as sharp.

Bless!

Jamin

Lake Bathymetry: Alaska Pt. III

2011-09-30T13:38:00.011Z

Which is your favorite view of Upper Twin Lake?

As promised I return with tales of my Great Alaskan Adventure, this time of the last half of my time there the vast majority of which was spent at a place called Twin Lakes. I am going to warn right off the bat that there will be a lot of photos associated with this part of my journey, mostly because this may have been the most beautiful week of my life. And that is saying a lot because all of my weeks in Iceland have been spent with the über-beatiful Dr. David Hoekman. But I digress, let me start at the beginning, before we even left Port Alsworth.

Always gotta be on the lookout for my midge friends!

After arriving in Port Alsworth from Silver Salmon John and I took advantage of “civilization” to clean ourselves and some of our gear, as well as sleep in a real bed. The next morning we were tasked with fish tracking in Lake Clark. John had been radio tagging sockeye salmon earlier in the summer down near Iliamna Lake and now he and the other members of the “fish crew” were tracking them as they moved up through the watershed and into their spawning grounds. This is done from both boats and planes as I found out and mainly involves listening for a specific frequency being emitted from individual fish.

Port Alsworth is so isolated all fuel has to be flown in.

This information can then be used to see when, how far, how fast, and where fish are moving. These fish come from Bristol Bay, which is regarded as the premier salmon fishery in the world, for reasons of both the number of fish as well as the effective management that has allowed it to be sustained for decades. It is one of the cornerstones of the economy in this region of Alaska as well as being invaluable culturally to the native peoples of the region.

John downloading data from the fish tower.

So we jumped into a small boat named “Fishtrap” and set out up the lake towards what is known as Little Lake Clark; a part of the glacial basin that is being pinched off from the rest of the lake to the south by a river delta. Just before we reached the delta we had to stop and check a fish tower. This apparatus can automatically monitor fish as they pass near it, providing park biologists with the same information that they can get by manually tracking the fish. Like the fish weir it ran off of batteries and solar power, and the data needed to be downloaded from time to time.

Fishtrap.

We tracked for the entire afternoon and into the evening, enjoying the mirror-calm lake. In conversations with John before arriving he described his time there as “mostly miserable but with days that will make you not want to be anywhere else in the world.” Well I think that this was one of the latter because it was so gorgeous!

John chasing radio tagged fish.

When we returned to Port Alsworth we were told that we would be leaving for Twin Lakes at 7 the next morning which meant that we had to get our stuff together. To do bathymetry, or lake bottom mapping, we would need a boat, motor, depth finder, gas, safety gear, plus all of our food and personal gear. All of this we would have to stuff into a Cessna 206 on floats, and let me tell you that it is a little disconcerting to think about stuffing a ton of gear into what is more-or-less a 1960s VW Beetle with wings. We caught a couple hours of sleep before waking in the morning and heading to the bay/airport for our delivery on Lake Clark Air.

Our float plane heading back out into the lake.

It was about a 45 minute flight to Twin Lakes and when we arrived the lake was still as glass. We were going to be staying in “Hope’s Cabin”, the middle of three cabins on a small delta on the south side of the lake. Just up lake was “Spike’s Cabin” and about 100 meters south is “Dick’s Cabin.” We hauled our gear to Hope’s and tossed our things inside.

Taking it all in for a moment.

Now Dick’s place is semi-famous outside of Alaska and I am told that it is the most visited place in the park. That is kinda saying something because it costs around $2000 to fly there. Needless to say you have to want it. “Dick” was Richard Proenneke, an Alaskan individualist that is not so unique for what he did (building a cabin in the bush with his own hands) but rather for the fact that he documented it extensively through photos, video, and writing. A documentary about the building of his cabin and his subsequent winter at Twin Lakes called “Alone in the Wilderness” is apparently a perennial favorite on the PBS circuit.

John looks pleased with out new digs; Hope's Cabin.

We thought it would be a good idea to check out the cabin, so after getting settled a bit we returned to see what “’Ole Proenneke” had scrapped together here in the middle of nowhere. All by himself he had built a cabin, toolshed, outhouse, and elevated food cache. The workmanship was impressive and I especially liked the turf roof. Everything has been preserved as it was when he left over a dozen years ago (he left Twin Lakes in 1998 and passed in 2003). For much of the summer there are park volunteers who live here but they had left a week or so before we arrived.

Dick Proenneke's cabin.

Well then we got down to business, which meant inflating our Achilles dinghy and mounting the engine upon it. We didn’t make it too far before we had a pretty serious mechanical failure that meant we had to call off our work for a day and wait for a replacement outboard to be flown in. We enjoyed light rain falling on the lakes as we cobbled together a mechanism for anchoring our boat offshore to keep it from being gnawed on by the local bears. Always gotta be mindful of the bears! Good thing I had John around to keep me honest.

Dick's view of Upper Twin Lake from inside his cabin.

The next morning we had some time to kill before the plane would arrive so we took a little hike up along Hope Creek. It didn’t take much climbing to get above the treeline for a wonderful view of the lake. The sun was shining brightly and with peak color all around it made for a spectacular sight. We heard a plane and quickly descended back to the lake edge and while passing Dick’s we heard voices.

Light rain on a still lake sparkles like a gem.

We stopped for a better look and came across two dogs and two people. They were very friendly and so we started talking to them about the place, who we all were and what we were doing, and how much we all loved Twin Lakes. They have driving up from Buffalo and Colorado through the Canadian Rockies and were now enjoying Alaska. Their home away from home was a small hunting cabin across the lake, from which they had taken their boat to visit Dick’s cabin one more time before they were to be picked up that afternoon (Sunday). It was fun to talk to them and who knows but we may see them again someday. Shout out to Kris and Brandon!

Our Upper Twin Lake buddies!

It didn’t take too long after they left for our plane to arrive (the earlier one had been a false alarm) with the new motor. Thankfully they also delivered some toilet paper, something we had forgotten to bring with us the first time around. Unfortunately around this time the wind began to pick up and we knew that this would not make our job very easy. Of course we had to try so we geared up and jumping into the boat. We thought it would be best if we headed up the lake rather than down it as the wind was coming from the head of the lake.

Working the depthfinder/GPS unit.

If there is one thing to stay about bathymetry it is that it is slow work. It is not at all difficult, but you cannot move very fast, which at some scale may not be that bad but on a 6 mile long lake tends to add up (especially when you have to maintain a speed around 3-4 miles per hour!). Our boat was equipped with a depth finder, basically a fish finder, that had a built-in GPS unit. Every two seconds the unit took a simultaneous depth and location recording. John’s boss Dan had given us a 400 meter square grid to run on the lake and a computer program would then use the data from the transects we ran to interpolate a surface for the bottom of the lake.

Hard not to smile in these surroundings.

We were particularly interested in this task as nobody had ever mapped Twin Lakes before! We imagined ourselves as explorers charting an unknown world. The Louisiana Purchase had Lewis and Clark; Twin Lakes had Rodsrom and Dreyer! We would often take note of the depth readings, taking pleasure in the fact that we were the first to know these facts. As a scientist this is a particularly fulfilling experience, like discovering a new species or curing cancer. OK, maybe not like curing cancer but probably more like mapping a lake bottom that has never been mapped before. As it turns out Dick or somebody must have done a bit of bottom exploration because as I was reading his journals he knows that it is at least 280 feet deep. That guy…

Hope's Cabin; stove going.

After a solid eight hour day we retired to our wood-stove warmed cabin for dinner and some rest. The next day we woke up and went out on the lake, but things were looking rather bad out there and it didn’t take long for us to have to abandon our work. After a few fitful attempts to find something to do we retired somewhat early with a plan to take a hike the following day.

Upper Twin from Low Pass.

A hike that had been suggested to us was through a valley called Low Pass. This feature linked the Twin Lakes basin with the next large valley to the south. Tuesday was again very windy and so with little else to do we thought this was a great idea. We started up the pass and it didn’t take too long before we were rewarded with more wonderful views. Unfortunately the weather was pretty poor, with lots of wind and drizzle to keep us cold and wet. This did not dampen our spirits however and we climbed higher and higher.

Enjoying the hike.

Eventually we reached the center of the pass, and like good explorers that we were we decided to keep going at least until we were able to see into the next valley. I have found that these sort of situations require a modicum of self-discipline as there is always one more vantage to reach. Sooner or later though you have to turn around and head back, as painful as that may be. Perhaps the sun sensed our distress because soon it began to peek through the clouds, rewarding us with some wonderful rainbows.

Looking into the next valley.

The two days were once again too windy for us to do much work. By Thursday we were resigned to our fate and plans were made for a plane to come in with somebody to replace me. That evening we enjoyed some fishing in front of Hope Creek and consumed the fish of our labor, a wonderful lake trout. It was sad to pack up and go to sleep that evening, knowing that I would be leaving John and Upper Twin behind. The next morning Leon and Dan arrived to take me back to Port Alsworth in the red 185 floatplane and after a gear transfer we were off.

Filtering some water. Probably unnecessary.

I spent the next 24 hours in Port Alsworth, getting repacked and cleaned up and going for hikes. Friday afternoon I took a hike with one of John’s co-workers to Tanalian Falls. Saturday I attempted to summit Mount Tanalian, but the entire thing was shrouded in heavy clouds which made my solo climb both somewhat dangerous as well as unrewarding. After coming down and warming back up I boarded another Lake Clark Air flight, this time a twin engine Piper Navajo, to Anchorage for the one hour flight. After a stop at the Moose’s Tooth I was off to Ted Steven’s International Airport and soon airborne for the Lower 48.

The red 185 with Mount Tanalian behind. I made it up to the treeless shoulder.

The beauty of Lake Clark National Park, both natural and personal, with be with me for a long time. I feel utterly privileged to have had this opportunity and I cannot say enough thanks to John and Dan. Hopefully some day I will return. I refuse to believe I have seen the last of Alaska.

The most beautiful flight of my life to date.

Thanks for sticking with this saga. Next week I will return to what is going on in the lab here in Madison. We actually have a lot of news concerning some papers and we have coming out soon and work in progress here on campus. Team Midge is also looking forward to a visit from Hilary in a week’s time!

Bless,

Jamin

cart

2011-09-27T16:36:00.000Z

G is for Green Bay (Packers) and also for Gratton

Chase and Amanda posing by the cart they decorated so expertly.
Notice the Great Northern Divers*

We've been back in Madison for a while and working on samples and data while enjoying the things that Madison has to offer. This is not directly Iceland related, but it was a photogenic moment here in the lab. To ensure that our handy carts don't disappear, Chase and Amanda took it upon themselves to mark them in the appropriate Wisconsin and Gratton lab painted theme.

Fish Fence: Alaska Pt. II

2011-09-23T15:41:00.011Z

John looks askew at some Nutella.

As soon as I landed in Anchorage John and I made a flurry of phone calls to see what we could make happen. He was stationed alone at a place on the coast of Lake Clark Natl. Park, across the Cook Inlet from the city of Homer at a place called Silver Salmon. Since there was a storm coming in it was imperative that I get a flight somewhere immediately or it would be a few days before I could try again. In that case I figured I would rent a car and see some of the Kenai peninsula but my first priority was to get to Silver Salmon. Eventually we found a flight for me that was going to a lodge there to pick up for people who were trying to do what I was but in the opposite direction. I took the rather bumpy one hour flight and found John waiting for me on the beach where the plane landed.

The weir, or fish fence. The video camera is mounted in the stainless steel tank with sandbags on top of it.

We walked up the beach to the ranger station and went to work immediately. The first sight that greeted me when I saw Silver Salmon Creek was that of two bears fighting in the water, the first of many "National Geographic moments" as John and others would say. I didn't take a photo because we were rather far away and I felt that I had already held John up enough but it will at least register in my mind as my first brown bear sighting. At Silver Salmon John was in charge of maintaining a fish fence, or wier in the parlance. The idea here is to build a fish barrier that every individual must pass through on their way upstream. Most weirs are operated by people who actually count the fish that go through them. This particular station however was one of them new-fangled video weirs.

Clearing the wier of debris.

This weir had a thin channel that each fish had to swim through, like all the others, but on one side of it was mounted a camera and two large floodlights. The camera was connected to a DV-R chip that was activated by a motion sensor tripping a two second video recording. In the background a large ruler was mounted. With this setup then John and his colleagues could monitor how many, what kind, what sex, how large, and when each fish moved through this particular area. Rather slick!

Digging in the dry bag. Note the solar panels in the background.

While at Silver Salmon our job was just to keep the thing running, which sounds easy but is in fact a lot of work. The first obstacle is that it takes around an hour just to get there. We walked about 2/3 of the way and paddled a canoe for the rest. Once arriving we had to clear the fence of debris and make sure that it was fish-tight. Then we had to check the electronic components including the recording hardware as well as the batteries and solar panels the power the rig. Around the whole thing was an electric fence to keep bears out. One day we had to haul a couple of very large batteries out to the site and that took some cooperation with the local ranger who brought them to the canoe with an ATV since we couldn't carry them that far, or certainly not on a rapid timescale at least.

John fishing.

Of course visiting a weir does not necessarily a full day make, nor did the weather cooperate at times. One of the days the wind was far too strong for us to practically (and perhaps even safely) make the canoe trip to the monitoring site and so we decided to go fishing. As you might expect the silver salmon were running in the Silver Salmon and it didn't take too much work to hook some beautiful fish. I didn't have a fishing license yet at this point so I was on bear lookout. Bears are crawling all over the place at Silver Salmon and there was only one day out of five that I did not see a bear and most days I saw more than one. At this time of year they are feeding on the fish in the creeks but at other times they are foraging in the salt marshes along the coast.

"...any fish down here?"

There are lots of bear rules at Silver Salmon as you might expect. Most of them center around not rewarding bears with food, to keep them from associating people with food which can in time lead to people as food, and how to avoid negative encounters with them by making noise or what to do or not to do if you suddenly come across a bear. One rule is that you cannot fish if there is a bear in sight. Bears however have a knack for hearing the splash of a fish being landed and so if a bear shows up while you have a fish you either have to cut the line or let out a lot of slack to remove that cue. If you have already killed the fish then you need to get it into a metal box and defend that from the bear. There were a couple humorous bear stories while I was there, including one person who either didn't have a bear box or didn't know how to use one so they stuffed the still struggling salmon into their coat and tried to hide it from the bear while their wife cowered behind a tree. Luckily things turned out well for both man and beast in this instance.

A fresh dinner of silver salmon.

It was a lot of fun living at Silver Salmon. John and I slept in a disused sauna; he on the bench and I on the floor. During the day we would cook and at at the small ranger station, a log cabin that had been built by her husband. One day we made fresh-caught salmon over the grill and I have to say that was extremely tasty! Even though the rain and wind was a constant presence we had a good time walking the trails and observing bears. Once in a while we would see some nice birds including eagles, merlins, osprey, and kingfishers.

My legalism almost got the better of me.

Once the weather improved on Thursday we decided it was probably time for us to get out of there. Finally the sun came out and we heard from Park Headquarters in Port Alsworth that a plane would be coming to get us. I think it helped that the ranger station needed some propane as well meaning that they could kill two birds with one stone by sending a plane. We packed our things up and headed down the the airstrip/beach with a bunch of guys from Colorado and Austria who had been fishing that day.

This Merlin alighted very close to me while I was talking with Kevyn the ranger.

Another "bear rule" is that you have to clean your fish on the beach and leave the waste in the surf, again to minimize the bear's association between people and food. So while we were down there these guys started to clean their fish, which they had a lot of as there were a lot of them and each dude had three salmon. It didn't take too long for a grizzly to come barreling down from the north end of the beach, right around the time that our plane was coming in for a landing. A few minutes later as we were packing our gear into the small plane another bear come running from the south. John and I were stuffing our things into the little Cessna while the bears munched away and the tourists looked on.

One of the Park Service's Cessna 185s.

I loved flying around in these little planes. I had only been in two others before; once for my 13th birthday back home in Michigan and another time with my brother in Iceland two years ago. This flight was much more smooth than my first one and took us through some dramatic mountain valleys at low altitude. As we took off the bears scattered and I barely felt the plane lift off of its big sand tires and into the air.

A bear eating fish guts in the surf as we boarded the plane.

During the flight I caught a nice glimpse of Iliamna Lake, one of the largest lakes in the US and a critical part of the Bristol Bay Salmon fishery. There is a big group of people from University of Washington-Seattle who work on this fishery and some of them stay on an island in the east part of the lake. Finally we came up on Lake Clark and Port Alsworth were the pilot took us down. He was an interesting guy and at one point compared me to Absalom when we were talking about how my hair got caught in the door before we took off. I thought that was a pretty obscure piece of knowledge for a bush pilot and it made me curious about the man.

About to land in Port Alsworth. Leon Alsworth at the helm.

Next time I'll tell you about my adventures at Twin Lakes!

Bless,

Jamin

66-6 Degrees North: Alaska Pt. I

2011-09-21T16:39:00.005Z

My host, the Idomitable Mr. John R. Rodstrom.

There was a time when I balked a little at going to Alaska, but now I can safely say that going was a great decision. In fact that is a quite serious understatement. One of my best friends from undergrad at Hope College, John Rodstrom, has been working for the National Park Service "fish crew" in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in southern Alaska since May.

Pulling a lake trout out of Upper Twin Lake.

He and I have been talking about traveling out west together for a couple years and the chance to visit him up north was too good to pass up, especially since his boss allowed me to join the crew temporarily as a volunteer. This provided me a great opportunity to both relive some of the field assistant glory days as well as take advantage of park service infrastructure. Of course I was earning it all by putting in long field days tracking fish and mapping lakes, but like all field work doing the job is half of the fun.

"Da bears..."

For your information as well as for posterity the trip went a little something like this...

1) Arrive in Anchorage and make a series of phone calls to John. There was a big storm coming in and I would not be able to fly for a few days so I jumped in a Cessna 206 and took a flight to where John was working at Silver Salmon Creek.

2) Hang out with John at Silver Salmon from Sunday to Thursday. I was helping him maintain a fish counting station. Weather was windy and rainy and there were lots of brown bears around.

3)Fly to Port Alsworth, park headquarters and veritable Alaskan bush metropolis. Friday on Lake Clark tracking sockeye salmon.

4) Fly to Twin Lakes to do bathymetry (mapping the lake bottom). There from Saturday to Friday riding in a tiny inflatable boat by day and sleeping in a little cabin by night.

5) Fly back to Port Alsworth for my last day. Do some laundry and take a shower. Go for a hike up cloud-covered Mount Tanalian. Catch a flight back to Anchorage Saturday night.

A cool dude.

Everything I was doing up there was science related and worth talking about (and seeing) so I will take a couple future posts to talk about the two big projects and places that I experienced; fish monitoring at Silver Salmon and bathymetry mapping at Upper Twin Lake. Stay Tuned!

Little Lake Clark

Bless,

Jamin

Back from Alaska

2011-09-20T04:32:00.001Z

This photo pretty much sums it up...

More later!

Bless,

Jamin

The Swing of Things

2011-09-02T18:04:00.003Z

Dynjandi in the West Fjords*.

The weekly Gratton Lab lab meeting starts in about 20 minutes so I will have to write quickly. Today is the first day of classes at UW-Madison so I suppose that means that the 2011 Fall semester is officially underway. Last night was the first Badger football game (a poor coincidence for the first day of classes no doubt) and so the town was awash in Badger pride. Now if we could just get some cooler weather things would be seeming much more like fall around here.

Maddy and I enjoying the cliffs at Látrabjarg.

As for me I will be heading north once again but this time to the west. One of my best friends has been working in Alaska since I left for Iceland in May and I am heading up there on Sunday to spend two weeks with him. He is doing fish research and I am able to be his volunteer for a while. I hope to return with some great stories and photos and surely some of these will find their way onto SoM.

Approaching Flatey.

Wishing everyone a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

Bless,

Jamin

*This week's photos come from our trip to the West Fjords of Iceland back at the end of June. Hopefully in some future post I can take the time to describe this wonderful trip. But for now enjoy these few photos!

Good Winter in Iceland

2011-08-29T22:15:00.004Z

Maddy emailed this video to some of us a couple weeks back. Besides the excellent music it is fun to see so many familiar things (landscape, clothing, footwear) in the video. I have personally been to many of these places and I would guess that between David and I we have perhaps visited all of them.

Enjoy!

Jamin

P.S. This video is one more example of an Iceland-Wisconsin connection as the artist, Bon Iver, is from Kyle's hometown of Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Back in Wisconsin

2011-08-29T16:43:00.003Z

Checking out a beehive with a friend from Vogar.

I did not exactly come through on my statement at the end of my last post to "keep updating from Austin as the meeting continues." I guess that we were just too busy at the meeting to bother, but I can report that I and everyone else that I know had a wonderful time in Texas and that the heat was not that bad. In fact I think that I got sweatier today walking around the UW-Madison campus than I did ambling about Austin.

Making some biomass measurements at KAL.

In any event David and I (and I believe Maddy too though I have not seen her here yet...) are now back in Wisconsin and beginning to get down to what we do when we are not in the field. It usually takes a couple days to "boot up" in my experience but as I sit here now in my chair at my desk in my office things feel almost like I never left. Let us hope this means that it will be a productive semester for me.

Visiting a lake off the beaten path.

Smidge of Midge has been quiet the last couple weeks because most of us have been on the lam since returning from Iceland. David and I were visiting family in Michigan, and for at least one afternoon as we do every August each other. But just like last year I plan to keep the blog updated every Friday when possible with news of how things are going in the lab and with our project.

Bless Bless!

Jamin

Back in Iceland...

2011-08-10T22:25:00.002Z

Today the Team Midge crew dropped down to one as Hilary flew out of Akureyri this morning. We got to the airport with less than 10 minutes to spare, so goodbyes were short (but sweet).

Hilary and I have spent the last 4 days finishing end-of-the-season field work. We spent 3 of those days visiting the 14 new lakes located in the West and Northeastern parts of Iceland, collecting sticky cards we put out earlier this summer and taking infrared photos for a remote sensing project Phil Townsend has been working on.


A sticky card full of midges, flies and other insects

The sticky card collection went really well- it will be interesting to see if there were any differences in insect abundance and composition at the different lake sites.

When feasible, we also took infrared photos of the vegetation along a transect line running perpendicular to the lake shore. The camera we used was mounted to a unipod and took a meter by meter photo of the plant communities. Below, Hilary showcases the unipod at one of our transects..

Hilary, smiling as usual

Me with my lucky hat, recording picture data


A transect at one of our western lakes

During our travels, we made sure to stop by and see some interesting sights- including an old fortress in the West, some buoy scarecrows in the east near Kópasker, and a waterfall.


Hilary in the heart of the fortress Borgarvirki

Buoy people, watching the fields


The lovely Goðafoss

As we were returning home from the Northeast, our trusty steed broke down- with no brakes, we had to leave our Pajero behind for Karl (the local mechanic) to do what he deems necessary.

The Pajero's final night in loving hands

Campfire near the ocean outside of Kópasker

Sampling the lake sites was an overall success. Now I plan on finishing up the last of our work before I leave in one week..how quickly the summer has gone by!

Maddy

Grímsvötn III: Eruption over the American Heartland

2011-08-07T19:46:00.006Z

Grímsvötn, Iceland ash in an Austin, TX bathtub.

David and I arrived in Austin, Texas safely last night after two more easy flights (one from Toronto to Chicago and another from there to here). We had only one slight delay when the brakes on the first plane we were supposed to take from Chicago were found to be wanting (or, as David says "busted @ss!") and we had to "deplane" and the "reboard again" into identical "equipment." In case you are curious the plane happened to be a McDonnell-Douglas MD-80. With all the commotion around the plan David and I began to wonder about some of the details about how planes work, and from the flight attendants we were able to pick up a few things, including how jet planes stop themselves on runways. I told him about our research which seems like a fair trade. Once we had gotten into our hotel room David and I met up with a friend of mine from high school and his wife who showed us around a small part of town that they had never visited but is apparently up and coming.

Shoutout to our friends the Hengill Crew (notice the name of the 757).

The following morning after a little sleeping in David and I started to unpack a bit. I was quickly dismayed to learn that a honey jar full of ash that I had collected from the eruption of Grímsvötn back in May had opened within my luggage, creating a second debilitating ash event on a similar scale to the one that caused some chaos in south Iceland three months back. Upon realizing the scale of the disaster and spilling some ash on the floor we dragged the bag outside to remove one ash-ridden article after another. In the interest of soil formation David made sure to deposit some of the ash into the landscaping around the fountain in front of our hotel. The hostess at the front desk was getting a kick out of this episode and was providing us with supplies to help our clean-up. I tossed some things in the washing machine, and took my woolens into the tub where they promptly discharged large amounts of ash. Currently everything save myWisconsin sweatpants are clean and my sweater is drying in the Texas sunshine.

In a serious downgrade from Iceland's 66 degrees north, David and I noticed how proud Torontonites (sp?) are of their presumably high latitude.

I will now take the opportunity of good internets to post those pictures that the best Best Western would not allow me to do.

Our hotel room in Austin.

Having a fire along the lake in mid-July.

A wonderful Icelandic sunset.

My last boat ride of the year.

We'll keep updating from Austin as the meeting continues.

Bless!

Jamin

The Best Best Western in Toronto!

2011-08-06T01:28:00.002Z

David and I are sitting here in the best Best Western in Toronto. We have made it this far in our journey to Austin, which we should reach tomorrow. I will now quickly utilize their internets to post a few pictures that have been lingering on my camera these last weeks....

Oh wait, nevermind. The best Best Western's internets won't even let me do that. We at least now you know the lap of luxury that David and I are in. A far cry from our Icelandic farmhouse indeed!

Bless,

Jamin

Hollywood here we come....

2011-08-04T03:05:00.000Z

After getting back to Madison, my highly capable and creative daughter Elena got a hold of my video footage from my recent visit. Start the popcorn popper ....

Wrapping Up

2011-08-01T23:39:00.004Z

Our American friends from the south enjoyed a fire with us on Saturday.

Things are winding down here for all of us, but especially David and I. We are now in our last week, and will be leaving Iceland on Friday for the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Austin, Texas. The two of us, along with Mireia, will be giving 1o minute oral presentations in an aquatic-terrestrial linkages session on Friday morning. That means that we have a week to get our things in order while we simultaneously see what is going on in the world of ecology and check in with new and old friends.

Luke Winslow and I atop Vinbelgurfjell.

As always during this part of the season we are engaged in what we refer to as "breakdown", which really means nothing more than we visit all of our sites one last time and remove whatever sampling or experimental apparatus that we have in place there. Around us too the farmers are doing a bit of the same; mowing their fields and wrapping up their hay bales in plastic to be stored away for future winters.

David barking some orders at me, per usual.

This past weekend we were lucky to be visited by a group of American researchers from the south. Coming from Montana State University and University of Alabama these ecologists are studying how temperature influences the ecology of streams. They have a totally rad study system in the south where two streams within a couple of meters of one another differ in temperature by some 30F. They were on a vacation of sorts and we enjoyed having them over for lunch, showing them some of our experimental sites, and having a fire on the beach with them. I hope to visit them in the south, next summer perhaps, and I hope that they will return here next summer as well.

Bless,

Jamin

colors

2011-07-29T00:02:00.000Z

The glory of late July hay fields is the mix of purple seed-heads, red sorrel, yellow buttercups and green grass. All covered with a light smattering of midges :)

Creating a Pro-Business Climate

2011-07-24T19:32:00.006Z

The Shadow Pajero speeds along Icelandic country roads.

As you may recall, the month of June was historically cold here but now I am happy to report that the month of July has been on the whole quite wonderful. We have been experiencing temperatures in the mid the upper teens (50s and 60s F) and nice sunny days. There have been the odd shower or two, but considering the heat wave that we understand has been gripping the US we are even happier to be this far north. Here are just a few photos of some of the fun things that we have been doing in the field over the last three weeks or so...

Camping during a lake survey run to the north east.

Hanging out with the locals in Melrakasletta.

"Is this a midge lake?!"

Checking out Ásbyrgi.

Taking soil cores.

Having dinner with a large group of friends!

Bless!

Jamin

northern transects

2011-07-21T20:50:00.000Z

We have transects at a number of lakes other than Myvatn and they happen to be north of Myvatn so we call them northern transects. As we prepare to visit our northern transects again, I'm reminded of the last time we sampled and took this photo. It is nice to visit other lakes and appreciate some nearby but varied landscapes. Each lake has its own landmarks, farmers, birds, plant communities and other peculiarities. This photo is from Miklavatn.

Back, but not for long enough

2011-07-19T23:49:00.000Z

Although this is my 5th consecutive summer coming to Iceland I am glad to see and learn new things each time. Yesterday started out as a perfect day and only got better: low wind, no clouds, warm temps. Not wanting to waste what might have been the only opportunity during this trip, I talked Randy (Jackson one of our other team members with whom I traveled here this year) into joining me into getting a short flight over Myvatn to see our beloved lake from from a different vantage.

The ride was so calm and steady even in this little six-seater that it seemed like driving in a car. Looking out towards Vindbelgur.

Among the things we saw was the Kalfastrond peninsula and the islands in the lake.

Then we swung over the Helluvadstjorn and also saw David's midge-addition experiment. Look for the little dotted fence!

The tour took us over the expansive desertified region of Holosandur just north of Myvatn and eventually around the Krafla lava fields.

The fissure on the East side of the lake.

I am sure I will never cease to be amazed by the big and little things I get to see here. More soon... Ciao, Claudio

sum sum summertime

2011-07-13T22:42:00.000Z

Summer has finally arrived at Myvatn! We went on quite an adventure today, but that story will have to wait for another day. The sun has been shining the past few days, all of our projects are now well underway and thanks to the recent turn in the weather we've accomplished some important vacuum sampling that required a stretch of dry and warm days.

Of course summer has its burdens: the paparazzi are all over Kyle, as usual.

The sunshine has given us the opportunity to enjoy the long shadows cast by our midge exclusion cages.

And finally, the grass in the hay field adjacent to our house has sprung from barely green to lush, giving the few midges around a place to soak up some late-night rays.

Getting down and dirty (with soil)

2011-07-12T19:40:00.001Z

Hello! My name is Maddy and I have been working as a research intern with the Team Midge crew since May. Iceland has been a fantastic place to work, even during these cold summer days.

I am learning quite a bit about arthropods and terrestrial food webs this season, and have recently shared some of my past experience working below the lands surface. With help of everyone here, I have been able to take on a total of 4 projects looking at possible midge impacts on belowground processes. Recent warm weather and good timing allowed us to start one of our main projects; measuring soil respiration!

To start, we took 4 soil samples from each of David’s long-term midge addition (press) and new midge addition (pulse 2011) plots at Helluvaðstjörn (along with controls). Drizzling rain during soil sampling made some of us dirtier than others. But everyone kept their spirits high, even during periods of black fly swarms. Mineral soil and duff (a mixture of loose topsoil and plant material) were bagged, and analyzed separately.

Hilary and I bagging mineral soil

We brought the soil back to the lab and starting sieving the mineral soil free of organic material. Below, Jamin, Hilary and David dive in.

Removing roots from mineral soil

Samples were then packed into cups. To measure the respiration rate of the soil , samples were incubated in chambers for 30 minutes. Air samples were drawn every 15 minutes for each of the mineral soil and duff samples.

David drawing air samples

We plan on measuring respiration at 6 different time points during the next month to give us an idea of how long carbon is available in the soil and duff. I'll keep you posted on improvements...

As an aside, some friends of mine came to visit me a couple weeks ago. Below are some pictures from our trip to the south!

Al, Emma and I

Hiking near Skogar- Eyjafjallajökull glacier in distance

Skatafell


Rainbow at Skogafoss

Best!
Maddy

Fourth of July

2011-07-07T01:10:00.005Z

Having a fire on the beach in front of our house.

Things here in Iceland have warmed up some and we have had some new arrivals in the form of the Vander Zanden clan just in time for some Fourth of July celebrations. It is always somewhat bittersweet to be out of the 'States for the Fourth, but by the same token there is something fun about celebrating a national day outside of that nation. For our part we did our best to show off some of our American and Wisconsonite culture, much to the amusement and interest of the Swedes, French, and Icelanders enjoying the show.

Ella, owner of our house, and I.

Some of our "foreign" guests arrived later...

I think it should be noted that today (6 July) was the warmest day of the year so far here in the north (where we had the coldest June since 1959!!!) peaking at around 20C (68F or so).

Bless!

Jamin

lake survey

2011-06-30T13:44:00.000Z

We recently went on a trip to several lakes we had never visited before. We went to a group of lakes to the west and will soon visit another group of lakes to the east of Myvatn.

Our trip started in Akureyri, where we spotted a semi truck with "Lord of the Road" decals on the door and fuel tank.

While in Akureyri we took the truck to have it inspected. It failed the previous inspection and some repairs were mandated before we could have it reinspected and licensed.

Eli came along with us to these lakes.

This was our first lake, Tjorn, at the farm Utanverðunes. One of the best parts of our trip was getting to talk with many different farmers. The farmer at this lake spoke English very well and we asked him where he was from (Iowa!). At each lake we set up 4 sticky cards on stakes. We established 2 transects, each with a close and near sampling point. These cards are a way to sample flying insects, which are trapped when they fly into the card and stick.

The stick cards are clear plastic and we will return to these lakes in another month or two to collect them.

Here is Jamin setting up a "near" stick card at Miklavatn (the same name as another lake we have sampled for several years already).

The scenery along the way was beautiful. We enjoyed interacting with all the dogs that we met at each farm. We also encountered a group of horses being moved along a road.

One of the most beautiful lakes we visited was Svínavatn (above).

We camped for the night and visited a few more lakes the next day as well. Here we are approaching our last western lake, Miðfjarðarvatn.

Caterpillars and Introductions

2011-06-30T10:49:00.019Z

Hi, I am Hilary, the REU student for this summer and I am conducting a research project on July Highflyer caterpillars. I am looking at caterpillars from Myvatn compared to caterpillars from lakes that do not have large populations of emerging midges, which is an extension of Heather's research from 2009. My hypothesis is that caterpillars growing on willow from a midge lake (Myvatn) will grow to a larger size in a given amount of time compared to caterpillars growing on willow from a "non-midge lake," since the midge outputs from Myvatn help to fertilize the nearby willow, making the leaves higher in quality for caterpillar herbivores. To test this, we have set up a transplant experiment in which caterpillars from Myvatn and two non-midge lakes have been collected and placed into four basic treatments:

*caterpillars from Myvatn that remain growing on willow at Myvatn

*caterpillars from Myvatn that are transferred to willow at a non-midge lake

*caterpillars from a non-midge lake that remain growing on willow at a

non-midge lake

*caterpillars from a non-midge lake that are transferred to willow at Myvatn

The two treatments in which caterpillars remain growing on willow from the lake where they were originally located, act as controls for the experiment, but they will also help us discern whether or not the caterpillars from say lake Myvatn grow to a larger size because of the better food quality at Myvatn as opposed to the caterpillars at Myvatn are somehow more fit compared to caterpillars at other lakes.

Maddy is carefully collecting caterpillars from willow leaves at a non-midge lake site.

The willow leaf that is curled into a roll is called a "leaf tie" and inside is a caterpillar. The July Highflyers use silk to fuse multiple willow leaves together to make a protective shelter for themselves and inside, they eat the youngest leaf.

An inside look of the leaf tie.

In the lab we sorted the caterpillars into their different treatments.

In the lab, we set up small cups each with one caterpillar, a fresh piece of willow, and some wet paper towel so the caterpillars will not dry out.

In total, we set up 150 cups of caterpillars! We also have an outdoor experiment with caterpillars directly on willow in mesh bags, but unfortunately I do not have any pictures of this experiment at the moment.

Also, I suppose this a good time to introduce myself! I am a senior and a biology major at Hope College in Holland, MI. I am interested in arthropods, especially spiders and I enjoy playing tennis and taking pictures of nature landscapes and close-ups of plants and animals. Also, I probably wouldn't exist without peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I am Radiohead fan and I like Cary Grant movies.

Some of my favorite pictures I have taken in Iceland thus far include:

A couple of sheep running away after I startled them in our backyard.

One of the horses that used to be in our backyard. Sadly, their owner, Freddie decided to house them near town for the rest of the summer. We all really miss our four-legged, stale-bread-eating little friends.

Cheers!

Hilary

Home from the West Fjords

2011-06-27T00:40:00.002Z

Walking along the cliffs at Látrabjarg.

Just an FYI that we are back safe and sound from our work/play in the west. Here are a few photos from our trip. More photographs and information will be posted soon, I promise. In other news, we gave up 12C and sunny for 3C and rainy. Looks like a lab-work week here once more...

Maddy enjoying the waterfall Dynjandi.

Leaving Flatey behind on the ferry Baldur.

Opið hús

2011-06-22T21:31:00.007Z

Friends meet in the Field Station.

As part of our efforts to engage with the locals and landowners that we depend on we have been planning an open house at the field station for about one year now. Last Saturday the 18th we held the first public gathering in the research house in over two decades. It was a good time to see old friends and make some new ones, while showing people some of the tiny critters that surround them everyday but which they have never seen up close.

Midge excluders do not make effective Icelander excluders.

We chose the day following Icelandic Independence day as one that would potentially allow for the most people to join us. With Árni and Unnur we had been thinking of how we could promote the event, and what types of displays and presentations people would be most interested. About a week ago we placed an advertisement in the local paper, The Midge (Mýflugan), that invited everyone in the area to visit us Saturday afternoon. We also sent invitations to the farmers on whose land we work and others that we know well or thought would be especially interested.

Freddie, the owner of the horses we have enjoyed, came by to see some bugs.

Of course before you invite a bunch of people into your house you have to clean it. We spent much of Friday cleaning the station inside and out. I can tell you that it was especially satisfying to clean the windows in our lab which haven't been cleaned since I was born in all likelihood. It was a great cathartic release to see the water spots and fly poopie-woopie cleared from the glass, making our beautiful surroundings even more apparent.

David explains some of our experiments to a local resident.

On Saturday morning we set up examples of some of our field equipment; the hardware that we use in our experiments and monitoring including traps and sampling devices like a vacuum. We also received a load of fried snacks and coffee from the nearby hotel, along with some juice boxes for the kids. Through the afternoon we hosted about 50 people, some of whom we knew but many we did not. They included farmers and others from the area, and even some people passing through the area who had worked at the station years ago. Among them were a dozen or so children, many of whom became quite excited to see midge larvae and spiders under the dissecting scopes. It was especially satisfying to hear children and adults alike remark at how beautiful a certain bug was, or how they had never known that they were even there before. It was also great to show our host Ella some of the bugs that we collected from right beneath her feet!

Karri guarding some of our hardware displays.

It was a real pleasure for us to share some of the things that we do on a daily basis with those from the area that we know casually or rely on. There were also a lot of conversations going on between friends who had bumped into each other at the station, and it was definitely a time that I wish I could pick out more than a couple words in Icelandic!

Daniel Bergmann naps in a predator excluder.

Tomorrow all of us, kids included, are heading west to check out some potential midges lakes. After that we are going to take a short trip into the West Fjords, the last major portion of Iceland that none of us has been to. The weather looks to be rather good, and we are all excited to see some new things and do some camping.

Bless Bless!

Jamin

family dinner

2011-06-21T22:33:00.000Z

We usually eat dinner with the family (meaning Rachel and the kids and everyone else, including Kyle and Page). But one night last week it was only the 4 of us and we made 2 pizzas, lit some candles, put on some highfalutin music and gobbled them up.

Iceland independence day

2011-06-17T22:34:00.001Z

Today is 17 June - national day here in Iceland.

We have seen precious few midges this summer, so because I have a photo featuring a few of them I've got to lead with it. Feast your eyes on this lake to land subsidy!

As you can see, things have not greened up too much but there are signs of spring. The birds are quite active...

...and the willows are flowering. We plan to set up our caterpillar experiment this next week on willow leaves.

We've been doing some work at our midge-addition experiment at Helluvaðstjörn. The plots that we added midges to have been growing lots of grass and we've been trying to come up with clever ways to quantify the amount of thatch (dead plant material that can provide structure which can be important for arthropod predators) in them. Here Jamin is using a skewer as a ruler to measure the height of the dead vegetation. Jamin is sporting his new buff (on his head).

And speaking of sporting flashy apparel, feel free to leave your feedback in the comments below. Unfortunately we have not run together since this photo due to an injury. Jamin, ever fond of nautical imagery says, this picture is like the titanic leaving on it's maiden voyage, tragedy about to befall.

Comings and Goings

2011-06-13T12:54:00.000Z

When people are coming and going it is common for the field station to host large dinners.

As we move into the middle of the month of June a number of transitions are taking place here at Mývatn. Mostly these changes are reflected in turnover of our cast of characters. Johanna, whom we have mentioned in a number of blog posts since we arrived in early May, left the station last Tuesday once the annual bird count had finished. An undergraduate from Germany, Johanna had been working for some of our friends at the Iceland Natural History Institute before being drafted for work in the bird count. Now that she and Árni have tallied all 20,000+ ducks hanging out around the lake she has returned to Reykjavik for the next couple of months. We will miss her very much!

Mireia observing something fascinating through a dissecting scope.

Mireia is a postdoc from Barcelona who joined us in Iceland last year in the run-up to her time in the Vander Zanden lab at the UW-Madison Center for Limnology. Since the funding of the LTREB she has become an integral part of that project. Mireia has been here since Grimsvotn starting erupting and will be taking a two week leave of absence to attend to some scientific business in Spain before returning in June.

Tony "The Man" Ives

Dr. Anthony Ragnar Ives is the lead Principle Investigator (PI) for the LTREB and arrived here at Myvatn with Mireia in mid-May. Tony is a theoretical ecologist who is now serving as Kyle's advisor. His research at Myvatn goes back over ten years when he began collaborating with Arni in the study of the midge population fluctuations. I guess he just couldn't get enough of this place because he is now back and has signed up for 10 years of research here. Tony will be leaving us tomorrow afternoon. We will miss him and look forward to seeing him again in Madison in the fall.

Karri "The Dog" Unnurshund

Karri was gone for a couple weeks, but now he is back. It is good to have our fluffy friend about the station once more, especially since the horses that we had become so fond of have now left our farm. Just when they were beginning to really love me...

Jon and Johanna.

Finally, we were visited for a few days last week by a couple of Icelandic "midge guys." These dudes were, as they say, "pretty frickin' balla" and we enjoyed talking science and life with a few people who time at Myvatn and the research station go back to around the time most of us were born. I hope that we cross paths again sometime in the near future.

Bless!

Jamin

The Bay at Kálfaströnd

2011-06-10T09:31:00.000Z

Josiah and Eli "helping" Mireia and Page with some of the LTREB research.

Just south of our house there is a little bay of the lake where there are lots of ducks, Hoekman boys, and occasionally some boats. While there was a break in the snow here at Kálfaströnd (yes, the cold weather continues almost unabated!) a couple of days ago we took advantage of the calm weather to spend some time on the lake.

Going for a boat ride with Eli.

"Our" horses playing in the snow yesterday.

Bless!

Jamin

Pajero Upgrade?

2011-06-09T13:55:00.002Z

The Pajero during our volcano-inspired trip in the south.

Today the Pajero is in the shop getting a slew of upgrades. Here in Iceland your car must be regularly inspected; for a 1990 Mitsubish Pajero for example this would mean once a year. If you fail the inspection you have a month or so to fix the problem(s) and take it back to get the license renewed. Unfortunately our SUV failed on a number of points (including the seat belts!) and it was scheduled to go in for repairs this week. Then, suddenly, last weekend we developed a flat tire. After an embarrassing call for help to the local mechanic Karl we learned that the tires are, as Ted would have said, "haggard" and that they need to be replaced. Apparently we will thus be getting some new-to-us tyres and even some new wheels. I hope that they don't detract from the Pajero's obvious kerb appeal...

Bless!

Jamin

northern transects

2011-06-09T09:52:00.000Z

While the weather here at Myvatn has been very cold and even stopped us from doing some work that relies on active arthropods, we're pressing on with other work. Recently, Hilary, Maddy, Jamin and I went on our first trip to our northern transects. We set up midge infall cups (you can see Hilary preparing one in the picture above) to sample flying insects at different distances from shore.

The willows at Miklavatn were blooming!

Our old friend, the red-throated loon, was on her nest.

In this photo you can see some ash on the snow up on the mountain.

At Vikingavatn, our last stop, we encountered these sheep.

All finished - and a quick stop at Dettifoss on the way home!

Things are going very well so far this summer and we're enjoying ourselves here as you see :)

Grímsvötn II: Trapped in the South

2011-06-05T20:54:00.002Z

Masks and goggles were the order of the day.

I promised that I would come back with some more photos and tales of our time in the south, and here I go! As has been well documented already the weather at the time here in the north was very bad, so bad that we could not do any work outside. Thankfully things were good for the first couple of weeks here and so most of our experiments were about as far as they could go. The evening that Maddy, Page, Mireia, Kyle, and Tony arrived was the same night that the eruption began. We thought that we should take advantage of the poor weather and rare event to drive to the south.

Hanging out by ash-covered icebergs at Jökulsárlón.

We met at the gas station on the north side of the lake in three vehicles; the station truck, the LTREB's new (to them) 2005 Toyota Corolla wagon, and the much-loved Pajero. As we started down the ring road to the east the road conditions rapidly worsened so much so that it took us about 3 hours to travel a distance that should have taken about half that time. Once we passedEgilsstaðir things cleared up and we were able to move about at a decent clip. We made our way through the beautiful east fjords before stopping at a guesthouse for the night. The next morning we continued west into the ash cloud, making a quick stop at Jökulsárlón to take a look at the ash covered icebergs and glacier. The ash at this point was thick enough (and the wind stiff enough) that it was constantly getting in our eyes. There were very few people at this normally bustling stop, which was not a surprise given the conditions and the fact that people had been told to not head towards the ash cloud. We of course were blatantly ignoring this directive.

The eastern edge of the ash cloud.

We kept driving west until we reached the police road block at Skaftafell (we made the evening news in Iceland for doing this. Skip ahead to 2:57 to check us out!). Here we made a stop at a gas station and collected some ash while lingering a while. Tony was meeting a friend and when she arrived he took off with Kyle and Mireia past the police and into the park. The rest of us went with Árni for a little walk up to the glacial tongue. The rescue team had been handing out masks and goggles, which we then donned before walking into the now very thick ash. After visiting the glacier we returned to the gas station where it was now becoming very dark despite being mid-day. At this point we thought it prudent to leave so we jumped back into the cars and headed east. The ash was thick enough at some points along the road that I could not see the road upon which I was travelling and it was something of a surreal experience, looking like something out of a documentary or a movie rather than "real life."

Karri lovin' life near the glacial lagoon.

After making stops at a couple farms and one glacial lagoon (where we watched seals playing in the ocean surf!) we arrived in Höfn. It turned out at this point that the road back home were closed due to high winds. In fact one car had all of its windows blown out by flying rocks! It is interesting to note that Icelanders can gather a lot of information on road conditions from the internet, including photos of current conditions and even road surface temperatures! A few of us went for a dip in the local pool while others explored the town. After a quick bite to eat we retired for the evening, and upon waking in the morning found the conditions no better. With roads closed to the east and west we had little do to but linger at the hostel for another day

Mireia and Johanna hamming it up on a beached vessel in Höfn.

This stop however gave the LTREB folks a good chance to talk and the rest of us to take a little break. We made a few friends at the hostel and enjoyed a good game of Citadel before cashing in for our last night in town. The following day we made for home and arrived to find the snow melted and the sun out. And thus ended a really wonderful experience.

Bless Bless!

Jamin

P.S. Thanks to Hilary and Page for the photos!

A Break in the Weather

2011-05-31T23:32:00.004Z

Predator arenas getting the Treatment.

As David and I have made note many times the weather here in northern Iceland has not been so great lately. Thankfully we arrived early enough to set up a lot of our experimental hardware before the snow started to fly. Of course an ecological field experiment is more than a bunch of mesh and plastic sitting out along some lake. To test certain ideas about how the world works we actually have to manipulate it. This year we are again trying to make sense of if and how midges change the way that the bug food web works. We think that midges should change who gets eaten since there are many predators that eat midges when they are available. To try to see if some of these things are happening we are changing what kinds of predators there are in our so-called predator arenas.

Mesh exlcudes midges from some of the arenas while others are open to them.

A couple of days ago the weather was decent enough that we could begin our experimental manipulation. Because bugs are tiny and we need to know how many and what types of them there are in each of the arena enclosures we actually have to turn our vacuums to the grass inside of the plastic walls. For each of the four treatments we have predators that we either want to keep or remove and so we go about taking a small sample from each plot before vacuuming out all of the bugs and putting them in trays. Once in the trays we sort through them and take out the things we don't want. Today we finished the 2nd half of the arenas, with the entire process taking the four of us about two days total. Midges were flying today so I think that we go this job finished just in time and now we cross our fingers and get to see what happens!

David and I sorting through the final sample.

Bless!

Jamin

Grímsvötn I: Ashes to Ashes?

2011-05-29T20:52:00.005Z

Árni and I collecting ash off gas station window sills near Skaftafell.

Sorry for being gone from SoM for so long, but things have been rather interesting around here. One week ago as we thought the world might be coming to an end we found out through a few phone calls (I would have liked to see the Icelandic phone network traffic records this night!) that a large eruption had begun at the volcano called Grímsvötn located beneath the largest glacier in Iceland. Since the north was in the grip of what can only be described as a blizzard we thought it the perfect opportunity to go south and try to see the eruption.

Our field station convoy heads into the ash cloud.

I will save more of the details for later when I get some better photos (yours truly was a not-so-successful photo parasite on this trip as of yet) but the long and the short is that we enjoyed an amazing trip let by none other than Árni. For those that had just arrived it was quite the introduction to Iceland, and for those of us who had been here it was nice to take a little break.

The beautiful lagoon Lón along the south coast of Iceland. Ash cloud in the distance.

I hope that everybody back in the US of A is having a good holiday weekend. Here there is still snow in the air while I understand that the weather looks to be closer to 90F tomorrow in Madison. What can you do?

The much-beloved Karri on Mars?!

Bless!

Jamin

P.S. Thanks to Maddy and Mireia for the photos :)

weather turning

2011-05-26T08:11:00.000Z

It's been quite wintery but now the weather has changed and we are above freezing again. It was easy to spot the midges on the melting snow drifts!

The mountains around the lake are sparkling white, including Hlíðarfjall.

Our cages at KAL have been holding up well. You can even see the infall cups if you look at the larger image.

The horses were out enjoying the newly revealed grass with the crater Hverfell behind.

winter?

2011-05-24T10:31:00.000Z

We've been experiencing some winter weather here at Myvatn the past few days. Here is a video I took this morning to give to an idea of what it has been like. Most of our team is in the south experiencing the ash and apparently it has been stormy there also. Not sure if they will make it home or not today. A few days ago it was more mild and we went for a short walk up the hill with Erica and Bibi to check on how our experimental cages and arenas were holding up in the weather.

ash

2011-05-23T15:51:00.000Z

I'm in a blizzard at Myvatn, but all the other UW researchers in Iceland are now in the south, checking out the recent eruption. I've spoken with them on the phone and have a few photos from our friend Olli to share. They tell me they have seen a lot of ash and consequently have not seen much else. I'm sure we'll get the whole story when they return to the snowy north.

rumbling on the horizon

2011-05-21T22:14:00.000Z

I have not taken many photos of insects so far this summer, but here is a shot of a fly (Bibionid? I've got to brush up on my flies before we start counting samples!) on a willow flower at Dimmuborgir from just a few days ago.

We've got all of our Myvatn transects up now. It was a beautiful trip around the lake, ringed by snowy mountains.

One of our coolest sites - Flugvöllur - a lava field by the airport.

The three of us, myself, Jamin and Hilary, made the trip around the lake together.

And finally, the rumbling on the horizon in Iceland is volcanic in nature, and it goes by the name of Grímsvötn. The map below shows recent earthquakes in Iceland. The red dots are earthquakes in the past 4 hours, while the green stars represent those larger than 3 on the Richter scale. You can see there has been a lot of activity under and around the largest glacier in Iceland, Vatnajökull. The news of the eruption came to me via our friend Olli, who is living relatively close to the volcano, which is under the glacier and he is living just next to the glacier, at Skaftafell. His work could be affected by the ash and flood of water (melted glacial ice).

Wintry Weather at Kálfaströnd

2011-05-21T13:11:00.003Z

The farm as it appeared yesterday.

As David and I have written a few days ago we have been experiencing quite the wintry weather here. The last few days have seen almost constant snow. This means that our field work has essentially ground to a halt (as has the annual bird count conducted by scientists at the research station). That leaves David and I plenty of time however to work on manuscripts.

Playing Der Grosse Dalmuti with Olli and Johanna.

One of our friends who was here to help with the bird count was Olli Bechberger. David, Rachel, an I go back three years with Olli who did his master's degree on the vegetation of the pseudocraters here at the lake. Unfortunately Olli has already left for the south where he is working on his PhD at the University of Iceland. In July he will visit Svalbard for a five week course on arctic biology.

A rare sight; Vindbelgjarfjell with a dusting of snow.

We here at the farm are expecting the arrival of Tony, Mireia, Kyle, Page, and Maddy at any time. When they get here I will try to get a photo of all of us up.

Bless,

Jamin

cooler

2011-05-19T00:20:00.000Z

Those hoping for a delay in the midge emergence will be glad to hear that the weather has cooled down considerably since we arrived to see midges flying already. I went for a run tonight wearing a hat (cap with visor to keep the rain out of my eyes), t-shirt, sweater, down vest and gloves above the waist. My knees were definitely cold, but all the layers helped a lot.

-1 deg C at 66 deg N

2011-05-18T23:18:00.004Z

Snow coats the wonderfully flat-topped Búrfell.

That is what the instrument panel on the Pajero's dashboard told me this evening as snowflakes spattered the windshield. While you might think that such cold temperatures at this time of year in combination with solid precipitation would cause us to become depressed you would be wrong. Strangely the weather seems completely in character for this place, and though I would surely be complaining up a storm if these were the conditions in Madison at this time of year that I had to be living through I find the snow and cold wind rather charming in a way. Especially when the snow covers the mountains like so much powdered sugar.

David and Hilary digging a trench for the electricity cable that runs up to the barn. No Icelandic kids are going to dig it up this year!

During the last few days Team Midge 3.75 (Maddy will arrive on Saturday) has been working together in and out of the field station. Two days ago we set some things up in and around the barn and cut some mesh for the predator exclusion arenas. Yesterday we spend the day driving around the lake putting up our midge infall traps along the transects scattered about the lake's edge. This activity is always fun and it was nice to visit places that have become so familiar. Today we were working mostly inside the barn and field station preparing the emergence traps and doing a bit of sewing and writing.

My mom and I checking out Botnstjorn at inner-most tip of Ásbyrgi.

Yesterday morning my parents left us. It was great to have them here and introduce them to the people and places that have become such a large part of my life. I will miss having them here, and perhaps the Hoekman boys will miss them even more than me! I think that they had a very good time and as much as they enjoyed coming to know some of the people here, so too did our colleagues here enjoy getting to know them a little bit.

Tempting Fate.

Bless!

Jamin

Sunday Funday

2011-05-15T19:10:00.003Z

Can you spot the midge-addition plots?

Today we spent some time in the field getting things setup at the midge addition site and adding some finishing touches on the predator arenas that we have been working on. The weather was very interesting; a mix of sun, rain, and snow(!). A very beautiful Icelandic day, and very good working conditions, at least until the snow made the tape that we were using a little less than sticky.

The nearly completed predator arena array at Kálfaströnd.

Last night all of us went to see Erica in Húsavík at our annual Eurovision party. All of us, veterans and newbies alike, had a very good time. Some of us had a better time that others of course based on the outcome of the contest. David was particularly pleased (and Erica particularly vexed) that his pick Azerbaijan were the eventual winners (I was more a fan of Ireland myself). I myself am extremely poor at predicting winners as pretty much all of my top picks in fact finished near the bottom of the polls.

David and I.

Bless Bless!

Jamin

Field Ecology Fantasy Camp

2011-05-13T22:42:00.004Z

Two of the horses that have been hanging out with us at the farm.

Today and yesterday we were working in the field near our farm house setting some things up. Yesterday the weather was sunny and rather warm while we raised the frames that hold up our midge exclusion cages. Today it was cooler and more cloudy as we actually put the mesh cages over them. Unlike in years past because it is so cold there are very few midges, and this makes our job much less frantic than what sometimes happens as they swarm around and sometimes in the cages that are supposed to keep them out.

L to R: Johanna, Hilary, and some toolbag.

Now that we have been here for a few days and are getting down to work, we have conscripted directly or indirectly a few field assistants. The first one to join the crew was Johanna, a student from Germany that will be working with Oli Nielsson, but is stranded (sort of) at Mývatn for a while and looking for things to do. The second is Hilary Bultman, the Team Midge 4.0 NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) student. Hopefully she will introduce herself soon so you can get up to speed on her deal. Finally I conned both of my parents into helping some today, which was a lot of fun for all of us I think and hopefully gave them a better idea of the kinds of things we do here. They have already remarked how nice it is to finally visit a place that they have heard so much about.

Mr. and Mrs. Dreyer assisting in the construction of arthropod arenas.

It is kinda of interesting to have a couple of 50-something what we might refer to in "the biz" as "lay-people" assisting in the field. Today we were putting up new-and-improved predator arenas, which I will describe later. The work consists of cutting trenches into the ground and jamming some stiff plastic sheets into them, which doesn't sound too bad but is actually rather difficult and time consuming when you are trying to do so in a specific conformation. Add some chill winds and some hummocks on the ground and you have all the makings for the field ecology fantasy camp.

Some of the visiting sheep came by the quality control the midge exclusion cages.

Tomorrow we will finish the last few pairs that we did not get to today, and later in the day we plan to visit Erica in Husavik for our annual Eurovision party. Claudio might be interested to know that Italy has decided to compete for the first time in 13 years. I guess they finally learned how awesome this contest really is.

Bless!

Jamin

Back to the Iceland

2011-05-11T21:18:00.008Z

Five Hoekmans and two Dreyers in front of a lot of luggage at Keflavík Intl. Airport.

As David and I have written about in earlier posts, we and some of our relation arrived in Iceland early Monday morning and have taken two paths north to Mývatn; the Hoekmans via Air Iceland and the Pajero through the north, and the Dreyers in an Octavia driving up from the south. Coming to Iceland this way was a bit unusual for all involved. David and I have not traveled together to Iceland since 2008, so it was a bit of a replay of our earliest days together. The rest of the Hoekmans have always come in July, and my parents have never come to visit during the summer at all.

Buildings in downtown Reykjavík.

To maximally acquaint my parents with the land of Iceland we started off the very first day on the so-called "Golden Circle." Within a day's drive of the capital city Reykjavík there are a lot of things to see; Þingvallavatn and Alþingi, Geysir and Strokkur, Gullfoss and Seljandafoss. After seeing all of these sights we were all very tired (or at least my mom and I were my dad had been sleeping all along the way and only woke to see the cool sights) and so we found a place to stay the night at the foot of the volcano made famous by it's eruptions last spring Eyjafjallajökull.

My parents at Gullfoss.

The next morning we woke and headed east again. Only a few kilometers up Route 1 is the wonderful waterfall Skógafoss which I have visited many times. Moving past the waterfall we had lunch at Kirkjubæjarklaustur and then drove past Skaftafell to Jökulsárlón. Leaving the glacial lagoon behind we drove along the coast, eventually turning north and entering a series of fjords. Last summer while traveling in the south with Kyle, Suhani, Bre, and Ted I came across a tiny church in one of the little fishing villages that dot the fjords. This particular church had been converted to a hostel and I was thought it would be a good idea to stay there sometime.

Skógafoss.

A few months back I made reservations and last night my parents and I stayed at Kirkjubær,having the little church just to ourselves. One of the hosts, who leads a double life as a fisherman, gave us some fresh fish from the Atlantic and the three of us enjoyed some of the best fish we had ever had. While looking for some bread in town my dad and I also came across a Eurovision party, and later when the three of us came back for dessert we celebrating Iceland making it to the finals with a handful of the locals.

Fishing boats in the harbor at Stöðvarfjörður.

This morning we woke up to a sunny fjord, jumped back in the car and made for Mývatn. In the fjord the weather was warm and sunny, but as we moved inland the temperature began to plummet. Soon enough we were in the middle of snow flurries, and the mountains and hills around us were covered in a light dusting of frozen precipitation. Finally we came into Mývatnssveit and were welcomed by the sight of my beloved lake. After unpacking at the house and field station and enjoying some time with the Hoekmans, we are all ready for bed. Tomorrow we go to Akureyri to pick up our REU for the summer, Hilary Bultman, whom you will no doubt be hearing of in the near future.

Kirkjubær in the morning.

Bless!

Jamin

first impressions

2011-05-09T19:21:00.001Z

As Jamin said, we all made it safely to Iceland this morning. It was a journey we've made several times before but it is still somewhat thrilling to see that rugged shore appear before landing at Keflavik. We met Árni and Johanna at the airport in Akureyri and were reunited with our beloved Pajero.

A few impressions from my first day back in Iceland.

1. It's green! I've never been in Iceland this early in the year and I was expecting things to be a bit more wintery. In the south it was cloudy and raining when we arrived - par for the course. But nevertheless, the grass was green and the leaves were just starting to emerge, much like in Michigan and Ontario right now. While we were waiting at the airport in Reykjavik, the sun came out and I went out to enjoy it (I think it was 8 degrees, but it felt balmy). While I was out I saw a bumblebee and immediately thought of Hannah. Incidentally, and stealing my own thunder a bit, I also saw many bumblebees at Goðafoss and on the willow tree at Kálfaströnd. So the south seemed very green to me, but I did see a lot of snow on my way to Akureyri. However, while driving around in Akureyri we saw trees starting to put out leaves and other signs of spring including general greenness. But this was down at the coast, surely it would be more wintery at Myvatn? As we drove up and away from Akureyri the vegetation did indeed take on more shades of brown and grey. However, there were other surprises awaiting us at Mývatn. When we pulled up to the house at Kálfaströnd we were met by around 10 ewes and their lambs. We were surprised and delighted and Ella told us they would be around for a while, along with several horses in another paddock. The kids spent some time later in the afternoon following the sheep around, but the sheep were wary and did not let them get too close. The other surprising thing at Kálfaströnd was...

2. Midges! There were lots of midges at KAL! They were all over the house and I would even describe them as swarming. Admittedly, not the thickest swarm I've ever seen, but a noticeable cloud. They were little guys (Tanytarsini), but there were a lot of them. Árni stopped by briefly and was apologetic about all the midges this early in the year :) It makes me wonder what we've been missing!

To Iceland

2011-05-09T17:59:00.002Z

FYI those that follow Smidge of Midge. The Hoekmans and Dreyers made it safely to Iceland this morning before parting ways; David and company flying north to Myvatn and my folks and I driving up through the south. When we all get together in a couple days we will get a real update post up, but now you know we at least made it this far.

Bless!

Jamin

One Week and Counting

2011-05-03T02:21:00.005Z

Often as I am thinking of Iceland, or working on research or a project related to it, or just nostalgic (as those who know me know that I very often am, not just for Iceland but in general) for summers in Iceland I like to listen to some of my favorite musicians in the world; Sigur Rós. As was put once to me by one of my favorite Icelanders (which is kinda true but really all Icelanders are one of my favorite Icelanders) Daniel Bergmann "Sigur Rós is the music of the highlands." The highlands are the uninhabited center of the country, a difficult and potentially dangerous place to be but one filled with a kind of unspeakable beauty.

I can't get enough of this video.

David and I will be leaving for Michigan in a couple days, and then a few days after that we will be flying off to Iceland for the fourth time. We hope to be there by early Monday morning that then will begin the Smidge of Midge summer coverage. We hope that you will keep up with all the great things we have planned for you (and us, naturlich).

Bless Bless!

Jamin

Earth Day

2011-04-22T18:32:00.003Z

Ted, Bre, and I hangin' last summer.

What day is today? Well, other than being Friday it is also Earth Day and Good Friday. We the members of Team Midge 4.0 (wow that is still crazy to me) are busy getting our ducks in a row. David and I leave in about two weeks! Too busy in fact for me to do a good job of posting something major. So I'll just leave you with a couple photos...

The station "parking lot" of 2008.

Bless,

Jamin

GLEON 12 Digest

2011-04-15T13:38:00.009Z

The "GLEONites" present in Israel.

Now that my jet-lag has more-or-less dissipated I can fill you in on all the fun, scientifically and otherwise in the true spirit of this blog, that I was having over in Israel. First though I would like to talk a bit about how I ended up there in the first place. The meeting in Israel was of the Global Lakes Ecological Observatory Network (hence GLEON), a group of scientists that monitor and study lakes. GLEON was borne in large part out of the efforts of people right here at UW-Madison, including Tim Kratz (now a program officer at the NSF) and Paul Hanson (research scientist at the UW-Madison Center for Limnology). Also, many of my good friends are involved with GLEON like Luke, Emily, and Jordan and they have attended lots of GLEON meetings in the past. The final piece of the puzzle, also known as funding, came from my NSF fellowship that provides money specifically to travel internationally in the pursuit of science.

Enjoying a jam session during the student workshop.

The trip over to Galilee was easy and relatively uneventful. Along the way Luke and Jordan, with whom I was traveling, were joined by Kevin Rose a graduate student at Miami University in Ohio. Upon arriving to Ben Gurion Airport we added a few more scientists to our ranks. We piled into a van for the drive north and tried to stay away through vigorous conversation. I have found that when traveling east, to say Iceland for example, it is better to just stay up and go to bed at the usual time. We found our accommodation at the Ramot Resort to be more than adequate. Over the course of the meeting we would enjoy great food and hospitality.

The ruins of Gamla are situated in a steep and beautiful gorge.

The meeting itself was designed to create as much interaction among participants as possible. The first day was dedicated to student interaction, though more advanced scientists were welcomed as well. The activities focused on the analytical and information tools that are being developed by GLEON to gather and synthesize data on a host of lakes around the world. Later days saw presentations on new developments and sites as well as a graduate student poster session. I participated in both a "new things" presentation as well as the poster session, using every opportunity to show people what a cool lake Mývatn is. At least half of the meeting time was devoted to "working groups" and unstructured "ad hoc" time. The working groups are self-organized collections of students and professors unified by a particular idea or theme. Their goals is some type of productive output such as a publication and they included topics such as climate and physics, lake metabolism, information technology, and ecosystem modeling. The ad hoc time allowed leaders of working groups to communicate with one another since many of their ideas and themes overlap, as well as to facilitate other productive conversations and discussions.

Crowded streets of Jerusalem.

Of course when you are traveling in another country, especially one as rich in history as Israel, it is important to see some it. GLEON purposefully builds in some time for a "cultural" experience, which for this meeting included dinner in the main city on Kinneret, called Tiberius, and a day trip to Jerusalem. While still in Ramot Jordan, Kevin, and I caught a ride with Emily and her mom to a place called Gamla where a group of Jews were besieged by the Romans in the first century. And after the meeting was over, as I have mentioned previously, Luke, Alo, and I rented a car for three days to travel through the country. While we only scratched the surface of all the things there are to see, when you have gone that far you pretty much have to take a few days and see as much as you can.

A crusader dining hall in their Akko fortress.

The day after visiting Jerusalem, during which we visited the Old City and more specifically the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Western Wall, we picked up our rental car from Ben Gurion and immediately drove north along the Mediterranean to the Crusader port of Akko (or Acre if you prefer). The oldest part of the city is situated within walls at the tip of a small peninsula. Akko was the site where Christian pilgrims arrived in the Holy Land during its occupation by the Crusaders, including the Hospitallers who left behind their fortress (or more accurately it was buried after their defeat in 1291...), and is an interesting juxtaposition of the new and the ancient. Other than the ruins the primary characteristic of the city is the long but narrow (and convoluted) market full of fish, food, spices, and merchandise. Here I bough a couple of scarfs for 10 shekels ("Cheap! A very good price!" the vendor told me, and actually I had to somewhat agree given that some other chump had tried to foist a similar one on me for 25 shekel only minutes before) and Alo bought some spices to bring back to Estonia. That evening we drove to Haifa to spend the night at a perfect little guesthouse where Luke was able to practice his German with a Swiss couple in the morning.

Floating in the 30% salt water of the Dead Sea doesn't take any effort.

Jumping in the car promptly at 9am we turned south towards the Dead Sea, where we arrived after 3-4 hours of driving. During the drive we moved from a very green area to the much more brown and desolate south. The Dead Sea and its surroundings are of course more or less lifeless and the basin in which is sits is characterized by a heavy haze of evaporating water. Along the southwestern edge of the sea there are a series of large resorts that cater to those seeking the supposed healing powers of the lake. By this time we had decided that we would like to stay at the Masada Guesthouse so that we could get up before dawn and climb the plateau and fortress from which it takes its name so we stopped in there and made such arrangements. Since we had a few hours to burn before dinner at the guesthouse we drove a short way north to Ein Gedi and its beach where we played around in the water for a half hour of so, each of us sustaining cuts on our feet (ouch!) on the salt-encrusted rocks that then soaked in the 30% salt water (double-ouch!!).

Ruins of Herod's Palace on Masada overlook the Dead Sea and sunrise over Jordan.

To climb Masada and watch the sun rise over the Dead Sea we awoke at 5am. It is tradition to make the 30-45min journey up the "Snake Path" so that is what we did (though we didn't have a headlamp so the first few minutes were kind of interesting!). We made it to the top in time to see the sun crest over Jordan and then spent a couple hours touring the palace and fortifications at the top of the mount. Arrayed around the base of the mesa are the remains of Roman siege camps that are almost 200o years old, and running up the north side of the mount the remains of the Roman-built ramp that ultimately ended the siege still remains. Around the top of the mountain are scattered ruins including fortifications and a palace built by Herod the Great (ironically in case he ever faced a revolt). The entire place is soaked in history and natural beauty.

David's Waterfall in the Ein Gedi oasis.

After descending Masada we gathered our things from the guesthouse and visited the oasis of Ein Gedi located a few kilometers to the north. Here we admired waterfalls in the desert, and amazing views of the Dead Sea. We also took note of a large group of what appeared to be high school students taking measurements of the water in the oasis, including both chemistry and biology. It was nice to see some Future Scientists of Israel (and perhaps even one day GLEON!) at work. Leaving Ein Gedi we jumped back in the car and drove to Tel Aviv where we took in the first Israeli shopping mall before lounging along the Mediterranean on Tel Aviv's famous beaches. Of course we had to go in for a swim as well and we bodysurfed for a while before watching the sunset. After catching dinner at 24 Rupee we returned our car to Ben Gurion and after a few more flights we were home...

Mediterranean sunset at a Tel Aviv beach.

Bless Bless!

Jamin

Home From Israel

2011-04-12T23:37:00.001Z

I arrived safely back in Madison last night and promptly fell asleep. I have a lot of things to catch up on the next few days, but I hope to have a nice digest of the meeting up on Friday. Right now I'll leave you with a few photographic highlights of the few days I traveled after the trip was over.

Floating in the Dead Sea.

Sunrise at Masada.

To a group of French tourists at Ein Gedi, I was a "professional photographer."

Alo Laas (the third member of our travelling trio after Luke who I mentioned earlier) and I in the rental car shuttle bus at Ben Gurion Airport.

More GLEON 12

2011-04-09T04:30:00.003Z

Rooftops of Jerusalem with Chris, Trina, and Julian McMahon.

Luke, Justin, and David on the shores of Kinneret.

View from Ramot

2011-04-05T17:45:00.003Z

Lake Kinneret.

Here at Lake Kinneret we are staying at the Ramot Resort which strangely enough is located in the settlement of Ramot (which is apparently considered illegal under international law since it is in the Golan Heights. Who knew!). It is late spring and has been quite rainy since we arrived, at times pouring and accompanied by some thunder. At least one Israeli here informed me that they have been seeding the clouds to encourage rain. Things are now very lush and green, but this is not usually the case. Temperatures are in the 60s or so, and once in a while the sun even manages to pop out.

Looking west across Lake Kinneret. I am told that where the light is shining is where Jesus walked on water, and in the hills behind he delivered the Sermon on the Mount.

Today was the first official day of the meeting. There are 55 people attending from 17 countries and I have already had a great time meeting a host of new folks. This morning I gave a very short presentation on Myvatn and this afternoon I presented a poster as well. It is hard to compete with some of the other crazy and beautiful study lakes here but I managed to draw a few in. It is surprising in fact how many people have already heard of Myvatn, and and I have had a couple of mutual Iceland connections made as well; one with Arni and one with Leifur the guide at the Kverfjoll hut from the summer of 2009!

My roommate for the conference, UW-Madison grad student, and good friend of mine Luke Winslow.

Tomorrow and Thursday there will be more meetings and sessions. Hopefully I can hold my own with these hard-core limnologists!

Shalom,

Jamin

Lake Kinneret

2011-04-04T19:53:00.002Z

Well I made it safely to Lake Kinneret in northern Israel. The weather is warm and rainy, and things are very green. I hear this is the time to be here as a result. The GLEON meeting is taking place in a resort on the northeast slopes of the lake, and we have an almost constant view of the water. Today there were grad student workshops all day. I am sorry that I don't have any photos; I don't have my camera with me and am on a borrowed computer. Perhaps tomorrow!

Shalom,

Jamin

April Fool's!

2011-04-01T21:33:00.002Z

I am busy preparing for my trip to GLEON 12 in Israel as I am leaving tomorrow morning. If I don't get a post up today I hope to have one from Lake Kinneret soon!

Bless,

Jamin

A Week in the Life of a Grad Student: Thursday

2011-03-25T21:04:00.006Z

Well this past Thursday may not have much to do with a week in the Life of a typical grad student, but is sure was interesting! While astride my bike on the way from Russell Labs to the pool at the SERF I was the on the receiving end of a rather ill-timed turn by a car. This sent me first into the car, and then into the pavement. I was feeling it pretty good and a (unionized!) police officer was swiftly on the scene (major road at a busy time) and then moments later a swarm of (unionized!) EMTs. My left shoulder was not feeling so hot and since I thought I might have broken something I got to go for my very first ambulance ride to the UW Hospital. Shortly I was in the ER where they took some X-rays of the injury. Using this information I was diagnosed with a "closed dislocation of acromioclavicular joint, Type III." Basically this means that I tore some ligaments holding my collarbone in place, causing it to ride up about an inch or so at the end farthest away from my head. It doesn't hurt very much if I don't move it, but if I move it in certain ways (some of which I know about and some that are still a surprise!) it lets me know it is injured. On the upside I scored a "murdered-out" sling that is a pretty awesome fashion accessory if I may say so myself.

No connection here to anything in the post. I just love Hjaltalín.

Well I have to admit that my very first thought when I picked myself and my bike (whose name is Coco. Not after Conan O'Brien but after a certain African Grey Parrot) was "I hope I will be OK by the time I go to Iceland!" I think the prognosis looks pretty good, and I feel good about it, but time will tell. More immediately on 2 April I will be travelling to Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) in Israel for a meeting of the Global Lakes Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON) to represent Mývatn. Our plan (when I say "our" I mean Árni's plan that I am a mere pawn in) is to put some equipment in and around the lake to monitor biological characteristics of the water column. Most of the work that people in GLEON do revolves around long term monitoring of lakes around the globe. The meeting will be a great opportunity to meet limnologists from all over the place, learn from them and tell them what we do. Look for all the details of my trip in later SoM posts.

Bless!

Jamin

A Week in the Life of a Grad Student:Wednesday

2011-03-17T07:59:00.002Z

Maybe we should get some Smidge Midge to ward off the dreaded blackflies.

Well I sure am doing a poor job of keeping up with my little series here on grad student life. I suppose in a way that in itself might tell you something about it! This week it is spring break at UW-Madison so things are pretty quiet. But that doesn't mean that I am many other grad students are not working. Right now, with my prelims in the past, I am focusing my efforts on a collaboration with Phil on using remote sensing to A) determine the extent and amount of midge deposition to land and B) to identify "midge lakes" based on the growth of vegetation surrounding them. To this end Phil and I have been looking at a good deal of ground data collected via space satellites. These images show the vigor of vegetative growth (reported as the index NDVI) and we can overlay this with some higher resolution visual imagery to get an interesting look at the landscape. It is fun to see things from a different perspective. It also makes me very excited to return to Iceland!

Russell Labs where the Gratton Lab is located.

One of the things that I frequently do is go to meetings, as I am sure many of you do as well. Each week there is an Iceland Meeting, and a Gratton Lab Meeting. Then throw in a couple of other meetings with Claudio, or Phil, or David and things can pile up fast. Colloquiums and talks are also important, and there are far to many of them to attend. But I often try to attend the Center for Limnology Wednesday seminar, the Entomology Seminar on Friday, and the Zoology Colloquium on Friday. Each of these is a one-hour talk by somebody, often off campus, on their research. Quite often the talks are very interesting and a great opportunity to learn about cutting edge research as well as becoming familiar with a particular researcher. Last week the Center for Limnology hosted Jim Elser from Arizona State. He gave talks on Thursday and Friday about his bread and butter; ecological stoichiometry. This is actually a very fascinating topic and one that is fun to think and talk about. Elser also happens to be an interesting personality, and as part of his visit I had a couple chances to interact with him in less-formal settings.

This image is everywhere in Madison.

Being a grad student in Madison of course also means being involved in the ongoing protests. Yes, we are still protesting despite the passage of the "budget repair bill." Signs are everywhere you go and the state government continues to be the talk of the town, and surely of the state as well. I expect this to be the case for quite some time here. Of course I'd be lying if I said that I did not enjoy it myself, and I may miss some of the fun when we leave Madison in May.

Bless!

Jamin

55 days

2011-03-15T15:22:00.000Z

With daylight savings time, taxes, tractor rallies and some other signs of the end of winter, we're gearing up for another field season in Iceland. I dusted off the field camera and charged the batteries and happened upon this interesting pic from the fall. While there are many wonders of nature to behold in Iceland, this is not one of them. The flashy-shoed man is being dwarfed by an enormous, and somewhat smelly, flower. The plant is a titan arum, a tropical plant that we encountered in a greenhouse right across the street from Russell Labs.

Hurdle Cleared

2011-03-05T21:57:00.002Z

Sorry for missing a post yesterday. Yesterday I passed my oral preliminary exam, the last major academic hurdle before my dissertation defense which is still a couple of years off. As a result of this I have done little but study and protest the last few weeks, and I hope that I can get some better SoM posts up and continue the series I began on being a grad student. But tonight we have a party at Claudio's and my apartment is a mess so it is time to attend to more pressing matters at hand.

Bless,

Jamin

Pizza from Iceland

2011-02-25T23:56:00.005Z

At one of the Pizza places here in downtown Madison called Ian's, people supportive of the protest movement here have been ordering slices from around the nation and world to feed the protesters who have taken up positions inside and around the Capitol. I wonder who ordered us some pizza from Iceland? ;)

Bless!

Jamin

75 days and counting

2011-02-22T19:46:00.001Z

Jamin and I will be heading to Iceland in fewer than 3 months! We're assembling Team Midge 4.0 and are busy making plans for our field season. Claudio just sent a link about a relatively spectacular midge emergence right here in Wisconsin from last year in May.
http://www.myfishingpartner.com/portal/lake-winnebago-info/lake-flys-life-cycle-benefits-birds-gardens

It is interesting to read about mating swarms, brown fog, midge-covered vegetation, abundant bird life and even the natural fertilizer of midge sludge (all familiar concepts from Myvatn) from just up the road at Lake Winnebago.

Madison has been buzzing with political controversy and demonstrations for the past week. Here are a few interesting videos that capture some of the clamoring voices.
A local representative:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0BG973hQtc
And some videos about the protests: http://vimeo.com/20089255

A Week in the Life of a Grad Student:Tuesday

2011-02-18T05:15:00.004Z

I've been working in a photo of the capitol almost every week. This is surely the best one yet (and taken on a Tuesday no less)!

Haha! Well this post is going to be an example of art imitating life, because I am too busy scrambling to prepare something for my committee to be able to work on SoM today. But rest assured as soon as I find some time this will be one of the first things I do

Wisconsinites rally around the capitol square.

For those of you that aren't keeping up with Wisconsin (and now national) news, Madison has been rocked by protests against the current governor's plans to fix a "budget deficit." It is an interesting time to live here!

Bless,

Jamin

A Week in the Life of a Grad Student:Monday

2011-02-11T17:20:00.011Z

Capitol Dome lit on Super Bowl Sunday. Go Pack Go!

So very often when I am talking to my friends (who are not grad students) and family, I get the impression that they have no idea what it is that I really do. Often I am met with questions such as "How are your classes?" or "Are you teaching?" This is not entirely off the mark, because as a grad student I do take classes, and I have taught. But these are minor parts of the job, and very different I think from what most people picture in their minds. I could be way off base here, of course, but to try to give people and idea of what it is I and the thousands of other graduate students on this campus do I thought I would start a SoM series called "A Week in the Life of a Grad Student."

Part of David's personal office decorations.

Throughout the series I will try to give a sketch of what a "typical" day is like. But before I begin there, I suppose it would be a good idea to give my background as a graduate student in general. I have an undergraduate degree in biology education from Hope College, after which I studied wolf spider taxonomy for a couple years and spent a summer working at UNDERC before applying for graduate school and joining the Iceland Project here at UW-Madison. I was supported by the project grant for my first two years, which included a stint as a teaching assistant (TA) in the spring of '09. Beginning this past summer I have been supported by an NSF Fellowship, which frees me up to do more research and less teaching. This is a good thing for my progress towards my degree.

Rollin' tins...

During my first two years (I am now in my third...!) I was in fact taking more classes. These included courses in statistics, ecosystem ecology, basic entomology, limnology, professional development, communicating science, landscape ecology, and probably a few others that I am forgetting. As I mentioned earlier I was also a TA for an undergraduate lab course, BIO 152, during the spring semester of 2009. This required me to teach two three-hour labs a week, as well as herd a bunch of students through a semester-long independent project or mentorship. This did in fact take up a lot of my time. So my days in the first two years did consist of more classes and teaching, but even then graduate classes are much more low key than undergraduate courses. Often consisting of 10-15 students and probably only meeting once a week, with a large emphasis on productive output and independent reading and work.

In the office. A bit of Droste Effect going on here with the screen display (this SoM post in its larval stage).

So, a "typical" Monday... Well in general I start my day when I wake up, the timing of which is negatively correlated with when I go to bed. I jump on my bike or the bus, and head off to Russell Labs. Currently my Mondays are pretty wide open, being devoid of ongoing meetings or what have you. Lately I have been using my morning to roll isotope tins, which consists of putting a tiny bit of a crushed up spider into a tiny tin and rolling it into a little ball. Eventually these will be shipped off to Arizona for analysis. Mireia has written about isotope analysis in the past, and I am sure that we will write about it in the future (David...). After lunch I usually settle into my office chair and sit in front of the computer for a bit; sending emails, reading papers, writing, or crunching some numbers (more on this in a later post). Eventually I make my way home, these days on the bus, sometimes stopping at the SERF for a swim.

Bikes buried in snow in front of the building.

Bless Bless!

Jamin

Wisconsin Winter

2011-02-04T03:45:00.003Z

Capitol square after the snow had been cleared.

This week has seen a lot of winter weather, here in Madison and around the country. On my way home Tuesday evening the blowing and snow were already well under way, and by the time I woke on Wednesday the city was blanketed. The university was closed on Wednesday due to the weather, and so I decided to hunker down at home and do some reading about food webs and such. Later in the day I met a couple friends and walked across the capitol square. The roads were deserted and snow laden, while a crew of workers armed with shovels and snow-blowers cleared the steps up to the capitol building. In the clear, chill sun that so often characterizes winter days in Madison the city was simply beautiful. I am still in a good mood as a result!

Hélène on Lake Monona with the Madison skyline as a backdrop.

Another event that put me in a good mood was a visit by Hélène a couple of weeks ago. Seeking to temporarily escape France and the stress of hunting for a job, she came to Madison to visit with her friends from Iceland and those she made while living here this past summer. It was a lot of fun to spend some time with her and it reminded me of a lot of good times in Iceland during the summer of 2009.

Bless!

Jamin