Thinking back on the good ol’ days: A day in the life of a research technician
A few years ago, I was studying the effects of salinity on soil greenhouse gas production and denitrification rates in coastal wetlands of Louisiana. Meanwhile, I did not know there was a saltwater intrusion (SWI) problem facing coastal agricultural systems, especially in the Lower Eastern of Maryland (LES). Saltwater intrusion occurs when saltwater moves further inland, often leaving farmlands unproductive, and possibly displacing nutrients into downstream waters (Ardón et al. 2013; Ardón et al. 2017; Tully et al. 2019). Kate Tully’s lab, among others, are looking to tackle this environmental challenge head-on. I had the pleasure of working as a research technician on this project for 8 months.
During my first day of fieldwork in the summer of 2018, I met Kate Tully and Elizabeth de la Reguera at our rental van, packed up, and drove 3 hours to the LES of Maryland for a day of plant germination and survival counting. It was about 90°F with oppressive humidity and a constant threat of mosquito and tick bites. This does not compare to latter days in the summer, with heat indexes rising closer to 106°F. Here are a few other technician duties that I typically performed:
Porewater sampling: We went to the shore every two weeks to collect water samples at our salty fields. This involves pressurizing lysimeters with a pump and collecting water the day after. On these trips, we stayed at Jane’s Island State Park overnight on a scenic creek canal connecting to the Chesapeake Bay. These samples were taken back to the lab, filtered, preserved, and stored for colorimetric analysis (see below).
Harvest: In November 2018, we harvested our plants (soy, sorghum, switchgrass, saltmarsh hay, and weeds). This was a 2-day event, working sunrise to sunset while tent camping on Jane’s Island State Park. We transported all of the plants back to George Washington University for Keryn Gedan’s lab to take over processing and analysis.
Soil sampling: We collected soil cores after the plant harvest. Using a probe auger and mallet, we collected a total of 640 soil samples at different depth intervals up to 60 cm. These were brought back to the lab, and I extracted nitrate and ammonium from each soil sample in duplicate—bringing it to a total of 1,280 extractions!
Running the colorimeter: The colorimeter (LACHAT QuikChem 8500) is an autoanalyzer that uses colorimetry to measure phosphorus, ammonium, and nitrate concentrations in liquid sampled. My entire winter of 2018-2019 was spent battling the LACHAT. I worked with Dani Weissman to try and tame the beast. We ran thousands of samples successfully while running through countless troubleshooting protocols, from changing pump tubing, making fresh reagents, cleaning flow cells and valves, among many other tasks.
Research Technicians play an important role in large-scale, long-term, and interdisciplinary projects like this one. I am lucky to have been able to work with such an impressive team and be in charge of coordinating the biogeochemistry analyses for an important environmental challenge. I am definitely looking back on the Good Ol’ Days with rose-colored glasses!
References
Ardón M, Helton AM, Scheuerell MD, Bernhardt ES (2017). Fertilizer legacies meet saltwater incursion : challenges and constraints for coastal plain wetland restoration. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene 5:41.
Ardón M, Morse JL, Colman BP, Bernhardt ES (2013). Drought-induced saltwater incursion leads to increased wetland nitrogen export. Global Change Biology 19:2976–2985.
Tully KL, Weissman D, Wyner WJ, Miller J (2019). Soils in transition : saltwater intrusion alters soil chemistry in agricultural fields. Biogeochemistry.