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Algae collection trip, fall 2019

Although it is later in the season than we had initially planned, The Lab was still able to get out into the Rocky Mountains for some algae collecting, even in some pretty icy conditions.

I’m humbled by the hardiness of some of these organisms; even as single cells, the algae have adapted to survive in some of the harshest environments.

To understand how these processes work, and the organisms that are found in these crazy places, scientists must get out there, in all conditions, to investigate. Most humans view nature through a seasonal lens--e.g., in nice weather, or when it is “peak” season for aspen leaves, bird migrations, etc.--but I believe we should consider nature as something we can enjoy and learn from year-round.

Even in the cold, fieldwork really makes the science come alive. I’m happy to be working with other people who think so, too.

Our goal was to spend the weekend sampling from aerophilous and low pH habitats, where we anticipated particular algal taxa to be. Many sites were frozen after the quick cold snap that came through the Rockies late last week, as shown by the state this waterfall is in:

Our first day out was soon after the cold had come through, and our collecting sites were more often on north-facing slopes, and required more effort to get to our bounty under the ice. There were a few wetwall habitats that saw more sun, however. And our lab mascot, Cleo, was even along for the ride.

The terrain surrounding the frozen streams made for slow movements and deliberate foot placement to avoid twisting an ankle on snow-obscured branches, but we were able to get sufficient material from these sites.

Day two was a bit nicer, and we were able to collect quite a few more water bodies.

We encountered one milky stream, which must have been contaminated by some toxic (likely mine drainage) runoff. Virtually no life to be found here. Note the rust-colored bottom half of the rocks on the stream bank, stripped of their moss and lichens by the toxic water.

Finished the tour with some final wetwall collections.  A unique diatom flora is associated with wetwall and aerophilous habitats such as this waterfall splash zone.

Next step: processing the samples for cell culturing, as well as light and electron microscopy. We gathered quite a few samples on this particular trip.

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Closterium sp. from a moss ”squeeze”

Western Slope of Colorado

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Selections from a survey of the Hawaiian Island diatom flora, from the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History collections.