My life as a pollinator

For one month in Greenland, our most important scientific instrument was a paint brush.

Painting pollen onto Dryas integrifolia.

With our brushes loaded with pollen, we brushed the stigmas of hundreds of flowers, essentially acting as human pollinators. I am using this pollen-supplementation experiment to figure out if flowers could produce more seeds if there were more insects visiting flowers.

One flower we are studying is Dryas integrifolia, which is a butter-colored flower in the rose family (Rosaceae). It blooms early in the season, which is important for early emerging insects that are potential pollinators, including flies, bees, and yes, even mosquitoes.

Working with Dryas early in the season requires down jackets and a good attitude!

Once we were done painting, we waited for the flowers to close up and produce seeds. Dryas seeds are wind-dispersed, like dandelion seeds. So there was a narrow window of time in which we could collect the seeds before they flew away!

If Dryas produces seeds, it creates little twirls that remind us of unicorn horns or troll hair (right). If the stem aborts, it creates little white tufts (left).

Great news: today we successfully collected the last of the seeds! Other news: now I have thousands of seeds to count! [ Volunteers welcome 🙂  ]

Collecting the last of the Dryas seeds right near the margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Thinking Big in the Tundra

For the past few years, my time in Kangerlussuaq has been very busy and well organized. Last year, in order to measure over 11,000 lichen diameters and collect over 300 soil samples, I maintained a strict schedule, spending full days in the field and taking only one day off per week (in order to shower, download photos, write blogs, and do laundry). After all, when your field sites are so far from home, and your field season is so short, you better make the most of it.

This year, however, since my soil erosion project is wrapping up, I have had minimal field goals. My focus, instead, has been working with the JSEP students, a group of awesome high schoolers from Denmark, Greenland, and the US.

JSEP students roast marshmallows during their camping trip. Working with these high school students has been a highlight of my field season.

With my mind not consumed by the frenzy of data collection, I’ve had time to think big. I’ve had time to wonder, ponder, question, plan, dream, devise. Time to imagine the science questions I’d ask if resources were unlimited. I’ve been pondering the difference between north- and south-facing slopes, wondering about the hydrology of such an arid landscape, devising systems to monitor the permafrost. I’ve been dreaming of returning here in the winter to look at snow cover, planning experiments to test how well shrubs can colonize eroded patches.

Big thinking is best done with colleagues. Here Rebecca investigates the soils around Kangerlussuaq, getting to know the dry soils so different from other Arctic systems.

Big thinking is very different from the detail-oriented thinking of fieldwork, but it’s just as critical to good science. The creativity required to ask new and interesting questions is a skill often overlooked, rarely taught or discussed. During our fast-paced field seasons, stopping to ponder may seem like a waste of time. Yet how will we devise our next project unless we do? Returning home now, full of new questions and ideas, I’m pledging to always push myself to think big.

I’ve also had more time to sketch during this field season — an activity that helps me to think big by forcing me to look at the landscape from new perspectives.

Teaching and tweeting in Greenland

Dartmouth College researchers have been teaching polar science to an awesome group of high school students from the USA, Greenland, and Denmark. The students are part of the Joint Education Science Project and are here in Greenland to learn about research and the Arctic. And we have the incredible opportunity to teach and mentor them! This is hands-on, field-based learning to the extreme! We have been tweeting about these experiences, so I will let the tweets speak for themselves. By the way, you can follow us on Twitter at @dartarctic, and you can experience Greenland through the eyes of eager high school students via @JSEP_GL.

We went to sea tomato lake, it’s a lake filled with small balls of bacteria that looks like tomatoes. #JSEP_15 pic.twitter.com/SbDaz27VqZ

— JSEP Greenland (@JSEP_GL) July 8, 2015

Daniel & Mariah digging up permafrost on their first day gathering info for their research project! #teamwork #jsep15 pic.twitter.com/fH7TXC7QH7 — JSEP Greenland (@JSEP_GL) July 4, 2015

Awesome day of #polarscience with #JSEP – check out that plankton net toss! @JSEP_GL @RVirginiaPolar @DartArctic pic.twitter.com/9t440TK1jj

— Jessica Trout-Haney (@JVTHaney) July 5, 2015

We had a great day with @RuthHeindel conducting field research on soil erosion! From all of us at JSEP: THANK YOU! https://t.co/NzGnAl1nu9 — JSEP Greenland (@JSEP_GL) July 6, 2015

#Greenland soil erosion results confirmed by @JSEP_GL today! Thanks for the help! @leculler @EricaWallstrom @buskkasper @RVirginiaPolar

— Ruth Chaves Heindel (@RuthHeindel) July 6, 2015

#jsep15 This morning the JSEP class of ’15 chased invertebrates. That was great fun. Thank you Lauren, @leculler pic.twitter.com/xjyvCu1O79

— JSEP Greenland (@JSEP_GL) July 7, 2015

Kanger forest planted 1976. #JSEP15 work w/ @christiurbano to measure & catalog trees. Will revisit next year. pic.twitter.com/1f7xaKESRj — JSEP Greenland (@JSEP_GL) July 13, 2015

Jsep measured most of the trees in kanger! And found bird nests! Inspired by http://t.co/APYbqjv7mA #tundratrees #jsep15 @jsep_gl — Christine Urbanowicz (@christiurbano) July 13, 2015