*Revelations in my Research!*

Last week, I continued to work on the project looking at bulbil dispersal. I completed measuring all of the volumes for the bulbils that I am studying. I confirmed my measurements with an assistant in my lab that also took measurements, to make sure that I had repeatable measurements. However, I had an obstacle when it came to the dimensions that I was measuring the bulbils. Dr. Aronson and I were not sure that I was measuring correctly so we researched the process of calculating the volume of an ellipsoid and we realized that I wasn’t quite doing it right. I understood that this was all a part of the research process, even though I was about half way through and it was frustrating to start over.

Ultimately, I calculated the volume, density and buoyancy of these bulbils. I met with Dr. Sanford to discuss what was next in terms of the project and I got started on it right away. I am testing whether my prediction of buoyancy is an accurate measure of the metric in water. I want to simulate how bulbils will sink in a stream, so I used a 10 gallon tank and filled it half way with water. I made sure that there were no currents in the water and got a precise measure of the depth of water. I was very careful to avoid the meniscus effect. I had an assistant with me to calculate the time it took to sink from the surface of water to the bottom of the tank. I was very careful not to touch the water too much by using a long pair of forceps so that the level of water remained the same.

I predicted that the bulbils would have a negative buoyancy which means that they would sink. Most of them did but a lot of them did not. I left them over night to see if anything would happen but unfortunately, I returned to the same results the following morning. The most logical reasoning for the bulbils not sinking was the fact that they began to lose water in the zip lock bags that they were enclosed in, in the freezer. I noticed that when I took the weights of the bulbils after I retrieved them from the water, they actually lost about half of their original mass. Therefore, Dr. Aronson and I decided that we would start the whole experiment over with fresh bulbils that we had stored. This time we agreed that we would do all of the measurements and timing of sinking at one time to prevent the bulbils from drying out between measurements. This is also all a part of the research process. Sometimes it means perfecting an experiment as many times as you need to, in order to ensure that it is successful. I am grateful for all of these experiences because it is helping me to become a better research student.

Myself along with Dr. Aronson, Mr. Weiss, and our Locust Valley High school student all went out to Prospect Park last week Friday to add another site to my diversity sampling of invaded and non-invaded areas. However, there was not much to sample from at this site due to the small size of the invasion and environmental conditions (Norway Maples casting deep shade).