Summer Week 2

The week of June 1-4 was spent processing the samples I collected from 40 acres of land just outside Show Low Jordan calls Tarantula Gardens.

I went to a few different sites on the land, chose a stand of juniper trees and marked off an area 35 feet around the trees using stakes. I collected samples from various plants inside the area and took notes and photos of the plants for later reference. I had intended to do three sites and collect some of the same species of plants at all the sites to see if there was a difference in endophytic colonization in the different areas. However, after building a fence all day I was so tired it didn't really work out that way. I collected ample samples from site number three and took a few samples of different species found at site two but then I was too bushed to continue and called it a day. I figured 24 samples was plenty to work with for awhile.

I made three major mistakes when I was collecting samples in Tarantula Gardens: 1. I didn't put each sample in its own individual bag but instead placed all samples of a certain size in one bag and all samples that were smaller in another bag. Despite noting in my lab book which bag I put each sample by the time I got back to the lab I couldn't tell any of the samples apart. This was especially true with the grass samples.
2. I didn't put a damp paper towel in the bags with the samples so by the time I was able to look at many of the plants they were dried out and brittle.
3. The photos I took of the plants were blurry, out of focus and did not include enough detail to identify any of the species. I need to be using a better camera meaning not my cell phone camera.


Tarantula Gardens Site #3:


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Summer Week 1

OK so I knew I needed to be blogging this summer, I've gotten several emails about it, but I couldn't find time with my math class. Summer classes move fast and I needed to spend as much time studying as possible. However, yesterday I had my final so now I have plenty of time to work on my blogs.

The last week of the Spring 2015 semester I made a pact with myself that I would take notes every single day that I was in the lab. I wont say that I've kept up with it 100% but I have been doing much better about keeping notes when in the lab. One day I will take beautiful, meticulous notes with ease.

I started the week by walking around campus and taking samples from some of the plants I found. I tried staining them with coomassie blue and rose bengal dye but was struggling with getting the dye to stick to the fungal mycelium and also with the rose bengal dye being too thick. I also didn't like the layout I chose for recording my notes and resolved to change it in the future.

On Thursday I went to Pinetop to visit and take more samples.

Week 14

This is the last blog post for this semester! I cant believe how fast it went! I'm looking forward to the break. Now all I have to do is get through the week from hell and it will be smooth sailing from there. 

This week in lab I worked on my poster some more. It looks like I've finally got it done. Its nice to have that marked off the list. Now all I need to worry about is what I'm going to say to the judges when they walk by. To be honest I'm more worried about the fifteen minute oral presentation I have to give the same day about Happiness in Animals. I should have said no to the coordinators when they asked me to do the second one.  Oh well. Keep on trucking. 

Here is a photo of one of the flowers in my garden because they make me happy

Week 13

Nine hours a week seems like so few sometimes. I often feel the week has flown by and little progress is being made. Then, surprisingly, we're at the end of the semester, I have at least some results, my poster is nearly done and finals are just around the corner. Its surreal that life moves forward in these little bursts of activity. 

Anyway this week in lab I worked on my poster for the Estrella Mountain Conference that is rapidly approaching. It seems to be coming together quite well. It took awhile to find a layout that I liked but once I did it has been smooth sailing. I have plenty of photos, some contributed by other stem scholars (thanks Amanda Goodson!), and I really feel like its looking good. Other than a graph or table to visually represent the scant results that I do have my poster is pretty much complete. Data analysis does not appear to be one of my strong suits but luckily that's Matt's forte. 

Here is a photo of some of the flowers I have been testing around campus:

Week 12

This week in lab we got our Estrella Mountain proposal results back. As far as I'm aware nearly everyone got accepted. Congrats everyone! Now we have to remember the the original purpose of our research, build a poster and tell a room full of people about it as if we actually know what is going on. All without having had enough time to generate any actual results. To be completely honest this all seems a little like a farce. 

For me personally this will be even more ludicrous as my English class also made me put in a proposal and that one was accepted too. I feel like I'm going to be running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to explain things I don't understand to people who know just barely less than I do. Is this what science always feels like? 

Cory and I talked and she made me see that this stuff is good practice for my real life. It can only get easier as I get more practice with these kinds of things. I really appreciated the new view point :) 

Here is a picture of an ornate tree lizard that my cat killed. This is the same speices we use to have in our little lizard cage in lab. You can tell from the blue belly strips that it was a male.

Week 11

Just so everyone knows I title my posts so boringly because it helps me keep tract of where we are in the semester. Now I've realized that we started blogging a few weeks after the semester started so I'm lost again. All I know is that its all coming to an end pretty soon here. Thanks the gods.

This week in lab I've done more of the same. I redid my original experiment. So mostly this week I made agar, added antibiotics, sterilized plant tissues and put them on my agar plates. This way I can show that my original results were not just a fluke and perhaps even be able to isolate a few more species of endophytes. 

This week I was also given a gift of a spectrophotometer. Its really old, probably from the 60's or so and I cant seem to get it to work. The light goes on but the dial doesn't register anything. I figured the % absorbance was being measured so I added food coloring to a vial but nothing changed. Does anyone know an old professor who might be able to fix my cool new toy?

Week 10

This week in lab I mostly looked for endophytes in various different plant species. Matt and Josh helped a lot. Matt went out out gathered different kinds of desert plants and all three of us sat around attempting to find endophytes in their tissues. We found a few in mesquite and the endophyte infused grasses that I planted earlier in the semester. It took forever but Josh was finally able to get a few pictures with the ipad. This is an art that requires finesse and patience. 

I also decided to rerun my orginal experiment to see if the results are the same. I sterilized and plated oleander tissues first because most of my suspected endophytes came from oleander. Next week I'll get the other two species on my list done. 

I believe this is a grass blade. You can see the fungal hyphae coming out of the plnt tissue here: