Q&A: Diatom matchmaker makes microscopic organisms relatable

What diatom is most like you? The average person has probably never asked what they have in common with these unique microscopic species of algae, but a new interactive project from the St. Croix Watershed Research Station can help you think about the incredible richness of life in our lakes and rivers.

Different diatom species thrive in different water conditions, and they create glass shells that can last a long time in lake sediments. This means it’s possible to understand what the water was like in the past by examining what diatoms were there.

Tori Thrash

This winter, Tori Thrash, the Environmental Research Fellow at the Research Station, launched an online personality quiz so anyone can match up with one of several species of diatoms.

Thrash graduated from the University of Iowa in 2019 with a B.S in Environmental Science, Minor in Biology, and a Certificate in Sustainability. In the summer of 2018, she was introduced to diatoms during a four-week experiential field and lab course at Iowa Lakeside Lab in Okoboji, IA on the Ecology and Systematics of Diatoms taught by Mark Edlund (SCWRS senior scientist) and Sylvia Lee. The next summer, she came back to Lakeside as the teaching assistant (John Kingston Diatom Fellow) for the class.

Thrash has spent the last several months working at the Research Station getting hands-on experience conducting environmental research — including working on projects that include using diatoms as environmental proxies to understand lake conditions in the past.

Here’s more about Thrash, diatoms, and how this idea came to life.

Discovering diatoms

“I discovered what a diatom was the summer before my junior year of college when I took the class at Lakeside Lab. It felt so refreshing to discover something for the first time. I had no idea what diatoms were and suddenly I got to see hundreds of species that we sampled from different ecosystems like lakes, fens, prairie kettle holes, vernal pools, rivers, creeks, and streams! I fell in love with getting to experience totally new ecosystems and got so excited to see new things under the microscope. 

“There are an estimated 20,000 to 2 million species of diatoms so, chances are that when I look at a slide from a new location, I will see a diatom that I never have before. 

“The only way I can describe studying diatoms is like being an art collector, a detective, and a genealogist on top of being a naturalist, an ecologist, and limnologist.”

“Once you see just a little bit of the vast diversity of diatoms, you will understand why people become fascinated by them. Their glass cell walls are so ornate and beautiful. Each species has a unique morphology that corresponds with their environmental tolerances and the ecological niches that they fill. 

“We can use this idea that different genera or species of diatoms prefer certain environmental conditions to create an estimate of what environments were like in the past, based on diatom assemblages. For instance, there are some diatoms that outcompete other species when there are more available nutrients; when you see that these diatoms were present in the past, it’s your turn to figure out why nutrients were higher. Did logging and runoff occur? Was there a source of direct nutrient pollution? 

“The only way I can describe studying diatoms is like being an art collector, a detective, and a genealogist on top of being a naturalist, an ecologist, and limnologist.”

Unique outreach

“Part of my job as the Fellowship at the station is to help with outreach. I was invited to help with the SCWRS booth at the SMM event called Behind the Sciences on MLK day. The event featured the work that the SMM research and collections staff does every day. 

“The goal was to engage with the community about our science to promote curiosity and encourage learning.

“Before I found environmental science, I was an education major and an artist. Both of these interests bleed into my life as a scientist.”

“I began brainstorming some ideas that would fit within those goals that people of all ages would enjoy. I let my sense of humor guide me, I giggled at the idea of creating a diatom personality quiz inspired by those that you find on Facebook  about which Disney or Harry Potter character you are most similar to, based on questions that are supposed to reflect your personality traits and preferences. After surveying some staff at SCWRS they seemed to really like the idea too.”

Sharing microscopic 

“I thought that a personality quiz could allow people to make connections between how they live and thrive and how other organisms do the same, even the ones we cannot see with the unaided eye. 

“I wanted to get people thinking about the basic ideas of biology and ecology, help them understand why there is so much diversity on Earth, and introduce them to diatoms an important facet of research at the station. And I wanted the quiz to be an example of how diverse diatoms are, how they fit into different ecological niches, and how they help with water quality research. This was a way to demonstrate how ‘form follows function.’

“Something I love about outreach and education is how I can express my creativity and love for learning. Before I found environmental science, I was an education major and an artist. Both of these interests bleed into my life as a scientist. This was a really fun way to express my interests and interact with people to get them excited about learning.”

Take the quiz!

Take our quiz: What kind of diatom are you?

Do you enjoy working alone or thrive in big groups? Have you ever stolen a french fry off of your friend’s plate?

Answer these questions to find out which freshwater diatom (aka tiny algae) you’re most like.

Our current Environmental Research Fellow Tori Thrasher developed this quiz to help people understand why diatoms are critical to our understanding of water quality, and how each one can indicate different environmental conditions.

Take the quiz here

Registration now open for 2019 St. Croix River Research Rendezvous

The St. Croix River Research Rendezvous, held annually in October, brings together scientists, resource managers, agency staff and the interested public to hear presentations about research plans, projects, and findings in the St. Croix watershed.

The conference fee is $45 and includes continental breakfast, breaks, lunch, and frolic). Optional Lodging at SCWRS on 10/21 and 10/22 is $55 per night.

Please register by October 15, 2019. Late fee will apply to all registrations received after this date.

Register online

Can’t register online? Please call (651) 433-5953 ext. 10. Additional information at www.smm.org/rendezvous.

Tentative Program Schedule

Session 1: Current Research in the St. Croix River Watershed

• Breaking the St. Croix Down Into Bite-Sized Pieces
• Engaging Agricultural Stakeholder in Development of the Lower St. Croix “One Watershed Plan”
• The Effect of Habitat Conditions on Lumbricidae Population in the St. Croix State Park (Edgewood High School students)
• Minnesota Master Naturalists and University Researcher Study Life History Needs of a Local Native Mussel

Session 2 Retrospective: Policy and Advocacy in St. Croix Scenic Riverway

• Creating the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway – Julie Galonska, Saint Croix National Scenic Riverway superintendent
• Revisiting the History of the St. Croix Basin Water Resources Planning Team: What’s Next?

Session 3 Retrospective: Biological Studies within the St. Croix River Watershed

• Reflections on Water, Wetlands, and Unsung Heroes: If We Don’t Look, We Don’t See
• Inspired by the Mollusk Diversity of the St. Croix–MN DNR is Restoring Mussles in Other Rivers

Session 4 Retrospective: Water Quality Studies, Standards and Protection

• Tale of Two Rivers – Dan Engstrom, Retired, Director emeritus, St. Croix Watershed Research Station
• Monitoring Lake St. Croix: Setting Standards and Monitoring Progress – Kent Johnson, Retired, Metropolitan Council
• Hydrologic Models in the St. Croix: Wherefore, Whence, and Whither – Jim Almendinger, Director, St. Croix Watershed Research Station; Richard Kiesling, U.S. Geological Survey

Session 5: Closing Remarks

• If you Build It, Will They Come? – Ron Lawrenz, Retired, Director, St. Croix Watershed Research Station and Warner Nature Center
• Recognition and Farewell to the Lee & Rose Warner Nature Center – Vikki Getchell, Director, Warner Nature Center

You Don’t Keep Bees, Bees Keep You: Lessons From A First-Time Apiarist

By Erin Mittag. Erin worked at the Research Station as lab technician until May 2015. She is currently legal assistant at the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.

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Photos courtesy Erin Mittag and Alaina Fedie

Last May, I stood in the St. Croix Watershed Research Station prairie holding a three-pound package of honey bees and wondering, with equal parts giddiness and terror, what I had gotten myself into. Buzzing at my feet were two more wood and wire packages of bees — 7,000 individual bees and one queen per package. Before me was a newly constructed bee yard, with three freshly-painted Langstroth hives waiting for their new residents.

None of the YouTube videos or conversations with experienced keepers could have fully prepared me for the process of hiving a colony. With considerable coaching from my partner in apiculture, Gary, I uncapped the package and shook the creatures en masse into the body of the hive. For a first-time keeper, the process was difficult, awesome, and thrilling; it was an exact indication of how the rest of the summer would be.

I decided to don the white suit and veil because I was captivated by bees and their complex societies. Also because, like many others caught up in this new wave of pollinator awareness, I wanted to know more about these essential yet imperiled cogs in our food system. To this point, I learned much but can offer nothing new to what has already been said by many researchers, long-time beekeepers, journalists, and advocates. Instead, I can speak to what my observations, participation, and interactions with the beekeeping community taught me about honeybees and those who keep them.

There is a vulnerability that must be embraced when keeping bees. This vulnerability is most immediately felt in the bee yard, where bee-generated vibrations and humming produce that familiar prickliness under the skin. If allowed, that prickliness can intensify to discomfort. My mind registers my protective gear and the rarity of stings, but my body remembers that a bee sting hurts like hell. These jitters meant that weekly hive inspections, which should be performed somewhat artfully to limit stress to the colony, were characterized by a humorous amount of fumbling, profanity, and the accidental squishing of a few (dozen) bees. For the sake of the colony and me, I had to learn to relax into the innate anxiety. Eventually I was able to shed the bulky gloves and heavy suit. I gained some dexterity and flexibility and the hive inspections have improved. By surrendering the protection and working with exposed hands, I can feel the minute air currents pushed by bee wings and the roughly 95℉ heat maintained in the hive by thousands of working bee bodies. And, more importantly, I am able to maintain my focus on the hive.

I am learning how to read the signs and understand the language of the alien city that is a beehive. I tracked the bees’ progress as they built comb on their frames and filled the hexagonal cells with pollen, nectar, and brood. I followed the cycle of brood development from egg to larva to pupa to adult. I learned that a worker bee’s job is roughly determined by her age, with younger bees working inside the hive and older bees foraging outside. Starting to understand the individual bee is essential to working with the entire colony.

I came to understand that a colony of bees, though containing tens of thousands of individuals, is one organism, with a unique personality and shifting moods. The characteristics of a colony can be influenced by the season, the availability of resources, and the disposition of the queen and her workers. This variability and flux means that, although there are many helpful resources for beekeepers, there is no step-by-step plan for beekeeping success. Despite a beekeeper’s best efforts, the colony will surprise. It may not make as much honey as imagined, but might surpass expectations in propolis use. It may decide one day that it needs a new queen, and, God forbid, half the colony may swarm. Puzzling out why the colony behaves the way it does is part of the fun, even if many of the answers remain elusive.

Not only is the colony an organism, it is an autonomous and wild creature. Bees have a range of up to five miles, meaning mine are able to explore the forbs in the Research Station prairie, the dandelions, gardens, and landscaping in the neighbors’ yards, a small section of the St. Croix River, the large fields of corn and soybeans, and other beehives. Those at the hive are subjected to the elements, predatory mammals and insects, and visits from uninvited bees looking to rob honey stores. Therefore, the colonies are vulnerable to natural dangers, potentially harmful chemicals, and hive diseases such as nosema, American foul brood, and the highly destructive varroa mites. Honey bees are tough, but they are up against a lot these days. I share in the colonies’ vulnerability, though certainly not to the same degree. My vulnerability in this regard comes from a lack of immediate control over what these bees, which I presume to keep, endure.

Ultimately what I have decided is that the term “beekeeper” makes me a bit uncomfortable. It is a title too reminiscent of “zookeeper.” It suggests that I have more control over the bees, their work, and their fate than I really do, and I suspect that even some veteran beekeepers would agree. Despite some of our best efforts, we “keepers” cannot always keep the bees from stinging, keep them from swarming, or keep them from any number of perils, known and unknown. Perhaps it would be more fitting to say that they keep me; they keep me guessing, enthralled, observant, and coming back for more.

People and Pollinators on the Prairie

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Photos by Adam Heathcote

Saturday July 18th was a scorching day following a stormy night. It was also the day of the research station’s “In Praise of Pollinators and Prairies” event. Despite a tent that blew down in strong winds that also took down nearby trees overnight, and a hot and humid morning, almost 80 people came to tour the prairies, hear from expert speakers, and learn how native plants and insects depend on each other.

Thank you to the presenters and to everyone who joined us! Below are summaries from a couple of our speakers.

Vera Krischik: Neonicotinoid Insecticides Harm Pollinators

Dr. Krischik is an associate professor of entomology at the University of Minnesota.

• The class of neonicotinoids insecticides are highly toxic to honey bees and other pollinators. They are systemic, meaning that they are taken up by a plant’s vascular system and expressed through pollen, nectar and guttation droplets on leaf tips from which bees forage and drink.
• Research has shown that sublethal exposure to neonicotinoid insecticides causes significant problems for bee health, including disruptions in mobility, navigation, feeding, foraging, memory, learning, and overall hive activity.
• Insecticides are also suspected to affect honey bees’ immune systems, making them more vulnerable to parasites and other pathogens.

Seed treated crops usually demonstrate less than 7.6 ppb in pollen or nectar. Research has not shown dramatic effects on honey bee colonies. In landscape and greenhouses higher rates of neonicotinoids are used compared to seed treatments. A canola and corn seed is coated with 0.11 mg and 0.625 mg of imidacloprid—while a 3 gallon pot in the nursery can have 300 mg applied according to the label.

In order to mitigate the effects of any systemic insecticides that may have been applied before you purchased a plant, please take these simple steps:

1. Do not use systemic insecticides on plants in flowers or on bee-friendly plants.
2. Remember most plants purchased at garden centers are not utilized by bees, butterflies, or beneficial insects. If a systemic insecticide was used on these plants, it does not matter.
3. Modern roses with closed buds are not visited by beneficial insects.
4. Old fashioned roses with open flowers are visited by beneficial insects. Observe the flowers and see if the bees sit on the flowers for 15 minutes without moving. If they do, then remove the top 12 inches of the plant every 2 weeks to remove the pesticide.
5. If you purchase a flowering shrub and observe bees sitting for 15 minutes in the flowers, then remove the flowers the first season.

Karen Oberhauser: Where are all the Monarchs?

Dr. Oberhauser is a professor in the Monarch Lab at the University of Minnesota.

Monarchs are fascinating insects with an amazing, multi-generational migration. Their habitats along their migration route as well as their wintering grounds in Mexico have declined significantly—but there are things people can do to help the monarch populations. These include: plant habitat with plants that monarchs love, including both their milkweed host plants for the caterpillars and a variety of flowering plants as nectar sources for the adult butterflies; support organizations that foster such habitat; educate others about what they can do to help monarchs; and join a citizen science effort to help track and protect monarchs.

More

• The Interconnected Prairie, by Suzanne Lindgren in the Country Messenger newspaper
• Pollinators Provide Purpose for the Prairies, by Greg Seitz in Field Notes

Field trip to the field station

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For the second year in a row, Jill Coleman-Wasik, assistant professor at University of Wisconsin – River Falls, brought her Environmental Analysis students to the research station for an afternoon of hands-on learning.

Jill served as lab manager at the station from 2001 – 2013 and is now faculty at UW-RF. She is doing big things, particularly in regards to research and collaboration in the Kinnickinnic River watershed. She and her colleague Jarod Blades recently received a $30,000 university grant to organize the Kinnickinnic Watershed Consortium.

Her work in that watershed has made it into the classroom, too, and played a role in the analysis they did while visiting the station. More on that later. She said the biggest reason she brings students to the research station is the staff. It can be hard for undergrads to stay motivated while working through chemistry curriculum, but they are energized by a day at the research station.

“We come here because of the interaction with researchers and staff,” she said. “The people are second to none, and it’s good to see people who love their jobs. This is not just another workweek.”

The students moved between four primary stations, essentially following the path of the SCWRS’s research projects. Each station was led by one of our scientists, who showed them how they do what they do, and asked the students lots of questions to get them thinking about why we do what we do.

First, they went to the water. Mark Edlund took the young people down to the spring creek which flows through the station’s property, and collected samples of algae. He handed green globs to the students and asked them what it felt like. “Felt,” one said, and Mark was impressed. It’s one of the few species of algae with a common name, and it’s called “water felt.” Mark said a lot of people also think it feels like wet cat hair. They would later look at the algae under a microscope, in essence one of the final phases of analysis.

The next step in the research process was represented by sectioning sediment cores. Cutting them in two or four centimeter sections, they could match them with historic time periods. Lab technician Erin Mittag put the students to work cutting up cores and putting them in containers for further analysis.

From there, the samples might head to the lab, where lab manager Michelle Natarajan walked the students through the process of determining phosphorus levels. After learning about the chemistry of digestion, which allows the phosphorus from solid sediments to be put into solution, each group helped analyze sediment samples. When reactive chemicals were added to the liquid, a spectrum of blue appeared, the more intense the color, the more phosphorus in the sample. A lengthy process, each group got to see one step of the analysis, ending with results and possible interpretations.

In the microscope lab, everyone looked at diatoms through microscopes, under Mark’s guidance again. He showed two photos of diatoms side-by-side, both collected from Lake St. Croix. One sample was from a sediment core dated to the 1840s, and one to modern times. He asked them to point out differences between the two, kind of like a game from elementary school. The students eventually pointed out how there were a lot more diatoms in the modern sample, and they were circular. Mark explained how these indicators and others show there are more nutrients in the water now than 150 years ago.

The final part of the day was doing analysis of samples the students had brought with them. As part of professor Coleman-Wasik’s study of the Kinnickinnic River watershed, they wanted to measure the flow of a massive spring feeding Kelly Creek, an important tributary of the Kinni. One estimate was that it discharged 700,000 gallons per day, but believed that guess could be high. So they had dripped dye into the stream and then collected water downstream. Using the research station’s lab equipment, they could analyze the miniscule quantities of dye in the water, and determine how much was flowing down the creek.

Most of the students were environmental science majors. They wanted to use their education to further knowledge of ecological problems and solutions. Professor Coleman-Wasik said the feeling of doing real work for a good cause gave meaning to subject matter that can be pretty dry, “Knowing the results and contributions mean something, that makes it more interesting.”