Siberia Blog

URPP GCB Siberia Blog 2013

First part of my field work: done!

25. July 2013 | Maitane Iturrate Garcia | Keine Kommentare |

by Maitane Iturrate

July 25, 2013

It is late July and outside is windy, rainy and very cold with temperatures of 5 degrees Celsius, but at least no mosquitos. We have reached the point where it is very difficult to know the date or how many days are left before returning home. Every day the same pattern: sleep, get up, have breakfast, work, have lunch, work, have dinner, carry wood, chop wood, sleep…

Today I am starting the second part of my field work. After two intense weeks of hard work with Olga, assessing the biodiversity of the area and the local flora, she left this morning. I am really grateful to her. I have learnt a lot about doing plant community descriptions, relevés, species names and features, how to do a herbarium, and many other things. I had sometimes difficulties in keeping up with her (she is full of energy), but we ended up with 120 species (or maybe more, we must wait for the specialists results for some of them). In addition, I have my first set of results for my plots species composition! It is great being able to see these results after so many hours of work, sweat, tears and nights without sleeping preparing the field plan for this year.

Species composition of the ridge and lowland plots in total number of species (Figure: M. Iturrate, 2013)

Species composition of the ridge and lowland plots in total number of species (Figure: M. Iturrate, 2013)

The second part of my fieldwork focuses on plant traits and abiotic variables at plot and individual scales, including plant architecture. There is still a lot of work outstanding and only “few” days left, but I am sure I will manage, especially considering that days are very, very long (still 24 hours of daylight). After six plots, the point quadrat method per species has no secrets for me :-). And the soil part is quite entertaining, a bit dirty, but lot of fun.

Soil sampling at the selected plots (Photos: M. Iturrate, 2013)

Soil sampling at the selected plots (Photos: M. Iturrate, 2013)

 

 

 

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