Green roof extravaganza

In addition to the green roof experiment we set up last week on the Quinlan terrace garden, we set up Kelly Ksiazek's gene (pollen) flow experiment on 9 different green roofs around campus this week (we walked a total of 5 miles that day in order to do it!). The experiment will aim to track the movement of pollinators on all of the green roofs. In order to identify if pollinators travel to different roofs and pollinate a variety of locations, a DNA analysis will take place on three different varieties of native plants (Asclepias tuberosa, Penstemon hirsutus, Oenothera macrocarp) once they have been pollinated. There will be 15 of each of these species arrayed in a square with three plants (one of each species) at the corner points and in the center of the square. The square will be identical on all of the green roofs.

In this experiment, Kelly hopes to identify that pollinators do in fact move from green roof to green roof, or micro-climate to micro-climate, in order to relay the importance of neighboring green roofs acting as a diverse, pollinator-attracting, habitat islands that rely on and influence one another.

Here's a picture of the three plant species amongst the existing green roof: 

Top: Penstemon hirsutus, Left: Oenothera macrocarpa, and Bottom: Asclepias tuberosa

Each native species is pollinated by a different pollinator! The asclepias is pollinated by bumblebees and butterflies, the penstemon by small sweat bees and the oenothera by hawk moths. Kelly hopes to do many hours of pollinator observations (>100 hours) in order to verify the patterns she hopes to find in the DNA analysis. 

A corner of the "native" square

The natives surrounded by sedum!

Flourishing green roof

The green roof on de Nobili 

The de Nobili green roof overlooking IES

The hatch to the green roof on Quinlan LSB

It was quite a task to install this experiment on 9 different green roofs, but it sure was fun seeing all of the green roofs on campus. We even had to open a hatch to get to one of the green roofs. I felt pretty official.

Green roof lover

MIP

In other news, the MIP is doing very well and will be ready for analysis in a couple of weeks. I'm still working on writing the outline for my prospectus and researching soil nutrient analysis methods. There is certainly lots to do! See ya later! 

Here we go!

Last Thursday, May 29th, we set up our green roof experiment on the terrace garden of the Quinlan Life Sciences building! It's not quite a green roof, the roof is tiled, but it gets a lot of sun and is elevated (its on the 5th floor) so it mimics a green roof quite nicely.

Here are some pictures of the green roof once we set it up (it took about 2.5 hours to move all the trays from IES to the balcony!).

Green roof experiment

Today, Sarah, Kelly and I began to take data on the plants (height, width, density, notes on how it appeared). If I didn't have a farmer's tan already, I definitely do now! Soon, we will start to take data on the soil conditions (soil stability, soil organic matter, soil nutrient availability, moisture, temperature, etc.)

Our green roof in its urban setting!

Additionally, Sarah and I have decided on our own projects for the rest of our internship. I will be focusing on whether green roofs planted with native prairie plants or a non-native sedum mix are better at retaining storm water and insulating heat. I will be working with Dr. Chaudhary, Sarah, and Kelly to set up devices that will record the temperature hourly in hopes of identifying a difference in temperatures throughout the plants and tiles. I am still researching methods on how to measure storm water retention. More to come later! 

Also, we met with Katrina and are feeling a little bit better about soil nutrient analysis methods on the IC pro. We are hoping to set up some sort of training with someone who works for the company to get us off in the right direction. We are continuing to research methods for cation and anion extraction from a soil solution. Also more to come! 

Have a good week!