R Stats Package

Last week Dr. Ohsowski, a professor at Loyola, gave our lab group a nice introduction to R. This week, I have tried to learn a little more about R and to begin analyzing my data in R, but I'm having a hard time. I am hoping to get a little more guidance apart from the internet at this point. I hope by next week I will be back on my way. Until then, I will continue to fight the internet for help! 

Wish me luck!

Spring 2015 Semester Has Begun!

Welcome back! 

The last semester of my college career has begun! I am both happy, sad, terrified and excited for what is next to come. Until then though, I have a lot left to do! This semester I have to analyze all of the temperature and water retention data I have collected on our experimental trays. I am tackling the temperature data first. This week I am compiling all of the data into one excel file and then double checking that it is correct. I will then begin to take monthly averages of our different treatments and compare them. I will do a lot of analysis with this data eventually but this sounded like a good start. 

Additionally, I need to share some pictures with you! Over winter break, Kelly and I took out the ibuttons, collected their data, reset them, and replaced them in their locations. At the CBG experimental site we had a tough time. The soil was frozen over so we tried warming the soil up with a hair dryer which didn't end up working. We ended up working really hard to dig down into the soil with a spoon. We were successful. 

CBG Experimental Site

CBG - isn't it beautiful?

LUC Experimental Site

Working hard despite the cold 

Despite the green roofs taking time to hibernate, a lot of work must be done. Here I go! 

Measuring Water-Holding Capacity and the Fall Semester is Complete!

Good news! I have measured the water-holding capacity of all 80 soil samples from both the Loyola and Chicago Botanic garden sites! Here are the results (more to come later on what this all actually means!):

Graph of Primary Results of Measuring Water-holding Capacity

I've also completed the Fall semester of my senior year! I have one more to go, and I will be continuing research next semester! Next semester, I will focus on learning the statistical package R and analyzing all the temperature and water-holding capacity data. I will present my results in a poster format and possibly a presentation in the Spring at the Undergraduate Research Symposium during Loyola's annual Weekend of Excellence. More to come on this later! 

Tomorrow and the next day, Kelly and I are going to take out and reset the i-buttons at both of our experimental sites before the harsh part of winter freezes them in the soil. I will take pictures to show you all what the other site looks like. Until then! 

Happy Holidays! 

Signing off...

More on Measuring Water-Holding Capacity

I am working hard to measure all of the water-holding capacities of the different experimental trays. I've gotten through over a 1/4 of all the 80 trays! Here is a graph of the first 25 trays from the Loyola experimental site. 

For both Prairie A and Prairie B, adding native inoculum increased water-holding capacity. However, it did not increase it significantly. Once all the trays have been completed, I am going to do significance tests in R with the data so more to come later of the results and analysis of the results. 

Have a great thanksgiving!

Measuring Water-holding Capacity

I've begun taking water-holding capacity tests for all of our experimental trays! The process took some thinking to develop, but once we nailed it down, it was pretty easy going.

Measuring water-holding capacity

The procedure is: 
 

I. Drying Soil

1.     Heat up soil drying oven to 105ºC for an hour

2.     Take bag of soil out of freezer and let thaw

3.     Sample 45 ml of soil and place in aluminum weight boat

4.     Place remaining soil in bag back in freezer

5.     Place the aluminum weigh boat with soil in drying oven

6.     Dry for at least 48 hours

7.     Remove weigh boat and place in desiccator if not used immediately

II. Measuring Water-holding Capacity

1.     Measure and record 40 ml of dried soil alone in a tared weigh boat

2.     Wet a folded filter paper by submerging entirely in a water bath

3.     Let the wet filter paper drain for one minute until it is no longer dripping

4.     Weigh and record the wet filter paper alone in a tared weigh boat

5.     Add the soil to the wet filter paper

6.     Add 50 ml of water slowly and all over to the soil

7.     Repeat step 6 two times

8.     Wait three minutes for the water to drain until it is no longer dripping

9.     Weigh and record wet soil in the wet filter paper in a tared weigh boat

10.  Measure and record volume of water that filtered through

I've already gotten through the first 10 trays which are all Prairie A native plants. The first five are with added native inoculum, the next five are added with sterilized inoculum. The average water holding capacity of the added native inoculated soils was higher than the average of the sterilized inoculated soils for Prairie A! This is great news because for the Prairie A, the addition of native inoculum improved storm water retention!

More results to come later!

I-button data collection and soil sampling

Green roof in September

Putting the ibuttons back and collecting soil

The last week of September was big week for us! Dr. Chaudhary and I collected all of the ibuttons from their experimental trays and downloaded the data off of them. Then, Kelly and I restarted their missions and placed them back in their locations. Sarah and I also took soil samples from each tray to begin doing tests on the soil. I will do water-holding capacity tests and Sarah will analyze for carbon! I am currently researching water-holding capacity methods and will hopefully have news on that in the next two weeks. Until then, I am going to start compiling the temperature data from the ibuttons! 

 



Here are some pictures from the big day! Yay data!

Fall Semester

The Fall semester of my senior year has begun!

I'm sorry I couldn't resist inserting one of my favorite Michael Scott moments...

More importantly, I will be continuing the research I began over the summer for credit this semester! I am also happy to say my partner in crime, Sarah, will be continuing research with me! She and I will be meeting with Dr. Chaudhary and other students working on lab related projects regularly in a small lab group meeting. My main goals for the semester are:  

• Collect the ibutton data in September, reset the ibuttons, replace them back outside in their experimental postions and then analyze the data
• If I have time, I will analyze the data with R, a statistical package, and compare it with daily temperature/precipitation data. This will provide us with a little more information on transpiration rate. If the temperature varies within the trays after rainfall, we will know that the cooler trays have the ability to not loose water as quickly as the other warmer trays.
•  Sample soil from experimental trays and measure water holding capacity of the different soils
•  Once collected, the soil is inundated with water using a can and filter setup. The soaked soil is weighed and then dried in an oven and then weighed once dry. The difference is the water-holding capacity in ml of water per gram of soil.
•  Complete my prospectus, which I will share with you of course! 

 I will keep you updated all along the way!