The Wrack

Doing a butterfly sit instead of a bird walk.

On Sunday, August 26^th, I attended an afternoon concert at The Colony Hotel. One hundred fellow music lovers and I enjoyed a dozen classical piano duets by maestro Warren King and his college roommate, recording artist David Pihl. Ticket proceeds came to the Laudholm Trust  it was music played for the benefit of science. What better accompaniment to our special nature at the Reserve than the seashell symmetries of Bachs cantatas or the sunflower melodies of Mozart?

Jennifer Dijkstra was always going to be a scientist. As a child summering on Grand Manan, she clambered over the islands rocky shoreline grabbing fistfuls of seaweed and peering into shallow waters to spy on crabs and snails. This summer shes been doing the same thing, but with three degrees of separation (BS, MS, and PhD), she now calls her objects of interest Ascophyllum, Carcinus, and Littorina.

For many budding biologists, the journey from tide pool playground to salt marsh research transect stops short. For Dr. Dijkstra, research scientist at the Wells Reserve, the dream came true.

Since her arrival at the Wells Reserve at Laudholm in 2008, research scientist Dr. Jennifer Dijkstra has followed two main lines of inquiry. In addition to investigating seaweed, crab, and snail interactions in the salt marsh, she has also looked into how climate change may affect mercury accumulation in coastal food webs.

When Jenn started her post-doctoral fellowship, research director Michele Dionne asked her to work on mercury. "It was a little daunting," Jenn admits. "I had never worked on contaminants, and mercury is not a straightforward contaminant."

Contents of the Summer 2012 issue of Watermark include&

Back in July, Wells Reserve staff and interns teamed up with volunteers from the Sebago Chapter of Trout Unlimited and bravely struck out on an ambitious survey of road-stream crossings in the Kennebunk River, Merriland River, and Branch Brook. The teams worked hard and surveyed an amazing 81 road-stream crossings in only three days!

I led one of the survey teams and let me tell you, that data was hard-earned! Once we had located a crossing, we had to battle thick brush, mud, poison ivy and steep slopes of riprap to reach the stream. To measure the length of a crossing, we sometimes had to crawl through a culvert from one end to the other, dodging spider webs along the way. Besides being a fun excuse to go crashing through woods and splashing through rivers, this survey was an important way to gather data that will be used by town planners, landowners, conservation groups, and other stakeholders to reconnect stream habitat in these watersheds.

Last week, a group of sixteen devoted volunteers set to work to rescue the eggs and caterpillars of the Monarch Butterfly. Within the next week or two, many of the fields at the Wells Reserve at Laudholm will be mowed.?Annual mowing of select fields is necessary?to prevent important field habitat from growing up into forests, and to combat the spread of invasive species. The mowing is done in late summer, after field nesting birds like the Bobolink?have finished rearing their young.

While spending my summer as a research intern at the Wells Reserve, I have had the opportunity to participate in a project monitoring how land development in southern Maine is affecting freshwater ecosystems that provide habitat for many macroinvertebrate and fish species like brook trout. Though it has been observed that the land development occurring here has not reached the scale of the degradation found in other areas along the east coast, like the Chesapeake Bay region, it is imperative that this does not change as future development occurs. When new homes are built in an area, there are simple steps local landowners can take to help preserve the existing natural ecosystems on or around their own property.

I want to share some pictures that highlight some nice days for research throughout the local area, including the Saco River, the Merriland River, Branch Brook, the Little River Salt Marsh, and Big Daddy's Ice Cream.