The Wrack

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&

Contents of the Fall 2011 issue of Watermark include&

On a classic October morning, a research team heads to the EliotSouth Berwick line, where a private landowner has opened his property for a Wells Reserve study of fish and fish habitat. Parking the pickup at the end of a long hayfield, the five gather up gear and step into a middle-aged pine-oak forest, then head downslope past ferns and toppled trees till the trail goes wet underfoot, the canopy breaks, and they stand at the edge of Shoreys Brook. This is headquarters for the next few hours. It is one of eight sites along the brooks 4.3 miles being surveyed for resident and migratory fish, and their habitat, in advance of a planned dam removal downstream.

The new issue of Watermark is in the mail to Laudholm Trust members and it's now available online, too. This issue contains information and images about&

The fall 2010 issue of our Watermark newsletter is now available as a PDF. You can download it here (3.5 MB).

With a camera and a computer you have everything you need to monitor habitat change over time at the Wells Reserve.

Rainwater harvesting can reduce flooding and erosion issues, as well as surface-water contamination, by slowing down and decreasing the volume of stormwater runoff. One way to harvest rainwater is by using a catchment technique such as rain barrels.

Flooding in York County  is it becoming more common? Roads impassable, bridges washed out, basements full... the stories have become all too familiar in recent years.

The Mother's Day storm in May 2006 seemed an anomaly till the Patriots' Day storm hit in 2007. This March, the Wells Reserve measured 16 inches of rainfall, 5 inches more than Portland's record-setting 11. The roads closed and the sump pumps hummed again.