1 00:00:05,390 --> 00:00:08,040 - Our first speaker is Kate Buckman. 2 00:00:08,040 --> 00:00:09,450 She's a research scientist 3 00:00:09,450 --> 00:00:12,810 in the Superfund Research Program at Dartmouth College 4 00:00:12,810 --> 00:00:17,810 and is presenting Dragon Fly Larvae as Mercury Biosentinels: 5 00:00:18,030 --> 00:00:21,380 From National Parks to National Forests. 6 00:00:21,380 --> 00:00:22,840 Kate. - Great. 7 00:00:22,840 --> 00:00:24,220 Thank you Nancy. 8 00:00:24,220 --> 00:00:27,870 Hello everyone, nice to virtually see you. 9 00:00:27,870 --> 00:00:30,243 I'm gonna share my screen here. 10 00:00:31,350 --> 00:00:36,350 So I'm going to present an introductory talk basically 11 00:00:37,800 --> 00:00:41,610 to our dragon fly mercury project program 12 00:00:41,610 --> 00:00:43,170 that's currently being funded 13 00:00:43,170 --> 00:00:47,363 through the Forest Ecosystem Monitoring Fund. 14 00:00:48,450 --> 00:00:50,410 We just started the program this year, 15 00:00:50,410 --> 00:00:52,830 so we don't have a lot of data 16 00:00:52,830 --> 00:00:55,960 from the collections that happened this fall yet. 17 00:00:55,960 --> 00:00:57,857 And so it's gonna be telling you what we have done 18 00:00:57,857 --> 00:01:00,163 and what we're hoping to do in the future. 19 00:01:01,350 --> 00:01:03,150 A little bit of background about this, 20 00:01:03,150 --> 00:01:08,150 the lab that I work out of studies ecosystem contaminants, 21 00:01:08,480 --> 00:01:10,490 and a big thing that we study is mercury. 22 00:01:10,490 --> 00:01:12,370 And I'm sure that many of the people 23 00:01:12,370 --> 00:01:15,020 that are in this audience know that 24 00:01:15,020 --> 00:01:17,010 the forested landscapes in New England 25 00:01:17,010 --> 00:01:20,420 are particularly success susceptible to mercury pollution. 26 00:01:20,420 --> 00:01:25,040 We both receive a lot of mercury atmospheric deposition 27 00:01:25,040 --> 00:01:27,020 in Northern New England, 28 00:01:27,020 --> 00:01:31,530 and these forested landscapes can both enhance methylation 29 00:01:31,530 --> 00:01:35,240 or the transformation of inorganic mercury 30 00:01:35,240 --> 00:01:39,240 into the more bioavailable methylmercury form, 31 00:01:39,240 --> 00:01:44,240 and also can enhance this bioaccumulation of methylmercury. 32 00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:48,880 This has implications for both ecosystem and human health. 33 00:01:48,880 --> 00:01:51,350 One of the unique things about methylmercury 34 00:01:51,350 --> 00:01:54,070 is that it bio magnifies in the food chain, 35 00:01:54,070 --> 00:01:56,875 and so you get higher concentrations of it 36 00:01:56,875 --> 00:02:00,520 the higher you are in the food web. 37 00:02:00,520 --> 00:02:04,890 And so by the time you get up here to high trophic levels, 38 00:02:04,890 --> 00:02:08,436 exposure to methylmercury can cause a number of problems, 39 00:02:08,436 --> 00:02:10,230 particularly neurological, 40 00:02:10,230 --> 00:02:13,110 but also cardiac, reproductive. 41 00:02:13,110 --> 00:02:17,170 There are many effects to high levels of mercury exposure 42 00:02:17,170 --> 00:02:18,810 that we are concerned about 43 00:02:18,810 --> 00:02:21,700 and are interested in understanding 44 00:02:21,700 --> 00:02:24,530 why some areas are more susceptible 45 00:02:24,530 --> 00:02:28,653 to mercury bioaccumulation than others. 46 00:02:29,580 --> 00:02:31,360 Now the dragonfly mercury project 47 00:02:31,360 --> 00:02:34,000 is actually a long-standing project. 48 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:38,230 It started over 10 years ago by our collaborator, 49 00:02:38,230 --> 00:02:42,020 Dr. Sarah Nelson, who was then at the University Of Maine. 50 00:02:42,020 --> 00:02:44,420 She's currently the director of research 51 00:02:44,420 --> 00:02:46,540 at the Appalachian Mountain Club. 52 00:02:46,540 --> 00:02:48,940 And it started as an educational program 53 00:02:48,940 --> 00:02:51,970 in schools in Maine. 54 00:02:51,970 --> 00:02:55,700 And this rapidly grew into what is now 55 00:02:55,700 --> 00:02:59,810 the National Park Service Dragon Fly Mercury Project, 56 00:02:59,810 --> 00:03:01,870 which I'm gonna talk about some of their data 57 00:03:01,870 --> 00:03:03,540 a little bit more. 58 00:03:03,540 --> 00:03:06,510 But it is a community science initiative 59 00:03:06,510 --> 00:03:11,510 using park visitors to collect dragon fly larvae 60 00:03:11,810 --> 00:03:15,020 to look at mercury bioaccumulation 61 00:03:15,020 --> 00:03:16,990 and to use as a bio-monitoring tool 62 00:03:16,990 --> 00:03:19,690 in national parks across the US. 63 00:03:19,690 --> 00:03:21,680 Dragon fly larvae are good for this 64 00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:23,050 because they're pretty common, 65 00:03:23,050 --> 00:03:25,451 they are easy to collect and find, 66 00:03:25,451 --> 00:03:28,170 they're in the middle of the food chain, 67 00:03:28,170 --> 00:03:29,480 but they are predatory 68 00:03:29,480 --> 00:03:32,270 and so they're really representative of these food webs 69 00:03:32,270 --> 00:03:34,093 in these aquatic water bodies. 70 00:03:35,733 --> 00:03:37,330 And they also exhibit site fidelity, 71 00:03:37,330 --> 00:03:38,390 so they stay in one place 72 00:03:38,390 --> 00:03:39,900 and they stay there for a long time, 73 00:03:39,900 --> 00:03:43,290 and so they are very representative of what's going on 74 00:03:43,290 --> 00:03:46,170 in terms of mercury transformations, 75 00:03:46,170 --> 00:03:47,810 and bioaccumulation and fate 76 00:03:47,810 --> 00:03:50,910 within the water bodies that you collect them from. 77 00:03:50,910 --> 00:03:53,820 And the National Park Service Dragonfly Mercury Project 78 00:03:53,820 --> 00:03:55,170 has been very successful. 79 00:03:55,170 --> 00:03:58,690 It's one of the largest mercury data sets that we know of, 80 00:03:58,690 --> 00:04:00,712 and it's been able to show variation 81 00:04:00,712 --> 00:04:03,870 in these dragon fly larvae by eco region, 82 00:04:03,870 --> 00:04:07,010 across families, by water body types, 83 00:04:07,010 --> 00:04:11,380 but it's not well-represented in Northern New England. 84 00:04:11,380 --> 00:04:13,120 You can see in this map here, 85 00:04:13,120 --> 00:04:15,800 there are a couple of sites in New Hampshire and Vermont 86 00:04:15,800 --> 00:04:17,460 and a couple in Maine, 87 00:04:17,460 --> 00:04:19,600 but this New Hampshire, Vermont region 88 00:04:19,600 --> 00:04:23,090 that we are interested in is not well represented 89 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:27,330 within the National Park Service Program. 90 00:04:27,330 --> 00:04:29,260 Dartmouth has had a parallel track 91 00:04:29,260 --> 00:04:31,170 of the Dragon Fly Mercury Project, 92 00:04:31,170 --> 00:04:33,840 where we have continued to work in schools. 93 00:04:33,840 --> 00:04:36,130 And we felt like this was an opportunity 94 00:04:36,130 --> 00:04:38,840 to use this educational program 95 00:04:39,700 --> 00:04:41,980 to both continue that and expand it 96 00:04:41,980 --> 00:04:45,650 within the rural ecosystems in Vermont and New Hampshire, 97 00:04:45,650 --> 00:04:50,650 and to give it a larger aspect of bio-monitoring. 98 00:04:51,970 --> 00:04:54,010 And so we felt we had the opportunity 99 00:04:54,010 --> 00:04:57,490 to add really important data points to Northern New England, 100 00:04:57,490 --> 00:05:00,110 complimenting both the National Park Service dataset 101 00:05:00,110 --> 00:05:02,180 and our Dartmouth school-based dataset. 102 00:05:02,180 --> 00:05:06,270 And so we were really pleased to get funding from FEMC 103 00:05:06,270 --> 00:05:07,970 in order to be able to do that. 104 00:05:07,970 --> 00:05:12,050 And so this expansion started this year, 105 00:05:12,050 --> 00:05:14,140 and I'm just gonna sort of walk you through 106 00:05:14,140 --> 00:05:15,913 what we've done so far with it. 107 00:05:17,570 --> 00:05:20,743 First was looking for sites. 108 00:05:22,310 --> 00:05:25,880 We needed to go out and find sites, 109 00:05:25,880 --> 00:05:28,027 particularly in the Green Mountain National Forest 110 00:05:28,027 --> 00:05:29,660 and the White Mountain National Forest, 111 00:05:29,660 --> 00:05:32,920 which were areas that we were interested in looking at 112 00:05:32,920 --> 00:05:35,600 in order to compliment the National Park Service. 113 00:05:35,600 --> 00:05:40,600 And so beginning in late August, early September this year, 114 00:05:42,090 --> 00:05:43,940 we went out and visited a bunch of sites 115 00:05:43,940 --> 00:05:46,950 along with our established sites through the school systems. 116 00:05:46,950 --> 00:05:48,650 And so these are just a couple of pictures 117 00:05:48,650 --> 00:05:51,020 of some of the areas that we've sampled. 118 00:05:51,020 --> 00:05:54,620 This top area here is the Saxtons River, 119 00:05:54,620 --> 00:05:58,180 and this is actually representative of what's turned out 120 00:05:58,180 --> 00:06:01,290 to not be a particularly good sampling site. 121 00:06:01,290 --> 00:06:03,580 I did say that the dragon fly larvae are ubiquitous 122 00:06:03,580 --> 00:06:04,580 and they're easy to find, 123 00:06:04,580 --> 00:06:06,760 but you can see this as a really rocky stream 124 00:06:06,760 --> 00:06:10,360 and we did not have a good luck sampling here. 125 00:06:10,360 --> 00:06:13,280 The lower one is Marshall Pond in Unity, 126 00:06:13,280 --> 00:06:15,810 which is on conservation land in Unity, 127 00:06:15,810 --> 00:06:17,710 and it is an excellent site. 128 00:06:17,710 --> 00:06:21,240 It has a little bit of mucky bottom. 129 00:06:21,240 --> 00:06:23,350 There's some vegetation around the edges, 130 00:06:23,350 --> 00:06:26,430 and we found a lot of dragon fly larvae there. 131 00:06:26,430 --> 00:06:28,850 So you can see in the map on the left, 132 00:06:28,850 --> 00:06:32,750 the purple dots are sites that we collected from 133 00:06:32,750 --> 00:06:35,190 in September and October. 134 00:06:35,190 --> 00:06:37,870 The blue circles are areas that we visited 135 00:06:37,870 --> 00:06:39,180 with the intention to collect 136 00:06:39,180 --> 00:06:42,670 but were not able to collect any larvae there 137 00:06:42,670 --> 00:06:44,070 for a variety of reasons. 138 00:06:44,070 --> 00:06:46,800 In one site, the water level was actually too high 139 00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:48,810 from all of the rain earlier. 140 00:06:48,810 --> 00:06:51,430 And then the yellow dot is a site that we visited 141 00:06:51,430 --> 00:06:55,380 and I intended to go back and sample at and ran out of time, 142 00:06:55,380 --> 00:06:58,330 and so we're actually gonna add that to our list of sites 143 00:06:58,330 --> 00:07:01,510 that we'll be sampling in 2022 as well. 144 00:07:01,510 --> 00:07:03,940 So what do we actually do when we sample? 145 00:07:03,940 --> 00:07:07,643 This does continue to be a community science initiative. 146 00:07:09,160 --> 00:07:13,860 And so we go out with volunteers or with schools 147 00:07:13,860 --> 00:07:15,210 to do these collections, 148 00:07:15,210 --> 00:07:16,890 and we utilize similar methods 149 00:07:16,890 --> 00:07:20,530 to the National Parks Service Dragon Fly Mercury Project 150 00:07:20,530 --> 00:07:21,938 as well. 151 00:07:21,938 --> 00:07:23,540 And so we go out there, 152 00:07:23,540 --> 00:07:27,370 we train our collectors in clean hands, dirty hands, 153 00:07:27,370 --> 00:07:29,650 how to catch the dragon fly larvae, 154 00:07:29,650 --> 00:07:31,390 how to recognize them, 155 00:07:31,390 --> 00:07:33,510 and how to bag them up cleanly 156 00:07:33,510 --> 00:07:36,100 so that we can use them for mercury analysis. 157 00:07:36,100 --> 00:07:39,620 We also do some colorimetric water quality analysis 158 00:07:41,270 --> 00:07:43,240 just to collect a little more data 159 00:07:43,240 --> 00:07:45,510 and get our participants more engaged 160 00:07:45,510 --> 00:07:47,210 in learning more about the environment 161 00:07:47,210 --> 00:07:49,300 that they're working in as well. 162 00:07:49,300 --> 00:07:52,650 So we do collections in the late summer through early fall, 163 00:07:52,650 --> 00:07:55,660 and then the lead collector, which often is me, 164 00:07:55,660 --> 00:07:59,950 but in cases of schools is also the teacher who's leading, 165 00:07:59,950 --> 00:08:04,200 adds our data to an online community science platform 166 00:08:04,200 --> 00:08:06,120 called Anecdata.org, 167 00:08:06,120 --> 00:08:10,310 which is run through the MDI Biological Laboratory. 168 00:08:10,310 --> 00:08:12,010 So if you're interested in the data 169 00:08:12,010 --> 00:08:13,460 that we are collecting from this, 170 00:08:13,460 --> 00:08:18,170 they will be available there once this year's data 171 00:08:18,170 --> 00:08:19,083 have been added. 172 00:08:20,820 --> 00:08:22,870 And I really enjoy the collection events. 173 00:08:22,870 --> 00:08:24,130 I think they are a lot of fun 174 00:08:24,130 --> 00:08:27,120 and it's a wonderful way to get the participants out there 175 00:08:27,120 --> 00:08:28,950 and looking at some of our ecosystems 176 00:08:28,950 --> 00:08:31,710 that they may not know are there 177 00:08:31,710 --> 00:08:33,440 or know that there's cool things 178 00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:36,630 like dragon fly larvae living in them as well. 179 00:08:36,630 --> 00:08:38,570 So once we've completed the collections, 180 00:08:38,570 --> 00:08:41,730 we do field identifications 181 00:08:41,730 --> 00:08:44,933 with our our collection partners as well. 182 00:08:46,720 --> 00:08:50,920 USGS National Parks Service and University of Maine 183 00:08:50,920 --> 00:08:55,620 has this lovely publication that they have created, 184 00:08:55,620 --> 00:08:58,470 field cards for identifying dragon fly nymphs to family, 185 00:08:58,470 --> 00:09:00,140 and so we take that out with us 186 00:09:00,140 --> 00:09:03,290 and our volunteers do their best 187 00:09:03,290 --> 00:09:05,980 to figure out what we've caught. 188 00:09:05,980 --> 00:09:08,760 Sometimes we get things that aren't dragon fly larvae, 189 00:09:08,760 --> 00:09:11,410 and so we need to see what else is out there 190 00:09:11,410 --> 00:09:13,190 and separate which ones we want to keep 191 00:09:13,190 --> 00:09:14,640 and which ones we don't. 192 00:09:14,640 --> 00:09:18,510 And so we go through the process of measuring them, 193 00:09:18,510 --> 00:09:20,470 identifying them to family level, 194 00:09:20,470 --> 00:09:23,220 and bagging them up cleanly 195 00:09:23,220 --> 00:09:26,373 before the samples go back to Dartmouth for analysis. 196 00:09:27,650 --> 00:09:32,393 At Dartmouth, we check all the identifications, 197 00:09:33,720 --> 00:09:34,780 dry the samples, 198 00:09:34,780 --> 00:09:37,530 and then analyze them for total mercury 199 00:09:37,530 --> 00:09:40,230 by direct mercury analyzer. 200 00:09:40,230 --> 00:09:41,320 This year samples, 201 00:09:41,320 --> 00:09:44,150 which I had hoped to present some data to you, 202 00:09:44,150 --> 00:09:45,660 but is not going to happen, 203 00:09:45,660 --> 00:09:47,980 are still a work in progress, 204 00:09:47,980 --> 00:09:51,630 thanks to some instrument issues 205 00:09:51,630 --> 00:09:53,760 and some supply chain issues 206 00:09:53,760 --> 00:09:55,480 in getting everything we needed 207 00:09:55,480 --> 00:09:57,130 to get the instrument up and running. 208 00:09:57,130 --> 00:10:01,060 So stay tuned for those data. 209 00:10:01,060 --> 00:10:04,390 But we were able with our partners this year 210 00:10:04,390 --> 00:10:08,594 to collect 130 larvae from 10 sites 211 00:10:08,594 --> 00:10:10,788 in New Hampshire and Vermont. 212 00:10:10,788 --> 00:10:14,020 All of those sites, we will be visiting again next summer, 213 00:10:14,020 --> 00:10:18,340 as well as adding more sites in the Green Mountain 214 00:10:18,340 --> 00:10:20,683 and White Mountain National Forests as well. 215 00:10:24,840 --> 00:10:28,200 So what are we actually gonna do with this data 216 00:10:28,200 --> 00:10:30,430 once we do get them? 217 00:10:30,430 --> 00:10:32,163 And so last year, 218 00:10:33,620 --> 00:10:36,290 Collin Eagle Smith and collaborators 219 00:10:36,290 --> 00:10:38,850 published a really great paper 220 00:10:38,850 --> 00:10:42,840 based on the National Park Service Dragon Fly Mercury data 221 00:10:42,840 --> 00:10:44,680 that they had to date. 222 00:10:44,680 --> 00:10:46,460 And one of the things that they did 223 00:10:46,460 --> 00:10:48,170 that was really important, 224 00:10:48,170 --> 00:10:50,360 and I actually highly recommend that you read this paper, 225 00:10:50,360 --> 00:10:52,500 if you're interested in bio-monitoring, 226 00:10:52,500 --> 00:10:53,993 particularly for mercury, 227 00:10:56,120 --> 00:10:57,440 I thought it was a great paper. 228 00:10:57,440 --> 00:11:01,040 And they were able to find relationships 229 00:11:01,040 --> 00:11:05,240 between the dragon fly mercury concentrations 230 00:11:05,240 --> 00:11:07,650 and the concentrations in fish. 231 00:11:07,650 --> 00:11:09,420 And from these relationships 232 00:11:09,420 --> 00:11:11,530 that they'd established from samples collected 233 00:11:11,530 --> 00:11:13,380 all over the US, 234 00:11:13,380 --> 00:11:18,380 they were able to create an integrated impairment index 235 00:11:18,670 --> 00:11:23,670 which predicts from the dragon fly larvae concentrations, 236 00:11:24,040 --> 00:11:26,810 where you would expect to see mercury impairments 237 00:11:26,810 --> 00:11:30,970 within water bodies in terms of fish concentrations 238 00:11:30,970 --> 00:11:33,970 and what would be an ecological health hazard 239 00:11:33,970 --> 00:11:35,790 and a human health hazard 240 00:11:35,790 --> 00:11:38,293 based on various impairment indices. 241 00:11:39,810 --> 00:11:44,760 And so our intention is to do a similar process 242 00:11:44,760 --> 00:11:46,810 for the samples that we are collecting 243 00:11:46,810 --> 00:11:49,650 through this bio monitoring in New Hampshire and Vermont 244 00:11:49,650 --> 00:11:50,970 through this project. 245 00:11:50,970 --> 00:11:54,913 And so one of the things that you have to do with this, 246 00:11:55,820 --> 00:11:57,210 following the same process, 247 00:11:57,210 --> 00:12:02,210 is transform the family specific data 248 00:12:02,750 --> 00:12:05,670 into what we call an Aeshnid equivalent mercury, 249 00:12:05,670 --> 00:12:07,280 and so it's basically taking 250 00:12:07,280 --> 00:12:12,280 whatever family dragonflies that you have collected 251 00:12:12,630 --> 00:12:14,610 and using the relationships 252 00:12:14,610 --> 00:12:17,090 established in the Eagle Smith et al paper 253 00:12:17,090 --> 00:12:20,720 to transform it into an Aeshnid which is one family. 254 00:12:20,720 --> 00:12:25,230 And what that concentration would be 255 00:12:25,230 --> 00:12:26,950 had you collected an Aeshnid there. 256 00:12:26,950 --> 00:12:29,940 And so we're going to use this model that they have created 257 00:12:29,940 --> 00:12:33,190 within the data that we are collecting 258 00:12:33,190 --> 00:12:37,770 in New Hampshire and Vermont as well. 259 00:12:37,770 --> 00:12:40,730 And so just to give you an idea of what this may look like, 260 00:12:40,730 --> 00:12:42,570 this is actually on the left, 261 00:12:42,570 --> 00:12:46,000 data that we've collected with Pelham High School 262 00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:48,210 for a number of years. 263 00:12:48,210 --> 00:12:53,210 And there is both temporal and spatial variability 264 00:12:53,360 --> 00:12:56,980 in these dragon fly data across the families 265 00:12:56,980 --> 00:12:58,460 as well as across the sites. 266 00:12:58,460 --> 00:13:02,310 And you can see the triangles within this graph are 267 00:13:05,630 --> 00:13:07,090 one site within Beaverbrook, 268 00:13:07,090 --> 00:13:10,670 which is actually a beaver pond in Beaverbrook 269 00:13:10,670 --> 00:13:14,730 and the circles are a different site in Beaverbrook. 270 00:13:14,730 --> 00:13:17,940 And so you can see there's spatial variability, 271 00:13:17,940 --> 00:13:22,080 both within the same water body, essentially, 272 00:13:22,080 --> 00:13:25,170 as well as across the state as well. 273 00:13:25,170 --> 00:13:28,760 We did collect preliminary data in 2020 274 00:13:28,760 --> 00:13:32,520 from four sites in the White Mountain National Forest, 275 00:13:32,520 --> 00:13:34,540 and when we look at these sites, 276 00:13:34,540 --> 00:13:36,680 comparing them to the Aeshnid equivalents 277 00:13:36,680 --> 00:13:39,140 and the integrated impairment index 278 00:13:39,140 --> 00:13:41,180 established in Eagle Smith et al, 279 00:13:41,180 --> 00:13:42,900 we see that most of these sites 280 00:13:42,900 --> 00:13:47,760 fall within the moderate impairment as far as mercury goes. 281 00:13:47,760 --> 00:13:51,220 And we sort of expect to see similar things 282 00:13:51,220 --> 00:13:53,090 across all of our sites 283 00:13:53,090 --> 00:13:55,670 that we will be sampling next year, 284 00:13:55,670 --> 00:13:58,180 and the ones that we haven't analyzed yet this year. 285 00:13:58,180 --> 00:14:00,418 I think I'm running out of time, 286 00:14:00,418 --> 00:14:04,203 and so I'm gonna go just to the, 287 00:14:05,150 --> 00:14:09,260 this one and say that we have a lot of help 288 00:14:09,260 --> 00:14:11,070 collecting these dragon fly larvae, 289 00:14:11,070 --> 00:14:14,160 and we really appreciate all this help, 290 00:14:14,160 --> 00:14:18,330 both from our school partners and our community partners 291 00:14:18,330 --> 00:14:21,530 who just came out and volunteered to go sample with us 292 00:14:21,530 --> 00:14:23,860 and many thanks to all of them. 293 00:14:23,860 --> 00:14:25,540 Thanks to the USDA Forest Service 294 00:14:25,540 --> 00:14:28,700 and the National Park Service for facilitating this work 295 00:14:28,700 --> 00:14:31,880 and helping get permits to do some of the work 296 00:14:31,880 --> 00:14:36,380 and particularly to the FEMC Ecosystem Monitoring Fund 297 00:14:36,380 --> 00:14:39,350 and our other funders who are helping fund this work 298 00:14:39,350 --> 00:14:40,750 this year and next year. 299 00:14:40,750 --> 00:14:44,150 And if you are interested in going out 300 00:14:44,150 --> 00:14:46,760 helping collect in 2022, 301 00:14:46,760 --> 00:14:49,800 please don't hesitate to get in touch with me. 302 00:14:49,800 --> 00:14:51,820 We would love to see you. 303 00:14:51,820 --> 00:14:54,683 So I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. 304 00:14:55,890 --> 00:14:57,230 It was very brief, 305 00:14:57,230 --> 00:15:00,030 and so if you want to talk about this 306 00:15:00,030 --> 00:15:01,670 at any point in the future 307 00:15:01,670 --> 00:15:03,460 and want more information as well, 308 00:15:03,460 --> 00:15:05,480 please don't hesitate to get in touch. 309 00:15:05,480 --> 00:15:06,643 Thank you so much. 310 00:15:08,560 --> 00:15:11,481 - [Nancy] People can either, if you have questions, 311 00:15:11,481 --> 00:15:15,250 you can post them in the chat and I'll read them to Kate, 312 00:15:15,250 --> 00:15:17,340 or if you want to just unmute yourself, 313 00:15:17,340 --> 00:15:20,253 you can do so and ask your question directly. 314 00:15:22,730 --> 00:15:24,140 I'll ask a question. 315 00:15:24,140 --> 00:15:26,290 Did you find that you had, 316 00:15:26,290 --> 00:15:28,770 like, did you feel like you said you went to some sites 317 00:15:28,770 --> 00:15:30,750 and you weren't able to collect data, 318 00:15:30,750 --> 00:15:34,260 did you feel that you still had a good representative sample 319 00:15:34,260 --> 00:15:35,093 in Vermont? 320 00:15:35,093 --> 00:15:36,500 Or if you do this work again, 321 00:15:36,500 --> 00:15:37,910 will you be adding more sites 322 00:15:37,910 --> 00:15:40,840 to make sure that you're covering what you want? 323 00:15:40,840 --> 00:15:43,270 - We actually are definitely adding more sites. 324 00:15:43,270 --> 00:15:47,750 So the funding through FEMC is for multiple years 325 00:15:47,750 --> 00:15:49,970 and it just started this fall, 326 00:15:49,970 --> 00:15:52,460 and so we're collecting next summer and next fall as well 327 00:15:52,460 --> 00:15:56,690 and we'll be adding a bunch more sites directly in. 328 00:15:56,690 --> 00:15:59,610 I'm hoping, particularly that big chunk of forest 329 00:15:59,610 --> 00:16:02,263 in Northern Vermont that's not well-represented. 330 00:16:03,400 --> 00:16:06,580 So we will definitely be going to other sites. 331 00:16:06,580 --> 00:16:08,330 I guess, stay tuned next year, 332 00:16:08,330 --> 00:16:10,850 hopefully I'll have the data to show you 333 00:16:10,850 --> 00:16:13,333 that we weren't able to show this year. 334 00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:17,010 - [Man] Hi, I'm sorry, I came in a little late I missed. 335 00:16:17,010 --> 00:16:20,360 Did you collect mud samples to look at mercury 336 00:16:20,360 --> 00:16:22,970 in the substrate? 337 00:16:22,970 --> 00:16:25,040 - No we're not looking at it in the substrate, 338 00:16:25,040 --> 00:16:27,063 it's just in the dragon fly larvae. 339 00:16:28,520 --> 00:16:31,815 All right, just a note in the chat 340 00:16:31,815 --> 00:16:33,890 about would we accept collections 341 00:16:33,890 --> 00:16:36,270 from an elementary school class? 342 00:16:36,270 --> 00:16:37,390 Yeah, if you're a teacher 343 00:16:37,390 --> 00:16:39,970 and you are interested in participating 344 00:16:39,970 --> 00:16:41,100 and helping with collections, 345 00:16:41,100 --> 00:16:42,300 definitely get in touch with me 346 00:16:42,300 --> 00:16:45,870 and we can figure out how that will work. 347 00:16:45,870 --> 00:16:49,310 We do have both high school and elementary school students 348 00:16:49,310 --> 00:16:50,253 that work with us. 349 00:16:51,470 --> 00:16:52,483 Thanks for asking. 350 00:16:54,780 --> 00:16:56,380 You also don't have to be a student. 351 00:16:56,380 --> 00:16:58,580 If you just want to go out, that's fine too. 352 00:17:01,450 --> 00:17:02,330 - [Man] Seeing as I'm here, 353 00:17:02,330 --> 00:17:04,380 the reason I ask about substrate 354 00:17:04,380 --> 00:17:07,330 is we've seen elevated levels of mercury 355 00:17:07,330 --> 00:17:09,800 in the organic NDA horizon 356 00:17:09,800 --> 00:17:12,650 in some of the soil tests that we've done in Connecticut. 357 00:17:12,650 --> 00:17:14,550 And I didn't know if the mercury in these systems 358 00:17:14,550 --> 00:17:16,943 is mostly legacy mercury from past. 359 00:17:17,850 --> 00:17:21,120 So if you expect it to be persistent over time 360 00:17:21,120 --> 00:17:23,100 or to slowly be covered up, 361 00:17:23,100 --> 00:17:27,000 so the dragon fly larva don't interact with it. 362 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:29,017 - Yeah, so it's an interesting question, 363 00:17:29,017 --> 00:17:32,120 and that actually sort of does depend on the system. 364 00:17:32,120 --> 00:17:36,780 But one thing that we know about Northern New England 365 00:17:36,780 --> 00:17:38,160 is that it does receive a lot of 366 00:17:38,160 --> 00:17:40,100 atmospheric deposition of mercury, 367 00:17:40,100 --> 00:17:42,390 and so as long as that's happening, 368 00:17:42,390 --> 00:17:45,360 there's always gonna be new inputs to these water bodies 369 00:17:45,360 --> 00:17:48,500 to be methylated and be taken up 370 00:17:48,500 --> 00:17:50,500 into the biota that live in them. 371 00:17:50,500 --> 00:17:51,650 But there are definitely areas 372 00:17:51,650 --> 00:17:53,640 where there is legacy contamination, 373 00:17:53,640 --> 00:17:57,640 and if there's high deposition that has the potential 374 00:17:57,640 --> 00:18:01,273 or high sediment deposition 375 00:18:01,273 --> 00:18:04,790 that does have the potential to be buried over. 376 00:18:04,790 --> 00:18:06,880 But I think that is one of the interesting things 377 00:18:06,880 --> 00:18:08,890 about the potential of dragon fly larvae 378 00:18:08,890 --> 00:18:09,910 for bio-monitoring, 379 00:18:09,910 --> 00:18:12,230 and what we've seen in the National Park Service Project 380 00:18:12,230 --> 00:18:14,620 is that there is a lot of variability, 381 00:18:14,620 --> 00:18:16,270 so we can hopefully start to tease out 382 00:18:16,270 --> 00:18:18,483 some of those questions over time as well. 383 00:18:19,750 --> 00:18:21,470 - [Nancy] There is one more question in the chat, 384 00:18:21,470 --> 00:18:23,030 I don't know if you can answer that quickly, 385 00:18:23,030 --> 00:18:25,857 but Georgia Marie is asking, 386 00:18:25,857 --> 00:18:28,210 are there other water quality indicators 387 00:18:28,210 --> 00:18:31,210 that you would prioritize collection if you could? 388 00:18:31,210 --> 00:18:35,330 - So we do do those colorimetric assays as well, 389 00:18:35,330 --> 00:18:39,853 and we collect a nitrate ammonia, pH, temperature. 390 00:18:41,370 --> 00:18:45,120 There's one more, dissolved oxygen as well, 391 00:18:45,120 --> 00:18:48,310 that are sort of general water quality indicators 392 00:18:48,310 --> 00:18:52,270 that are interesting to do. 393 00:18:52,270 --> 00:18:56,290 We are particularly interested just in the mercury, 394 00:18:56,290 --> 00:18:59,533 but we do have this other data to go along with it, 395 00:19:00,940 --> 00:19:01,940 which to be honest, 396 00:19:01,940 --> 00:19:03,480 I haven't delved into looking at 397 00:19:03,480 --> 00:19:05,460 a lot of the relationships there yet, 398 00:19:05,460 --> 00:19:08,373 but we do have those data for the collections as well. 399 00:19:09,570 --> 00:19:11,303 Thanks for your question. 400 00:19:12,495 --> 00:19:15,380 - [Nancy] I think we are out of time I think at this point. 401 00:19:15,380 --> 00:19:17,460 We're supposed to leave a little break in between the talks 402 00:19:17,460 --> 00:19:19,370 so that people can get to the next one, 403 00:19:19,370 --> 00:19:22,100 but thank you Kate and everyone who attended, 404 00:19:22,100 --> 00:19:26,120 we'll be starting the next talk at 1:25 in this track. 405 00:19:26,120 --> 00:19:27,520 - Great, thank you everyone.