Spring Term for Limnology and Marine Field Studies

We will use the spring term to continue our aquatic studies, collecting and analyzing the long-term data from the Turkey River watershed. Once the ice has melted from Turkey Pond, the over-winter leaf bags will be collected to complete the analysis of nutrient load that is entering our watershed. This is also true for the ice-out on Penacook Lake so that the spring turn-over and thermocline data can be collected and compared to the fall data and the summer 2008 data that was collected by the Advanced Studies Program Ecology students. The ultimate goal in our final project is to use this data to make an assessment of the water quality in our watershed based on criteria that are set by the State of New Hamphsire (DES).

We will also be visiting and studying other habitats as they emerge from winter snows. These will include vernal pools, an often over-looked but important transitory habitat for various amphibians, toads and frogs. This will be the first year of long-term data collection to determine the nature of vernal pools, their location on the school grounds, and identification of species that in habitat them.

With more favorable weather, our marine component will now be field studies at the New Hampshire seacoast. Data will be collected at a salt marsh, rocky intertidal zone, sandy beach, and a rare pitch-pine barren. These habitats will be compared to the habitats that participants to Marine Resources in Key Largo, FL will be studying in detail over our Spring Weekend. The hydrology and man's impact on the unique Florida Everglades will also be part of the field trip and class discussion.

To wrap up the big picture view, the class will have a 13 mile canoe trip down the Merrimack River, stopping along the way to collect similar data that has been collected in our watershed. We will note on the trip the convergence point of our Turkey River, and where the effluent from the Concord Wastewater Treatment plant (a class field trip) is discharged into the Merrimack. The sites that we visit on the canoe trip will be the same as the rock-basket collection points for the Upper Merrimack River Program "Bug Nights" which SPS has been hosting from January to April. In this Community Outreach Program (COP), students have been working with outside volunteers to identify aquatic macro invertebrates as a means of determining water quality in this segment of the Merrimack River.