Mozdzer Ecology Lab

03/17/2024

Sending you all warm wishes from students and faculty participating in the Bryn Mawr College "Coasts in Transition" 360 trip to South Water Caye, Belize

08/20/2023

Last week students from Bryn Mawr College, with help from students from Northeastern University, and staff from the Woodwell Climate Research Center collected over 4000 individual plant samples, and measured traits on over 2000 plants. Working collaboratively, we now have data for the 21st year of the TIDE project! Long term data from this experiment will help us understand how ecosystems can recover from chronic nutrient pollution, and this year we also collected data on plant fitness traits to inform evolutionary processes.

07/29/2023

A record setting annual census during a record setting heat wave. This year 6 members from my lab group from Bryn Mawr College helped measure and record the height and traits on thousands of plants at the Phragmites elevated CO2 & N experiment at GCREW in only two days instead of the typical three. The heat was intense, but starting each morning at dawn ensured we were off the marsh by the heat of the day. The data collected from this experiment serves many purposes. In addition to informing our knowledge on ecosystem responses to near future global change and species invasion, data collected from this experiment will calibrate models to determine the influence of rapid evolution to global change.

A special thanks to my amazing crew from Bryn Mawr, Andrew Peresta for organizing the whole event, and to lab alum, Rachel Hager, for coming back to GCREW to volunteer for a day nearly a decade after your time at Bryn Mawr.

06/10/2023

This past week, members of my lab from Bryn Mawr College joined their fellow lab members, who are conducting an internship at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, at the Smithsonian GCREW. We measured plant traits and photosynthetic rates on plants in a long term elevated CO2 and nutrient enrichment experiment. These data will help calibrate a carbon cycling model that will combine ecosystem ecology with evolutionary processes to help us determine the consequences of rapid evolution from global change. We also had an opportunity to visit our field site at Parker's Creek, found some fossilized shark teath, and spent the last evening kayaking. Great week of field work.

07/21/2022

This summer's first goes to Skylar Livengood, a sophomore from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. So far she’s enjoying her to the point where she can’t choose a single top experience. “It sounds corny, but I honestly can’t think of a ‘favorite’ thing about this internship so far," she says. "I’ve learned so much… from how to extract DNA and perform microsatellite assays to how to survive a 95-degree day on the marsh.”

Skylar is interning for Melissa McCormick in SERC’s Molecular Ecology Lab, where she focuses on the invasive common reed, Phgramites australis. She's looking at the genetic effects of long-term elevated levels of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Her mission is to model a marsh ecosystem with these elevated levels, so the world can prepare for how to assist these ecosystems in the future. Skylar hopes to earn a Ph.D. in genetics, ecology or conservation after she completes her undergraduate program.

(Photo: Timed selfie by Skylar Livengood)

09/25/2021

07/23/2021

Keep up the excellent work at the Smithsonian GCREW Julia! Looking forward to having you back in the lab in the fall!

Meet Julia Smeltzer, a rising junior at Haverford College and an for the next two summers with our Molecular Ecology Lab! She’s helping with an ongoing four-year project at the SERC Global Change Research Wetland (GCREW) located in Edgewater, Maryland. Scientists at GCREW conduct experiments to see how wetlands will cope with environmental conditions like higher concentrations of carbon dioxide brought on by climate change.

Julia’s personal project focuses on how plants, specifically invasive Phragmites reeds, respond to elevated levels of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and the combination of the two in the soil. Each week, she measures the height growth of 300 plants housed in growth chambers and takes leaf tissue samples for further DNA analysis in the lab.

Julia’s interested to see if the reeds, under these conditions, are selecting for certain genetic traits, like growth patterns. If so, traits like these could be passed on to future plants and inform how other wetland plants could respond to elevated levels of carbon dioxide and nitrogen in a changing climate.

Having visited SERC’s main campus with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation years ago, Julia’s happy to be back and spending a large portion of her in the field.

(Photo: Julia Smeltzer)

05/12/2021

Socially distant final lab meeting of 2021.

04/30/2021

If you have ideas on how to improve inclusivity and field experiences at Bryn Mawr College (and beyond) I would love to hear from you.
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biab039/6213241?fbclid=IwAR1-vf0twRqv24eGG0_hIUnaYxtvG4W0J6Cic8WammXVJPddRe4zwu7jeH0

Abstract. Access to field experiences can increase participation of diverse groups in the environmental and natural resources (ENR) workforce. Despite a growing

12/10/2020

After studying coatal nutrient pollution in salt marshes for 13 years we learned a lot. I'm happy to share that we published a paper today in the journal Bioscience. Contrary to what is expected, we learned that not all nitrogen is equal. Specifically, the type of nitrogen pollution (ammonium or nitrate) makes a huge difference in how ecosytems respond. Thank you to all my excellent collaborators!

Abstract. Excess reactive nitrogen (N) flows from agricultural, suburban, and urban systems to coasts, where it causes eutrophication. Coastal wetlands take up

12/10/2020

I am excited to announce a new publication. In our global study, we found that (in the USA, Europe, & China) is an excellent bio-resource and is a promising alternative to . Perhaps it is time we reconsider traditional Phragmites management in the US to include mechanisms that harness its potential? A huge congratulations to lead author, Franziska Eller for leading this effort. Its been such a pleasure collaoborating with such excellent collegues including Hans Brix, Xiao Guo and Siyan Ye.I

We collected and analyzed morphological characteristics and tissue nutrient concentrations of common reed (Phragmites australis) populations from Denmark, USA, and China, harvested late summer at the peak of the biomass production. The aim was to estimate the suitability of the biomass for different...