Life on the Outer Coast

Impressively windy and soggy day. Ventured out to Swan lake after fortifying myself with pizza, determined to look for the grebe despite the weather. Wriggled into rain gear, hat and boots in the car so I could sit still for long enough to find the elusive creature. Even took my umbrella, which survived the wind against all odds. Naturally since I was prepared to hang out and search, the grebe was in clear view outside of the dying pond lilies. It didn't stay too long, but I did get a good look at it. I looked for awhile longer, but couldn't find it again. The waterfowl were rather spooked by my umbrella, even the mallards were wary of the device. Since I was equiped for the weather, I sat down on the bench for a few minutes to take a better look around. The two coots, scaups, cackling goose, one widgeon, 4 or so Buffleheads and the mallards were in residence. I didn't last too long in the deluge, still didn't have enough clothes on to stay warm.

Started another round of PCR with the purified DNA extracted from roots of Carex livida and Coptis trifoliata with 2 different primers (NS31 and AM1). We'll find out Monday how this round went.
I finished looking at the backlog of stained roots. Sanguisorba had the nicest arbuscles, Kalmia, Triantha, Coptis, Empetrum, Trichophorum, Rubus chamaemorus and Gentiana had a mixture of staining hyphae and dark septate hyphae. The Rubus sample had several spores or spore-like structures associated with the roots.
Continued my search for a good positive control, that is a pot culture of an AM fungus. Not doing too well so far, but my last contact might have given me a good lead. Unfortunately, UCR doesn't have anyone still working on AM fungi so I suspect that the cultures that we maintained are gone (hopefully sent to another institution, but where?).


The morning commute was relatively quiet (in terms of birds). 3 Harlequins, 2 goldeneyes and a glaucuous-winged gull.