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Wednesday 8th October 2008
The day began in a bit of a peach fuzz for some….after dinner at Gypsy's and a trip to the Seaport hotel….
We split into two groups to do some cookie making and needle counting since the weather forecast was not especially good.
The aim of needle counting was to compare the relative numbers of viable to non viable needles on regions of new growth for some black spruce and white spruce specimens. We took some black and white spruce needle samples from the freezer that had been taken in February. With 'tweezers' we plucked the needles off and counted the numbers of viable and non viable needles and placed each batch into individual packages. The work was tedious and the workers were a bit slow… but once the optimum counting methods were established the box of needles was counted.
The cookie cutters spent the day sawing 'cookies' from previously taken trees - cuttings at tree roots and at points 10cm from the root. The cookies would later be sanded to enable ring counting. A box of cookies was prepared and placed in the over at 30degrees C for later sanding and ring counting.
Cookieing is an example of destructive sampling and should be avoided where alternative methods of data collection can be used. The work involved a lot of sawing as demonstrated by Joe:
After tidying up from cookie making and needle counting we had dinner. Some of us had a chance to load our polar bear photos onto Garry's computer for sharing with the group.
After dinner we discussed the remainder of the work we had to do - it includes more PCQ sampling, lots more GPR work and the needle counters were distraught to find another box of uncounted needles in the freezer.
Peter gave us a very interesting lecture on landforms. We now have a greater understanding of some of the very unusual land patterns that can be seen from the air when flying into Churchill. These include polygonal peat plateaux, palses and pingos. The formation of many of these structures is quite complex and I think it has inspired us all to do some further reading on the subject.
After the talk we had some more discussion on needle counting and how our work contributes to 'the overall picture' of climate change. The 'needle counting' helps in testing the hypothesis that the tree line is moving north or that the boreal forest is advancing towards the tundra.
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