Today was our last day of field work. (We are scheduled to leave Escudero on Monday!)
Our main task was to take down an experiment we set up soon after our arrival. One of our questions is how moss influences the soil to provide a habitat for organisms. A main way moss can have that influence is by insulating the soil and protecting it from the harsh temperature fluctuations. Zoie, who was with us last year, wanted to measure that! She sent us with equipment to set up an experiment for her.
We set up an experiment where we ran thin wires that measure temperature (called thermocouples) into different parts of the moss. We had thermocouples at the top of the moss (the canopy), at the point where the moss and soil meet, and then an inch into the soil below the moss. That way we can measure whether the temperature changes differently across that small area of a moss tuft. We also put thermocouples into bare soil to see whether the temperature fluctuates differently under moss compared to without the moss coverage.
Those thermocouples are attached to a device that recorded temperature from each thermocouple every 5 minutes for a week. This is what they looked like when we installed them. If you zoom in, you can see the wires coming out of the box and into the moss.
We left them out for a week, but it has been very cold and and snowing a lot. So this is what the site looked like when we came back this morning:
So the wires going into the moss were now covered with snow!
We dug them out. When Zoie looks at the recorded temperature data, she will have an answer to the question!
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