Murcia, Week 4

So the purpose of this blog was to travel to different areas of Murcia and create webisodes exploring the natural ecosystems... and it finally happened!... kind of.

Watch the episode here!

I also thought now would be a good time to share with everyone what I'me actually doing out here in Murcia, Spain.

I have taken a 3 month internship at CEBAS - CSIC (Centro de Edafologia y Biologia Aplicada del Segura - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas) ((Center of Soil Science and Applied Biology of Segura - Superior Council of Scientific Investigation) This is the main research organization of the government of Spain.

Here is a link to their website!

For the last 2 years, the team has been monitoring
5 endemic (native to the area) and endangered (very small number of individuals left) species of shrubs in gypsum soil  ecosystems of Mediterranean Spain. The species I am working on include:

Heleanthemum squamatum
Heleanthemum syriacum
Santolina viscosa
Teucrium turredanum
(No pics as I haven't spent a lot of time in field)  

The main reason for the endangerment of these species have been habitat loss via the extraction of gypsum (Gypsum - wikipedia). It is a common amendment in garden soils to control pH (acidity) and Spain is the main supplier or Gypsum to Europe. Now that the sustainability of the gypsum soil ecosystems in Spain are threatened and harvesting of gypsum has decreased, we are looking at another factor threatening the ecosystem: Climate change.

These scrub lands are dominated by a pine tree canopy and receive very little water during the year. Climate projections show that temperatures will be rising in these areas by around 2*C in the next few years and soil moisture will be greatly reduced as well. We are monitoring how well the plants are surviving under these harsher conditions by measuring growth and survival.

My main focus is to monitor the ability for these plants to reproduce successfully under these new climate conditions. I have been in the lab harvesting seeds from the plant H. squamatum measuring fruit size and seed numbers in order to see if higher temperatures or water stress reduces the plants ability to produce seed. The fruit capsules are extremely small so I've been getting familiar with the microscope with great compromise to my eye sight. It's been difficult as well because we have found a fungus that is able to infect the seeds of H. squamatum at higher temperatures.

 After the harvesting of all the seeds I have placed them into a climate controlled growth chamber and monitor the seeds ability to germinate. This should take approx. 1 month to complete and needs continuous monitoring. So this will be taking up a lot of my time. Feel free to contact me if you would like a more in depth look at the methods we use. Until next time!