Poster Display And Phosphate Measurement

Andrew showed his poster about Dactylogyrus gill flukes in telescope and scarlet shiners this afternoon. I think all of the Summer REU student at least submitted a poster, and most showed up. Andrew had good talks about his poster with the Science Deans as well as other faculty members; one of the deans is still giggling at the thought of us maybe naming the new species D. chargeri, after the UAH teams name. And I met both of his parents, who were of course impressed by the poster even if they might not have totally understood all of it. And, in truth, it was a pretty good poster, ready with minor changes to be shown in a bigger venue.

Brittany has pretty much worked out our colorimetric phosphate test. Our preliminary results show that the July water sample from Estill Fork had very low phosphates, like maybe 0.15 mg/liter, and the August sample had slightly more, about 0.3 mg/liter. This is at the very low end of what this test can detect. It's not a surprise, we know that this is essentially a pristine stream, but I'm still impressed. The Tennessee River would probably have values around 2-3 mg/liter. We're still researching what's been found with phosphate levels in local streams, with the US Geological Survey being the best source to date. The TVA does faunal surveys in streams like Estill Fork but has patchy water chemistry data.