Palmer Station, LTER, and Me

Size matters, and sometimes it matters most in your mind.  Palmer is the smallest of the three U. S. stations and yet it plays host to some huge ideas and some very important science, specifically, marine ecology.  It continues to amaze me that such a relatively small group of people can accomplish so much and yet we're still just a speck on the map.  I'm not sure yet how the researchers perceive their worth, but my boss seems to have the right perspective.  Despite being the head honcho chief scientist, he is not dramatic and smiles often (a smile which grew and grew as we came closer to seeing the glaciers, even on his 25th crossing).
      Well, I'm not sure how others see it, but here are my thoughts (so far) toward the question of size and self-worth in science.  It is so wonderful to contribute to such a coordinated group effort that is, in fact, very unique and very important.  However, in the larger scheme of things, delusions of grandeur quickly evaporate. Not because my work isn't important or won't matter, but more because the actual doing of the science is only one of many ways to learn from, share, and build upon this working experience.  It is because of these feelings that I hope to get more out of this experience as a person than specifically as a lab technician. 

      But, in case anyone wants to know my official role in all of this business, here's the other story I can tell... Palmer station is ground zero for documenting this changing landscape through what is called Long Term Ecological  Research (LTER).  In this case, the project involves collaboration between institutions and specialists scattered around the country.  They all join together for a big January expedition when they sample the heck out of the Western Antarctic Peninsula, from the bottom of the food web up to the top.  Bacteria, plankton, krill, penguins, seals.  Somewhat unrelatedly, a group of entemologists study what folks here like to call the largest antarctic land animal: a humble wingless gnat.  My partner in microbial crime, Alice, noted how well we fit in with our lab neighbors, the Birders, Buggers, and Plankters.  The data reaches back almost two decades for the really small stuff such as bacteria, which happens to be my newly-adopted area of expertise.
      While the rest of the dedicated Microbe group goes on the January expedition, Alice and I are in charge of keeping the project going locally.  In science-speak, we are measuring bacterial abundance, production, and community composition by analyzing water conditions, by studying radioisotope incorporation, and by doing predator dilution experiments.  For those of you who enjoy a different language, think of bacteria as little critters such as termites, minus the negative connotation.  Imagine you wanted to know how much of a wood pile they were eating each day and how fast they grew because of it.  The way we do that for bacteria is by feeding them their favorite food that has been specially marked or colored.  Because everything is what it eats, the marked food goes into their DNA and we can see it later as they grow.  The answers to these relatively simple questions tell us how much carbon can be eaten, digested, and recycled in the food web and how much of it will sink to the bottom of the sea floor for long-term storage.  These bacteria are tested from many different places around the station and at different depths so that other nerds, a.k.a. computer modelers, have parameters that help refine their simulations and predictions under different oceanographic conditions.
        Phew.  So, twice a week, Alice and I will don our float coats to venture out in our Zodiaks, "Bruiser" and "Wonderbread," and collect water.  We will then bring it back to the lab and split it up in ten different ways and do twenty different procedures on it.  Then we'll do the clean-up.  Oh, the clean-up.  When we're not in our lab coats, we'll be hiking up our backyard glacier, visiting the nearby islands, pondering the icebergs, soaking in the hot tub, and taking it all in.  Not so shabby, eh?