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Catherine Buttiker

Project Title: 
Nitrogen Cycling in Wetland Plant Leaves: A Spectral Experiment
Program Year: 
2021
Major: 
Environmental Science and Public Health
Supervisor: 
Christine Hatch

The project I was a part of was “Nitrogen Cycling in Wetland Plant Leaves: A Spectral Experiment”.  The focus of this experiment was to test the relationship between groundwater nitrogen and foliar nitrogen in wetland plants. We conducted this experiment at The Tidmarsh Wildlife Sanctuary, along with its partner project Foothills Preserve. Both of these locations are retired cranberry bogs that are being restored back to their original wetland state.

This project was broken up into two different experiments. The first was a greenhouse experiment at Living Observatory, consisting of four species of wetland plant and three different trials of varying nitrogen levels to test the relationship between nitrogen in water supplies and foliar nitrogen in a controlled environment. The second experiment is a field observation of two plant species at five different sites. This will show the relationship with no outside involvement.