On a warm, sunny day in April, three students clad in Day-Glo orange vests unload an inflatable paddle board, buckets and tools from a vehicle parked in the Cole Field parking lot. Others are scattered in the wetlands and pond areas surrounding the fields. Across Stetson Road, another group, led by biology professor Allison Gill, takes measurements amidst rushes and reeds.

Welcome to “Ecosystem Ecology in the Anthropocene,” which explores “the biological and biochemical underpinnings of ecosystem carbon and nutrient cycling,” as its course description states. Students are also introduced to techniques for studying resource and energy flow in local ecosystems, project design, hypothesis development, data collection and analysis.

On this day the students “are measuring the carbon dioxide and methane fluxes from the pond sediment,” Gill says. “Wetlands are important natural sources of methane to the atmosphere, which is a greenhouse gas, and so our work gives a window into the magnitude of the Eph Pond methane source.”

Gill adds that the group found “surprisingly large areas of methanotrophy, or net methane uptake from the atmosphere, on the pond edges!”

The class, which is cross-listed with geosciences and environmental studies, has also explored plant community composition and production, water carbon cycling, sediment nutrient fluxes and microbial community function, she says.

Students will present their work in mid May as part of a multi-week independent project.

At top: Allison Gill (third from right) and her students measure carbon dioxide and methane fluxes from the sediment in and around Eph Pond, near Cole Field.