Brynnen Beck and Claire Meara filling vials for dissolved gas analysis
Author: Brynnen Beck | Major: Environmental, Soil, & Water Science | Semester: Spring 2024
My name is Brynnen Beck and I’m going into my senior year as an Environmental, Soil, & Water Science major in Bumpers College. My mentor is Dr. Shannon Speir in the Crop, Soil, & Environmental Sciences Department. I’ve finished my first semester of research studying the impact winter de-icing road salts have on ecosystem processes in urban streams. I have one more sampling and experiment session to conduct and I’m on track to defend my thesis in Fall 2024.
The spring semester of my sophomore year is when I became hooked on water quality research and work. I took an intro water science class and later that semester I accepted an internship at Beaver Water District to work in their water quality analysis lab. I became increasingly interested in human impacts on the environment due to classes I was taking for my sustainability minor. My advisor, Dr. Wood, recommended I speak to Dr. Speir about possible thesis topics due to my newfound interests. After our first meeting, I knew that the Speir Lab was the perfect combination of all my research interests. Dr. Speir listened to what topics I was passionate about and suggested a few project ideas. We ended up discussing nutrients and human impacts, which became the center of my thesis! Since the NWA region is growing so much, there is a lot of development going on which leads to an increase in impervious surfaces. We are all very familiar with these surfaces such as roads, sidewalks, parking lots, etc. These paved areas don’t allow for water to infiltrate into the ground as it normally would, causing water to runoff and collect pollutants and sediment before entering nearby water bodies. Road salt for de-icing roads in the winter is one of these pollutants that can have negative impacts on stream ecosystem processes. I am looking into how road salt impacts nitrate removal via denitrification in urban streams around Fayetteville. Nitrates can accumulate downstream and cause a slew of problems, so it’s important to understand nitrate removal processes like denitrification.
I’ve learned a lot about how urbanization and human actions have impacted urban waterways. Streams can carry a lot of pollutants further downstream to different outlets, so understanding how and where pollutants/contaminants may be deposited is important to ecosystem health. As far as challenges go, we had a lot of different centrifuge tubes and gas vials to fill and label. It was a learning curve when trying to figure out an efficient method to label and fill all of them. It was a lot to keep up with and organize, but now I feel way more prepared for our second round of sampling and experiments.
Dr. Speir has been an amazing mentor throughout this process. She has been incredibly helpful and supportive with all aspects of my project. You can tell that she has a genuine interest in seeing her students succeed and become well rounded scientists. Dr. Speir aided me in planning and executing posters, experiments, field samplings, as well as helping me digest and understand dense scientific literature. She has done all of this, while also allowing me the chance to attempt everything on my own to begin with to truly give me the opportunity to learn and understand all that goes into research. My committee members, Dr. Lisa Wood and Dr. Benjamin Runkle, have also given me thorough feedback on details of my experiment as well as on my thesis proposal. Their questions and comments have been helpful in seeing my project/thesis with fresh eyes and having new ideas to implement that Dr. Speir and I may not have come up with on our own. The Speir Lab members, aka the Speir Squad, have also been essential to my success in my endeavors. Along with being great friends and people to lift my spirits, they also have aided in sampling, experiment work, sample analysis, and teaching me how to code in R. The Speir Squad has been a great support throughout this process and I’m very grateful to know them!
Some of my lab members and I are traveling to the Society for Freshwater Science Annual Conference in early June. Our program associate, two graduate students, and one undergraduate student are giving talks on their individual projects. I and another undergraduate student are presenting posters on our honors theses while at the conference. I’m excited to travel and absorb all the knowledge of fellow freshwater scientists! It’s always interesting to see what other people in your field are working on and how their findings are relevant to today’s issues. I’m also excited to support my lab members in their presentations and see them share all their hard work. Moving forward, we have set dates for a second sampling and experiment session to collect more data. I will continue running samples on our Membrane Inlet Mass Spectrometer and analyzing data for significant relationships between our treatments and sites. I’m spending most of the summer working in the Speir Lab, in a fellow position through the Arkansas Water Resource Center, where I will be conducting an additional research project on greenhouse gas emission in flooded rice fields in Eastern Arkansas. Spending time in the lab will keep me on track with analysis and my thesis work, so I will be set to defend my thesis in the Fall 2024 semester! I hope to go on and continue in water quality research and work as I’m wrapping up my time here at the university.