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September 2002
2000 Augsburg Biology graduate
Jared Trost
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Jared Trost,
e-mailed us recently with an update on what he has been up to the
past few years since graduating from Augsburg. As a student at Augsburg,
Jared had a great interest in the outdoors and the field of ecology.
During the summer of his senior year he had a research internship
at the University of Minnesota's Cedar Creek Natural History Area.
This led to a job at Cedar Creek that he has had since graduation.
Jared describes what he has been up to since graduation below:
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"
I graduated from Augsburg College in December of 2000 with a biology
and chemistry double major. Shortly after graduating, I was hired
by the University of Minnesota’s Forest Resources department
as a field manager for Cedar Creek Natural History Area (CCNHA),
which is an internationally recognized Long Term Ecological Research
(LTER) site. CCNHA covers approximately 5,000 acres near Bethel,
MN; it is a mosaic of upland forests, oak savannas, prairies, swamps,
cattail marshes, and even a sphagnum bog.
I work directly under Dr. Peter Reich, who is a professor at the
University and I primarily manage his BioCON (Biodiversity, CO2,
and Nitrogen) experiment. This is an exciting project to work on
because it examines how plant communities respond to 3 major global
change factors: Biodiversity, CO2, and Nitrogen. It is sort of a
snapshot of things to come. There is a huge amount of work involved
with this project, which I will elaborate on now (the experiment
is explained in detail on the web page, see address below). During
the winter months I do quite a bit of lab work; I get to grind and
prepare plant biomass and soil for C and N analysis. My other winter
activities include updating the web page (http://www.lter.umn.edu/biocon),
sending out internship information, and hiring interns for the summer
field season. The field season (April through October) brings on
a whole new set of duties. Last summer, I managed 22 interns as
they worked on the various facets of the BioCON project. Some examples
of tasks we do throughout the summer are: soil coring, weeding (plant
ID), root coring, harvesting plant biomass, sorting harvested plants,
measuring soil CO2 respiration, measuring soil moisture, measuring
photosynthetic rates of individual plants, and swatting mosquitoes
and more mosquitoes. One perk of the job is that I can organize
activities for the interns during their summer stay. This summer,
we took field trips to Itasca State Park and to Konza Prairie, Kansas
(another LTER site). This winter (2002), my duties will be slightly
different because I am going to Panama for 7 weeks to help with
some tropical tree research down there.
Do I do anything besides work? Of course I do…I enjoy the challenge
of living in a rustic cabin (some call it a shanty) in the woods
at CCNHA. It is a 2 level cabin with a ladder going between the
2 levels. I have running water (most of the time), electricity,
an outhouse, and no shower. During my time at the cabin, I have
spent much of my time learning to ID plants, playing harmonica and
guitar, and reading. Back to seriousness, I recently took the GRE
(Graduate Record Exam) and I am currently considering entering a
Master’s degree program (possibly in the fall of 2003), the
specifics of which are anything but certain.
If you are thinking of a career in ecology, botany, environmental
science and would like to complete a summer internship at CCNHA,
please email me at trost010@tc.umn.edu
or check out the Cedar Creek website at http://www.lter.umn.edu."
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