Poor water quality can be tough to swallow.
Keuka College’s Center for Aquatic Research routinely samples Keuka Lake to check its water quality. Over the past year, it has also been sampling Owasco Lake—found to have the poorest water quality of the Finger Lakes—as a participant in a scientific study led by Finger Lakes Institute (FLI).
A world-class research and education center initiated and operated by Hobart and WilliamSmithColleges, FLI received $325,000 in state funding for the study from State Sen. Michael Nozzolio last August. John Halfman, professor of geoscience and environmental studies at Hobart and William Smith, is directing the study.
“We performed the field component of the study—going out on a boat and collecting water containing algae (phytoplankton) from the lake twice a month—May through September,” said Assistant Professor of Biology and Environmental Science Tim Sellers, who was assisted by senior clinical science major Adam Colandrea. Colandrea, who is currently attending New York State Chiropractic College, was paid by the grant to do the work over the summer.
“It was great going out to do fieldwork with other students from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, who all had their own specific routine and objective to complete while we were out on the water,” said Colandrea. “I was part of a research team; I was not just an individual following a guideline or pre-conceived plans in order to retrieve expected results.”
Once the Owasco Lake samples were collected, they were brought back to Keuka where Sellers and Colandrea performed experiments to determine the nutrient affects on the phytoplankton.
“We would grow plankton in different treatments using different types and amounts of nutrients with different amounts of light to determine which nutrients were affected more than others,” said Sellers.
Sellers is currently in the data analysis portion of the Owasco Lake study. He will turn in a final report in January.
Senior biology and mathematics major and Seneca Falls native Josh Lankford also contributed to the research as part of his summer Field Period.
“My research started over the summer as a part of my Field Period, and I continued it and improved upon it during the semester,” said Lankford. “My research involves studying the effect of allowing phytoplankton to grow in bottles. Essentially, there is research that says that putting lake water into flasks or beakers will accurately show some data, but make showing other data difficult.”
Lankford is scheduled to attend the National Conference on Undergraduate Research at Salisbury University (Maryland) in April, where he will present his research.
The research on Keuka Lake didn’t stop while Owasco was being studied. Senior biology majors Sean Thompson (Keuka Park) and Cedric Mpoy (Rochester) conducted Field Periods with the Center over the summer and performed “general lake sampling and experiments similar to the ones being done on Owasco Lake,” according to Sellers.
“There was always a project that I would be busy doing or overseeing over the summer,” said Colandrea. “Most times we would have multiple projects going on at the same time with the help of the students working on a Field Period.”
Added Colandrea: “It felt good to contribute to [Dr. Sellers’] research goals by starting new projects or giving input to improve existing projects, which he welcomed with open arms.”
-- Tanya Cornell-Kestler
