Sabrina Livne-Kennedy

The Importance of Peatlands and Conducting Research

In the past 150 years, nitrogen and carbon atmospheric inputs have been increasing as a consequence of anthropogenic endeavors—adding new sources of N to ecosystems and possibly causing changes in bog nutrient cycles. This last segment will take a peek at my experience this past summer as a research assistant at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. I will share my experiences working in a lab as well as at my field site, the Mer Bleue bog in Ottawa, Ontario. My work primarily focused on examining the microbial CO2 respiration from different plant substrates as well as measuring N2-fixation rates on different dominant moss communities at the Mer Bleue bog.