Wrapping up 2014

After the school semester ended in mid-December, I continue to stay in Ottawa to work on my research, as well as taking care of Mertensia seeds and bumble bees for myself and others in the lab, and helping another graduate student with her project on spiny lizards.  I did the same things even in Christmas and felt I needed to get out of Ottawa and take a break.  Thankfully, a friend from Trent kindly invited me back to Peterborough for a few days and I had a great time there (I just returned from there this afternoon).

I bought a tripod this Boxing Day and will use it to stabilize my moon and macro photos in the future.

Visiting Canadian Museum of Nature's Natural Heritage Campus

For a part of my PhD research, I will visit several herbariums and examine specimens in the genus Mertensia spp.  I will be studying at the relationship between morphological (reproductive and vegetative) and phenological (timing of flowering) traits in genus Mertensia.  Today, I took the bus to Canadian Museum of Nature's Natural Heritage Campus in Gatineau and spent most of the day looking at herbarium specimens.

The collection room.