Junior Research Assistant Blog Post

As a Junior Research Assistant for MABRRI, I have happily had the opportunity to be part of the seasonal Wetland Monitoring project! This project has support from many citizen scientists in the community for some of the sites. It allows not only the ability for local members to get involved, but as well MABRRI staff to learn from the local community members.

Once during every season, we visit each of the six sites to download the data from the instrumented sites as taken from the piezometers, rain gauge and trail cameras. These site visits allow us to practice finding site locations that are in more secluded areas and get comfortable using field equipment. The most interesting part of the visits to me, is that we take photos of each site in the same directions each time. This allows us to compare the areas seasonally, one example was how dry a site was in the summer and but in the winter the area was completely covered in water and had different surrounding vegetation. I look forward to this continuous monitoring project and learning about the long-term results as we collect more data over time.

By: Jocelyn Benji