In the past few days I have had no access to the internet and no time to write until now.  We finished our conference and went camping in the dunes about 20 km south of any road.  Predictably, we had some car trouble but also an awesome sunset.  When we got back the science started.

For the last two days I participated in a west-east transect from the coast to inland sites, collecting soil samples and hypolith samples at points along the way.  In 2012 I had driven along the same road and placed five small sets of “artificial hypoliths” (marble bathroom tiles) to see what grew underneath them.  Now it was time to check.  The western (coastal) two arrays were undisturbed, the farthest west one was well developed, meaning that although the tiles weren’t green yet they had lots of soil strongly adhered to them by polysaccharides (“glue”) secreted by cyanobacteria.  We thing this is the first stage before they turn green.  This site gets a lot of fog, so it’s not surprising that it is the most advanced.

The three inland arrays were all disturbed – the tiles were scattered; not in the positions I left them in.  At one site eleven of the twelve tiles I left there were simply gone – or buried, it’s hard to say.  I think big grazing animals tend to scatter them with their hoofs.  I got some data from what remained, though.

 

It’s evident that these tiles are getting colonized, but it takes much longer than seven years for the cyanobacteria to grow in fully.  I’ll have to come back some day in a decade or so.

 

It’s a magical feeling to come to a totally remote spot somewhere in the world and know that you stood there seven years ago!  And to see the proof; something you left on the ground is still there.