Reflections:

Interviewee: Mr. Nathan Reed

Workplace: EAG Laboratories
Title: Researcher
Dated: 11/13/17

Questions:
1. What type of work do you do assessing macroinvertebrates?
2. How are macroinvertebrates evaluating for pollution indication, beyond not being found
in polluted areas?
3. Blatantly researching the lifespan and geographic movements of macroinvertebrates has
not been done, do you know of any research which references or uses information on said
topic?
4. How would you suggest examining a specific taxonomic classification of
macroinvertebrates?
5. Has your research revealed anything new about macroinvertebrates as a pollution
indicator that can be used for error analysis.
6. Do you think that error analysis is a reasonable topic for researching macroinvertebrates?

Transcription:

NR: Hello.

EM: Hello, this is Erik Mechtel.

NR: Hello, nice to talk with you. This is Nathan.

EM: Nice to meet you. So, as I said in my email, is it okay with you that I record this (for the
purposes of the assignment?

NR: Yeah, thats fine. Im sur that makes it much easier for you.

EM: Thank you. I am just supposed to ask a couple of questions, to get your learned feedback
on my topic.

NR: Okay.
EM: So, the first is: what work do you do in assessing macroinvertebrates? I learned that you
are doing work similar to mine, in the fact that you study macroinvertebrates.

NR: Yes, Im a biologist at EAG laboratories. We do ecological testing. So, controlled lab
environment. We use species of, in my case, macroinverts to test pesticides, and different
kinds of common products which come to the market, to assess the effects on the
organisms.

EM: Okay, so this is under the idea that macroinvertebrates are a kind of biological indicator,
so how that chemical you are testing would affect the environment?

NR: Yes, exactly. Because a lot of these inverts are studied so thoroughly, we know kind of
how they should react, and based on reaction we can kind of quantify and put into
categories the different substances: these are very toxic based on these effects on this
organism. EPA and FDA in the US established different guidelines and regulations
regarding what tests to run for the pesticides and oils and different substances. Overseas
there are different regulations as well.

EM: Okay, that makes sense. Going on from there, researching macroinvertebrates in this way,
is it a very precise type of measurement? So, are macroinvertebrates, or at least the ones
that you test, are highly susceptible to these chemicals; since you see how those sets of
chemicals affect those macroinvertebrates. And then, are they sensitive over a large
scale? Say for example, if one of the chemicals you were testing would be released into
the environment some distance away from the colony of macroinvertebrates you are
studying, is there a large distance over which that chemical can affect the
macroinvertebrates?

NR: That is really what we study, that would depend on the area and the substance, things like
that. We do it in controlled lab settings. Well set up test chambers. And specifically, I
work with sediment-dwelling organisms. So we use this set or organisms, like midge
larvae and segmented worms, specifically because they live in the sediment. So, well
add the substance or compound to the sediment and then see how--because their life
cycles take place mostly in the sediment--see how that affects them. There are other tests
for other organisms that live in the water column, but that kind of depends on what test
those regulators and the companies themselves think will enter and affect the
environment.
EM: So, different organisms respond differently, and because of that, the distance the
pollution could act over would change based on the geographic position, environmental
factors, and and the organism being studied. If I got that right.

NR: Yeah.

EM: So, the topic I am researching for this class is isnt so much those chemicals, specifically,
but I would like to study that type of pollution effect on macroinvertebrates. And so, in
this study, I was considering the fact that the distances might be so varied for these
macroinvertebrates, and that specific data, per almost every species of macroinvertebrate,
even small taxonomic classification, down to class or lower, type idea, that it might affect
the data. You cant make broad assumptions about all macroinvertebrates in a scenario or
create really top level guidelines that would affect all data collected, because research I
have done has shown that a lot of these organizations, and the government, like to do
pollution indication though macroinvertebrates. So, given that you work with
macroinvertebrates, would this type of idea of analyzing each species differently, in how
they exist in their environment, seem reasonable?

NR: Yeah, and thats kind of what we try to do. We have different kinds of macroinverts
based on sediment or water. In a sense, the guidelines do the best they can, because short
of setting up a test in a closed off section of river, there is really no way to tell, so it is the
best that guidelines and regulations can do. They are a rough outline, an approximation of
what to do. And, one of the problems with using macroinverts is we know a good amount
about their life cycle, like about what time they are going to do things, but we dont know
what they do, for the most part, on a day to day basis. At least, in a lot of cases.

EM: Okay, so I guess that makes me feel good, because what I am trying to do makes sense,
and I have validated that now.

NR: Yes.

EM: So, would you have any advice for someone who would like to start studying
macroinvertebrates in the environment or even a test-lab scenario, because you would be
very good at creating lab scenarios where you can test macroinvertebrates in different
types of environments.

NR: What would you want to be doing out in the field? Because, I do know that disturbing the
sediment and getting some macroinverts, it is kind of hard to tell to tell what they are
doing, out in the field.
EM: Okay.

NR: So, the best place is in a lab setting, but that is kind of limited in how it translates to the
real world. So I am kind of curious, what type of research are you looking to test? Like a
kind of reference pollutants or substances or that and see how they affect it, or are you
looking to test how the population varies over kind of a set area?

EM: What I was looking at was the pollutions effect. A lot of the studies I have seen make
certain assumptions about how pollution affects invertebrates. So, a lot of pollution is
assumed to be very concentrated, such that macroinvertebrates downstream of where this
pollution is entering wont be affected by it. And this is just a general assumption that has
gone relatively untested from what I have seen. And, by doing, say, laboratory
experiments on how far down stream or how far down a given ecosystem a pollutant will
carry, will affect any data downstream or other ecosystems, so collective data in creating
a large scale map of pollution based on macroinvertebrates as a bioindicator may have a
lot of errors in it that were not intentionally added in or not accounted for.

NR: Yeah, that's true. A lot of what they will do to kind of work on that is in lab settings test
the pollutant itself to see how it degrades over time, to see how things like, you know,
just being in water or saltwater will eventually kind of neutralize the potential. Ill give
you the sunlight, and a lot of things break down under the sunlight. They will see how the
pollutant will break down over time or whether it is a heavy oil or not oil, but, you know,
some kind of substance that will sink right into the sediment where it is deposited--in
which case it wouldn't really spread out. So, there is that, but the only other way to really
test the core of what you would want to do would be to basically radio label stuff and
spread it out over a river, which is kind of wide. If that isnt done It just very hard in
river settings: there is so much going on and there is human use and all these different
organisms that factor in, and potentially kill off your study group, and they do come and
do that. It is just very hard to test that in a natural setting.

EM: That makes sense. Would you think that there is a chance, not even doing a good
simulation, but a simulation that could potentially shed light on this issue? Do you think
that would be possible?

NR: It would be possible I am trying to think of what you want to do a simulation of

essentially, not full scale in a river, but set a scenario where you release some kind of, in
this case it would be a reference toxin, that we know kind of affects invertebrates at these
levels and this way, such that you can compare your results to previous studies, based at
 different concentrations over, say, the whole area. And then, release in almost like a lab
setting, the substance and see how it affects the further downstream you get.

EM: And so, you would just be doing data of almost the pollution half life in the environment:
how long it would stay and affect macroinvertebrates over a given period of time or a
given linear distance downstream.

NR: Yeah, that would be possible to do. The most controlled way I could think to do it would
be, again, to take a reference substance and make a simulation stream with sediment at
the bottom with inverts throughout. And release it at a point and see and compare how
the fact or the reproduction effect at that point and points further downstream.

EM: Okay, thank you for the advice, it has been very helpful.

NR: No problem, it is things like this, what you want to kind of do, that take a long time and
even a new set of guidelines came out this year for even our very specific lab testing. So,
you know, regulators are always trying to improve what they do; come up with novel
ways of factoring to make this as close to reality as these testing things can be.

EM: Ah well, I will definitely try and look into those new regulations and I will continue to do
research on the topic of just pollution in the environment, in general, and how long it
remains. So, again thank you very much for your help.

NR: Yep, no problem. I am happy to help in any way I can. It sounds like a very interesting
topic.

EM: Thank you. I will continue to update you, if you are still willing to be my adviser, on
what I am doing, so that I can get some more information. And I may be asking to call
you again.

NR: Thats fine.

EM: so, once again, thank you very much and I hope to email or speak to you soon.

NR: No problem. Take care.

EM: Thanks, bye.

Reflection:
 The interview overall went very well. I obtained the confirmation that my topic is very
beneficial, if potential difficult to execute. There may be ways of manipulating the nature of the
study to make it easier, but that is for another time. Many of the questions had to change because
of the slight changes in my research and that they were answered in the course of the interview
without my really having to ask them. So, given my topic is a good one onward.