Hi guys,

Sorry for my absence, I had some personal things come up. You guys are asking some great questions. Rather than answering your questions directly, I found a great resource that I think will help answer your questions and guide your thinking. I uploaded a paper that I think will be helpful overall, but there is a section starting on page 10 talking about the effect of light on gametophyte growth and germination specifically. Read that over and see what questions you still have.

It does sound like you are pretty settled on looking at the effect of wavelength on the plants, which I think is an awesome question and very doable on your timeframe. I think you could look at it either the germination or growth of the gametophyte, or both, and we can make it work. The question is what do you think is most exciting? What are you curious about? Let's work from there.

P.S. Is that Drake & Josh in the project photo? I used to watch that in middle school!

Hi guys, I’m Adrienne and I’m a 3^rd year PhD candidate. I’m a community ecologist and I study prairie restorations. I’m really excited to be working with you all on this project!

It’s great you guys have a head start and some good questions. I think one thing to keep in mind, as you guys posted earlier, is that ferns are pretty unique. My first question for you all to think about is do you want to incorporate questions about alternation of generations into your work? So based off what you said, it might be something like 1) how does wavelength of light affect growth and 2) does this differ between gametophytes and sporophytes? Or how do the space requirements change?

You guys have some great questions, but I would encourage you to brainstorm a little more before you settle on a research question. Whenever I’m setting up an experiment, I come up with a list of questions I think I could answer and then settle on the ones I’m most excited about that seem do-able with my resources and time.

I think germination is an often overlooked plant stage and it is a crucial bottleneck. You might consider if you’re interested in starting your experiments at the germination stage. If you focus on germination it means that you can do more experiments in a short amount of time. However, if you are manipulating the conditions such that you get low germination it may mean you have less plants to answer questions about growth and development of the gametophyte. It really depends on what you’re interested in.

So with all that said, what other questions do you guys have?