As a sophomore in college I met with a professor to discuss what it means to be a biology major. I expressed concern over what my job prospects would be with a bio degree. I know, “do what you love and the money will follow,” but you need to be realistic sometimes. So I asked my professor what my choices were and she laid out 3 options:

1. Pre-Med- I knew from the start that this is not the place for me. I wanted to work with the environment.

2. Education- This option leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I respect teachers, but it seems like a vicious cycle to just major in Bio to continue trying to inspire other kids to become Bio majors.

3. Academia- I’m only 22 now, it still seems absurd to have aspirations of a PhD, and as my mom can testify: just because you have a PhD doesn’t mean you’ll get a job.

And that was it. So I left the meeting still scared of the future but reassured to try it out. I’m a Bio major and I couldn’t be happier for that decision, regardless of the risky job market. But, I’m ashamed my professor never discussed any other options. Because I’m finding now that there’s a lot more out there, you just have to know where to look.

I love it with the BLM. There are things to do, I do not feel idle, supervisors treat you well and everyone in the office is friendly. My theory with this friendliness comes from the fact that everyone has field work, so most people are not stuck in the office 100% of the time. And those that are stuck in the office feed off of the energy from the field. It is neat to witness a system like this take place before your eyes.

I worked previous summers in ecology labs, helping graduate students and professors in the field. I enjoyed those internships as well, but I always felt like I had to know my place. Here, I feel like I am a part of the bigger picture and that is a valuable feeling.

Another attribute of the BLM that I have come to enjoy is people are working these jobs because they love it. It is easy to find people to look up to when you work in an atmosphere where everyone love what they are doing, despite some frustrations at the end of the day. Certainly I have worked with professors who loved their work and what they were working for, however to some degree there was always a hint of personal advancement as well. Ego for lack of a better word: the need to get your paper published, or get your name known by others. And I understand why this is needed by professors, but it is nice in the BLM where that ego is put aside relative to academia. Even the “higher-ups” do what they are doing because they enjoy it. Likewise they value the mission that their department stands by, whether it be BLM, Forest Service or FWS. It is awesome to be a part of this.

When people ask me about my internship, I tell them the worst part of the job is that it is only for 5 months. Certainly no job is perfect, and every place has its cons, but as far as I see it, working with the BLM is as good as I could have asked for. I need to write a letter to my old professor to tell her that if you know where to look, there is a lot out there for the weirdos like me who want to work outdoors. And for a mission they care about.

Year two at the Kremmling field office has been good. I started this year a bit earlier (March 31st) due to the dry winter and early spring. A warm winter and hot April lead to a wet and cold May – June. It has been a weird season here in Colorado so far. In Steamboat Springs it rained every single day of May and Arapahoe Basin Ski Area received nearly 60 inches of snow in May. This dry winter leading to a wet and prolonged spring has created some weird work conditions for Colorado. The vegetation has really greened up and the wet roads have made scheduling work interesting. The Dry winter and lesser melt-off have allowed us to float the river throughout May and June, whereas last year we were limited to late July and August to float the river. This allowed us to get some good spraying in on the river, which really needed it. However, now that July is upon us we will be switching over to vegetation monitoring and put the spray rigs away.

Other than that, I am in the process of developing a Master’s thesis out here in conjunction with the BLM on assisted succession of slash pile burn scars. I am putting in 100 or so plots using some of the 1,000 freshly burned piles up on Independence Mountain. I will be using Quadrats to monitor several different treatment methods and to get species richness using percent cover of each plot. The Fuels/Foresters are very interested in this project to see what management strategies will work best to restore burned piles to a native stand and limit noxious weed invasions.

I have two months left in this internship and it feels like summer has just begun. The snow is just starting to melt off in the backcountry, so I have some backpacking to catch up on in these coming months.

Greetings CLM interns,

After a wonderful and wild ride as a CLM intern in Fairbanks, I am here to tell you that this will be my last blog post.

I will be moving on from the Bureau of Land Management but will be staying in the Golden Heart City of Fairbanks, Alaska.  Life has taken me across town to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife where I will be the new botany biotech for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

As such, this post will be bittersweet.  I’ve immensely enjoyed my year at the BLM, but I am also incredibly excited to botanize and explore in Arctic refuge this summer and beyond.

My last few weeks working at BLM were jam packed.

I first headed to Central, AK to finally set up the little brown bat monitoring project that I had been planning for months and months.  The plan was drive our trusty steed Big Blue (also known as an F250 Dodge Ram) to Central, transition to our other trusty steeds (King Quad 4-wheelers) and ride along the Harrison Creek trail up and over a ridge and down into a creek valley, deploying ultrasonic bat detectors along the way.  Anticipation was high as this was a project and field outing I had planned pretty much entirely by myself.   But alas, we arrived in Central and rode to the top of the ridge only to find the trail still snowed in.  An extremely unfortunate outcome but in Alaska the remoteness of these areas makes field work particularly unpredictable.  Nothing we could do but enact plan B and place the detectors closer to the main road.  Disappointment sat heavy, but in the end the project was passed along to the next intern in what I believe and hope to be a good state.

Immediately after this trip north, I turned around and headed south to spend a few days in Chicken, AK doing raptor surveys.  We flew via helicopter along the narrow river valleys of the Fortymile area and searched the cliffs and tree tops for Golden Eagle, Bald Eagle, Peregrine Falcon and Common Raven nests.  When spotted, we noted whether there were eggs, chicks and/or adults present and how many of each.  The weather was perfect and it was a gorgeous and productive several days.

I raced back to Fairbanks for my last day on Friday, and there ended my CLM intern adventure.

And now some reflections on the Life and Times of a CLM Intern in Alaska.

Looking back I am in awe of how much I’ve learned and experienced working with the BLM.  At times my experience was different than I expected, at times the same.  So without further ado…

Surprises:

• Alaska itself. Although I found it extremely exciting to be in the midst of such a pure and wild area, it was still a shock sometimes how remote Alaska is.  From things like grocery prices; to driving on a highway for several hours without seeing store, person, car or sign; to the concept of towns accessible only by plane, it was initially a very odd place indeed. And of course -40 degree winter temperatures were rather extreme.
• Working for a multiple-use agency. I have immense respect for my colleagues and the agency for striving to make intelligent and informed decisions on land use while considering many different views.  It was interesting to see how this functioned at the office level and how decision making ramped up from there and/or came down from higher levels and affected operations at the local level.  It was also very exciting to have so many different types of folks in the office—it really allowed me to get a broad range of experiences over the course of my internship.

Cherished Opportunities:

• Meeting and interacting with many wonderful people from all walks of life.
• Assisting with many types of different tasks/field outings.  I was able to do not only my regular job (which included invasive species inventory and monitoring, herbarium management, GIS, raptor surveys and bat project planning) but also experience the worlds of our hydrologist (through snow surveys), our mining compliance staff (through a combination invasive plant/mining compliance float trip), NPS biologists (through moose surveys) and many more.
• Living in a wonderful town surrounded by endless outdoor play land.

Highlights:

• Being able to work under an amazing boss.
• Witnessing 2 young black bears wrestle right outside our field station.
• Meeting many remarkable people.
• Looking at many interesting plants via herbarium preparations and plant ID.
• Flying over the entirety of Gates of the Arctic National Park for moose surveys.
• Getting lots of GIS practice.
• Driving to the Arctic twice—during the summer and the winter—and getting to see the difference.
• Doing a multi-day float trip down the Fortymile River doing invasive plant inventory.
• Flying in a helicopter along the Fortymile counting raptors.
• I could go on all day…

Final Thoughts:

I am a very lucky person to have had this opportunity.  It allowed me to be placed in a community I now love and allowed me to get my foot in the door for federal employment.  I’m not entirely convinced that government work is for me, and graduate school is still a looming possibility, but for now I am going to try another federal agency on for size.  I’m eager to see how things change while working for an agency with a single, more directed mission (vs. multiple use).

In the past couple months I have completed several projects and started a few as well.  First off I believe I have gotten the Phacelia formosula monitoring dialed in and ready for the monitoring that will be completed later in the summer.  The highlights in the past months include Astragalus debequaeus monitoring, Penstemon grahamii monitoring, Physaria congesta monitoring, Astragalus naturitensis monitoring, Sclerocactus monitoring and CLM workshop at Chicago Botanic Gardens.

Astragalus debequaeus monitoring was a success with relatively good numbers for the year and recruitment numbers that were better than excepted.

Macroplot location for Astragalus debequaeus

Vista from one of the macroplot location for Astragalus debequaeus

Penstemon grahamii monitoring was completed and a significant increase was seen from the previous year, which was a relief even though grazing pressure from native species as well as livestock was still present in and around the area of our macroplot.

Several new Physaria congesta plots were established near an oil and gas facility with White River BLM field office, USFWS, Colorado State BLM office and oil company personnel.  These plots will give USFWS and BLM information on how Physaria congesta populations are potentially affected by the proximity to oil and gas installations. It will be neat to see what accessory experiments will need to be completed to fully confirm the effects of the oil and gas installations.

Astragalus naturitensis monitoring was a new plot as well as new species to conduct monitoring on by the BLM Colorado State office.  Working with personnel from the Uncompahgre field office we survey for the species in areas that were rotochopped 30 years ago and probably chained before that, so the area was still recovering.  To our surprise we found the species throughout these areas in densities that we were not expecting and in one of those areas we found a population with a density that could support a monitoring macroplot.

Additional survey work was completed for Astragalus naturitensis with Lone Cone in the distance.

Sclerocactus glaucus monitoring this year was completed with the help of the Uncompahgre field office, Colorado State office, and students from University of Northern Colorado.  This year’s monitoring was a way to introduce how the BLM monitors rare and endangered plants throughout Colorado and give them the opportunity to participate in monitoring plants too. http://www.unco.edu/news/releases.aspx?id=8144

Even though we were monitoring cactus, when you see an animal posing for you, you have to take the shot

Sclerocactus monitoring area

This past week I traveled to Chicago Botanic Gardens to present at the CLM workshop about the work I did for the revision of the Phacelia formosula monitoring.

When at a botanic garden you have to take the time to take a few pictures of the flora they have growing on the grounds.

Regards,

Nathan

Blog 3

Oy, my third month here at the CO state office has come and gone. So what have I been up to? May has been full of Penstemon grahamii, Physaria congesta, and preparing for the CLM training in Chicago.

First, Penstemon grahamii. I talked about this species in my first post, and we have finally been out for monitoring. And we got to see it in flower! The actual monitoring was easy enough. This plot and the monitoring protocols have been established since 2005, so it was as easy as knowing what to look for and what to record. So, what did we find?

This population took a hard hit last year, with only 16 rosettes remaining. The species is rare as it is, and this plot is the largest population we have found to date on CO lands. We scouted some potential habitat in early May and found no new populations. All we did find was a cluster of 6 or so plants. So, for the time being, we have to make do with what we’ve got.  This year, we found 7 new plants and a total of 67 rosettes; which is statistically a significant increase. However, when compared to 2005, it is a significant decrease. By significant I mean we are 90% sure of detecting a 20% difference in mean population density. Here is a table of our data since 2005.

Overall, this is important information if for no other reason than the fact that the USFWS is currently being sued for deciding no to this, and another, species last year.

I still don’t know how to make this bigger.

I was also able to talk about this species at the Chicago training last week. I hope people found it interesting to hear a little about what we’re working on here, and see how the monitoring training they received in another class can be put to use. However, we presented right after lunch each day and had a hard time gauging audience interest. I only spotted one person sleeping, so that’s good right?

Over the past few weeks, I have been almost exclusively working on a grasshopper survey in the Panoche Hills region of Northern California. I have developed a protocol that will hopefully be published by the end of the summer (along with a literature review of other recent grasshopper studies).

I spent a significant amount of time since my last blog post in the field at three different test sites. One is located in Little Panoche Valley, one is located on the Panoche Plateau, and one is in Silver Creek. Each test site represents a zone where leopard lizards have been found. I completed several zone sweeps and transects in order to collect grasshoppers, and identify them down to species.

The next phase of the protocol calls for a genetic comparison and analysis to assess where and why each different species is overlapping with the observed leopard lizard populations. This will answer questions about the genetic composition of the community, overall gene flow, and dietary preferences of the endangered lizard.

I visited UC Davis this past Friday to work on IDing the grasshoppers with the head curator of the insect collection there. It is quite an impressive collection. Over six MILLION specimens! If anyone reading is at all interested in bugs, it is worth a visit! I now possess a great key that will help me identify down to species for each grasshopper that I have collected (more than 200 so far). It’s somewhat difficult to do because grasshoppers vary greatly in coloration and markings within a species. For example, taking each specimen through a key requires that I look at wing venation, pronotum structure, reproductive structure, and many other morphological traits. I will get through them all eventually!

Over the next few weeks, I hope to begin the genetic component of the protocol as well as the literature review. I’m really enjoying this project, and can’t wait to see the end results.

Jen Michalski
Hollister Field Office

GPS coordinates of where I spotted a leopard lizard in the field one day!

Panoche Plateau test site

Growing up in coastal eastern Massachusetts and having spent the last four years in Vermont, I would have never imagined myself living in New York City. I’ve always been surrounded by large tracts of conservation lands, particularly beautiful tracts of northern hardwood forest and dune communities. I was curious about the state of the natural areas in and around New York City and admittedly did not have high expectations for the areas. After spending a week with a few trips to natural sites around the city I’m happy to say that so far I have been pleasantly surprised by the state of the area. As expected, there is a fair about of trash strewn about and some areas have been subjected to heavy public use. However, the amount of plant diversity and native species still remaining in what seemed like a jungle of invasive species was surprising to me.

Over the course of the week we were able to identify about 15 species on our collection list. For someone who is fairly well versed in the flora of the Northeast, I was thrilled to find myself learning new species. I’ve recently been working on getting better at identifying grass and grass-like species. I find them somewhat challenging to key out if you can’t identify them through familiarity and gestalt. Everyone’s favorite so far seems to be the black rush, Juncus gerardii, due to its minute yet stunning flowers and ease of identification.

Our collection list also includes a few groups of species in what I consider to be troublesome genera and closely related genera, specifically Viburnum, Vaccinium, and Gaylussacia. We encountered a few mystery Viburnum during our field days, which we concluded were likely ornamental non-natives. We also found these Vaccinium and Gaylussacia species growing side by side, which helped us process the differences between the two. In this photo the Vaccinium is on the right and the Gaylussacia is on the left.

While of course the plants were interesting and I was excited to learn new species, the scenery wasn’t bad either! For such a developed landscape, there are certainly some hidden gems of natural areas in the city. In the next few weeks to come I can’t wait to discover even more hidden paradises in Long Island, New Jersey, and Delaware!

Paige Carncross

SOS East Intern for the Mid-Atlantic Regional Seed Bank

Here at the New England Wildflower Society, our goal for the next six months is to assist in preparing for restoration of salt marshes in New England, many of which have been degraded by natural disasters, such as Hurricane Sandy, as well as human activity. Since this project is the first of its kind for SOS on the East Coast and most of the land east of the Mississippi is not owned by the federal government, we have spent much of our time over the past week contacting landowners, state governments, universities, tribal groups, and watershed associations in order to obtain permission to survey sites for potential seed collection and restoration. Since associations between these groups and government agencies that provide them grant money are often complex and convoluted, it has lately been a little difficult to contact the right people who can grant us the necessary permissions. Nonetheless, we persevered, and we managed to visit three wildlife refuges in Rhode Island this week to scout for potential seed collection and restoration: Chafee and Satchuet on 6/10, and Ninigret on 6/12.

Common reed (Phragmites australis)

Blue iris (Iris versicolor)

White waterlily (Nymphaea odorata)

Oxeye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare)

All three of these refuges featured a typical marsh ecosystem, with the cordgrasses Spartina alterniflora, Spartina patens and the rush Juncus gerardii dominating, with smaller amounts of the small succulent Salicornia and assorted sedges of the Carex genus, all of which we hope to collect from for Seeds of Success.  However, all the marshes also seemed to be significantly disturbed, especially by boating traffic.  And all three were plagued with nasty infestations of an invasive strain of the weedy reed species Phragmites australis.  On higher ground we saw a bit more floral diversity, including meadows of the daisy Leucanthemum vulgare and thickets of shadbush, Amelanchier.  Looks like we have our work cut out for us — but we’re excited to start!

James

Side-blotched lizard

Rain here in Escalante, I have come to find, is a double edged sword. On one hand, the recent rains in southern Utah have been a boon for the plants and animals. Enormous populations of globemallow and yellow beeplant have been bursting out from the sand and clay, coloring entire hillsides, valleys, and mesas bright orange and yellow. Annuals are adding sprinklings of reds, purples, and blues among the grey-greens of vast flats near Escalante. Thus the palette of the monument has greatly expanded in the past few weeks with the arrival of several big storms; but these same life-giving rains have prevented travel to about 2/3 of our target populations on any given day. All but one of the main roads on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument are unpaved, and the majority of these are only navigable with high clearance, 4 wheel drive vehicles. So it is that even in the best weather and road conditions, some populations are troublesome to get to, but with storms, they become wholly inaccessible for days on end.

Collared lizard

As a result of extended weather delays, we were occasionally unable to monitor and collect during late May. On those days my co-intern and I lent our help to the wildlife biologists on the monument and collected data for hummingbird, bat, and lizard surveys.

Male broad tailed hummer

Understanding the animal life in these ecosystems is crucial to understanding the plant communities themselves and their true value in restoration and resilience, so I have found these forays into wildlife biology to be enlightening. Each of the animal taxa being studied on the monument serves integral roles in pest management, pollination, food web stability, and climate change research, both locally and regionally. The hummingbird survey data are especially interesting because many of the species found on the monument migrate through annually from southern deserts and northern forests, thus giving us clues into what surrounding climates are like compared to our regional climate. The data being collected are helping to paint a picture of the temporal changes in migration patterns for each hummingbird species, as well as for the genus as a whole which, in turn, are showing researchers the real-world impacts of changing climatic trends.

Collared lizard

Additionally, my co-intern and I have become particularly invested in the lizard surveys and have taken to catching lizards during seed collection and population monitoring trips, just for the sake of learning. There is no comprehensive list of herpological diversity on the two million square acre monument, and both Jessie and I have decided to help change this in whatever way possible. Herps represent important members of the food webs in these ecosystems, and I believe strongly that documenting biodiversity is crucial to any management strategies. Globally, herpological diversity is declining rapidly as species are being discovered, immediately listed as endangered, and then declared extinct with little more than a description and a name. While most of these tragedies are occurring to amphibians, which are naturally less common in such dry climes as Escalante, other herps are also eluding documentation and are thus at a unique risk of being lost. I don’t think that it is possible to overstate the importance of scientists and managers to know the biodiversity of their study sites, regardless of target organism, and I am thrilled that I am able to help gather data in the hope that the monument will soon gain insight into its herpological diversity and take steps to conserve the species here.

Desert spiny lizard

Despite the inclement weather, we have begun to collect seeds for two species of globemallow, three species of grass, and one species of mustard during the last two weeks. Rain is again preventing certain collections this week and may be knocking out our ripe seeds, but the rain is nonetheless a welcome visitor after such a dry winter and spring.

In the spirit of adventure,

Elise

Escalante Field Office, BLM

P.S. I’m building a theme with my titles because life is too short to not have a little intrigue every once in a while. If you can guess it, then I’ll send you an Escalante keepsake. I’m not joking. Hint: Mr Plant met an elf-friend and grew inspired. These titles are inspired by the resulting harmonious union.