The past few weeks have been busy. During most of the second week of July I got to assist with bull trout surveys. They were at a site about an hour and a half out of town and because of the heat we wanted to start early each morning, so we camped at a site close by and were able to enjoy the mountains and rivers for a few days. The surveys consisted of electro-shocking the river, catching the trout that we could, and then weighing, measuring, I.D.ing, tagging, and releasing them. The data is used to see if fish are utilizing, and returning to, sites that were restored over the past few years.

The week after that I took a motorboat operator certification course offered by the Department of the Interior, and required by the government in order to operate federal boats. It was three days long and consisted of a few lectures as well as knot tying, rescue procedures, maneuvering drills, and driving with a trailer.

The past two weeks have been filled with data collection and water quality monitoring. The dissolved oxygen keeps moving to our threshold value, but hasn’t quite bottomed out yet, so we’ve been keeping a close eye on it and getting the aeration systems ready to go should we need to start them up to increase the DO. Next steps are to sample the fish that we have to see what percent are the suckers, and try to keep them healthy for the rest of the season!

Hello all!
Not a whole lot to report, working mostly on data collection at Rio Mesa Center for my Master’s project and when I’m not doing that I’ve been working on a database of restoration projects monitored by the Watershed Restoration Initiative in the Colorado Plateau. More info can be found here: http://wildlife.utah.gov/watersheds/. The hope is to use this database to track which species and cultivars are being used for restoration and be able to measure the effectiveness of these seeding efforts based on pre and post treatment monitoring data. This weekend I’m going back to Grand Staircase/Escalante to collect Heterotheca villosa for another master’s student’s thesis, which I’m pretty excited about. Here’s some photos of the last time we were there doing some SOS/research collections:

Our awesome REU intern, Lisa Hintz

Cheers!
Nora

Astragalus ceramicus at the Sandhills in Centennial Valley

Lots has been happening here in Dillon and the internship is going quite well.  My mentor and I have made eight collections for SOS already.  I love Montana and often find myself in awe of the immense amount of open spaces and wildlife Montana has to offer.  I even took to liking country music, mostly the old stuff like Dolly Parton.

Cool mutation in this Aster — click on the photo & you’ll notice it’s conjoined twins.

Beside collecting for SOS I have been fortunate enough to participate in lots of different monitoring and projects.  Last week my mentor and I helped the Nature Conservancy folks monitor a very unique system of Sand hills in Montana’s Centennial Valley.  It’s one of these weird systems where disturbance, over-grazing and uprooting plants is a GOOD thing because it creates ‘blow-outs’.

Blow-outs are basically exposed hills of sand.  It’s best if there’s not a lot of grass stabilizing the blow-outs, because several sensitive plant species and insects thrive on the disturbance the moving sand creates.The BLM and Nature Conservancy are closely monitoring the sand hills using fire, over-grazing, and other techniques to keep the disturbance rate high.  When we were there we monitored the frequency of bunch grass, rhizomatous grass, and a scruff pea.  A Nature Conservancy fellow and myself got in a bit of a skirmish about the pronunciation of ‘rhizomatous’.  He said ‘rhizomanous’ and I said ‘rhizomatous’.  We eventually came to the conclusion ‘tomato’ ‘tomahto’ although according to google I am right. The endemic species in sand hill system were absolutely incredible.  Especially stunning was this type of Astragalus specialized to live in the sand hills called Astragalus ceramicus.

They look like little easter eggs hanging from stems with linear leaves– not your typical Astragalus.

Wetland Plant training with the Heritage Foundation

The photo above is from a very helpful riparian plant training along the Beaverhead River with the Heritage Foundation.

Most recently I went to an amazing training on Moonworts.

Moonworts, also known as Botrychium, are plants from before the dinosaurs related to the ferns. The dust from their spores is said to have powers to make people invisible. The entire plant family of moonworts was largely forgotten until the 1980’s when University of Michigan biologists Herb and Florence Wagner dedicated roughly ten years to looking for them. They are mostly found in moist meadows of the Rocky Mountains. Their chloroplasts are like our appendix…. inactive. They get all the need from fungus and the entire plant is considered one leaf. The Forest Service had a training with Moonwort Specialist Steve Popovich and I was honored to participate.

Best,

L.G.M.

Things are heating up here in Lander, Wyoming!  One of the perks of being out in the field most every day is that you get an intimate view of the seasonal progression.  When I first got to Wyoming I was blown away by the wildflowers.  Fields dominated by Balsam Root littered with patches of dainty Sego Lily and scattered Larkspurs made me think I was living in a post card!  A wet fall was the cause of this forb-ilicious spring.  I consider this first half of my internship as my “reconnaissance” phase.  I spent most of my time driving around the field office on the hunt for my plants and then visiting them about once a week. A lot of my time in the office is spent keying out unknown plants supplied by myself and everyone else in the office.  I could not have been in Wyoming for a better spring.

As the spring showers slow down the dry summer heat amps up and my fields of flowers turn into fields of brown grass.  The month of July has been a race against time to collect all the seeds before they drop, and believe me, those seeds don’t collect themselves!  I’ve completed around 10 collections so far with more coming in every week!  It has been a great year for grasses too!  As the spring time flowers are seeding out, the grasses are getting ready to drop too.  Grasses are certainly not as glamorous as the showy forbes, but are equally as important.

As time marches on my list of favorite flowers grows and changes depending on their seed productivity.  Lately I’ve been a huge fan of the prolific Northwestern Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja angustifolia), while the increasingly unfriendly Miner’s Candle (Cryptantha celiosoides) has fallen a few notches down.

The seed flow has kept me busy but has not stopped me from going to a few rodeos, dancing a few two steps, visiting a couple of ghost towns and going to a TON of garage sales.

Things are chugging along here in the Cowboy State.

Emily Usher

Lander BLM

Good Morning Dixie Valley

Greetings and salutations readers near and far!  It’s been a bit of time since I posted my last blog, and let me tell you, a ton has been going on out here in the Great Basin.  From fire monitoring, seed collecting, to rare plants monitoring and doing some educational outreach, we sure have been keeping busy here in Carson City.

Sacred and Beautiful Sand Mountain

Summer is in full swing- the heat is here, the dryness is ever-present and the explorations are never-ending.  Unfortunately, we have been experiencing some daily storms rolling through the valley.. Meaning lightning strikes and fires.  It’s a strange feeling coming from the East Coast and now having wildfire on the front line of concern.  In any case, in the midst of worrying about fire, I have had time to sit back and enjoy some incredible lightning- it brings me back home to the large thunderstorms!  There have been a few times in the last couple weeks where huge dark clouds have rolled in so fast and we just beat the rain.  That said, recently while fire monitoring and almost all done with the work day we got caught in a huge rainstorm!  Soaking wet and running back to the truck for some reprieve while dodging small bits of hail and trying to protect all things that might get damaged by water, it was quite a way to end the day!  Luckily, we made it back safe and sound and no equipment was hurt along the way.

Walls of the Cave!

On another note, we as a botany team have been making seed collections like nobody’s business!  Visiting breath taking places like Sand Mountain and Indian Creek Reservoir has been a great treat.  Not to mention, nothing beats camping out in the desert under a star lit sky exchanging stories of the past and excitement for the future.  Suffice to say, my stay here in Nevada has been nothing but enjoyable, eyeopening and entertaining.  I have really appreciated the time (as in hours) spent staring at tiny plants, huge rock formations, mountains and sunsets that stretch across the sky for what seems like days.  Beginning to think about my next steps, and although I’m not quite sure what or where yet I’ll be this time next year, I am confident in saying this experience will certainly help me get there.  As for now, enjoy the few pictures and keep up the good work.

Shine on!

-Andrew

BLM Carson City

Hey little Dude!

Everyone is thirsty in the Great Basin

Not a bad Saturday afternoon !

A couple days these last few weeks I was able to survey in a creek and a little bit in a spring-fed meadow. Because of this I have gotten to see some really cool plants that I don’t often see in the rest of the forest, which is much drier. An orchid sighting always brightens my day so I have included some photos of these cool water loving species.

Since my last post I have surveyed areas where there are fuels reduction projects and have also been revisiting legacy polygons of rare plants. Legacy polygons are locations of rare plants that were inferred before the era of GPS. These polygons have little to no information associated with them, so the goal of the revisits is to see if the plants are they, see if the population is accurately mapped, and then take notes about the area and what plant species are associated with the population.

My colleague and I are planning on doing a final print of the invasive plant guide for the Southern California mountains by late August or early September so we are working on final edits, touching up the design, and getting comments from fellow botanists.

This is the stream orchid Epipactis gigantea that is found throughout California. It was all along the creek that we surveyed as well.

Epipactis gigantea

The orchid Platanthera dilata var. leuchostachys that is found in wet places.

The adorable Mimulus primuloides. The leaves are covered in dew.

It is probably Botrychium minganense, but it has yet to be keyed out.

I was so excited when I found this Botrychium!

This federally threatened Castilleja cinerea was so crimson up in the higher elevation area I surveyed yesterday (about 9000 feet).

The Forest Service sensitive plant Boechera parishii.

HUGE (possibly) puffball mushroom!

The federally endangered Eremogone ursina that is endemic to the San Bernardino mountains.

The Forest Service sensitive Sidalcea malviflora ssp. dolosa that is found in wet meadows and streams.

Thanks to a snowy winter and relatively wet June, the huckleberries are out in full force around Missoula. While I’m partial to the wild Maine blueberries (being a New Englander at heart), I’m certainly loving the added lunch snack.

The summer is flying by, as it always does. I’ve continued to work on a wide array of projects at Missoula’s BLM office. This past month I’ve conducted forest inventory, helped cage whitebark pine cones, and monitored for the sensitive plant botrychium paradoxum. A camping trip and more forest monitoring is planned for August.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the past month:

Caging whitebark pine cones

Elk harem

Blanketflower, Gaillardia aristata

Enjoying soaking up new skills and spending my days in fields of indian paintbrush!

I spent last the past week surveying vegetation on Patos Island, the northernmost island in the San Juan Archipelago.  The 200 acre island is owned by the BLM and managed in conjunction with Washington State Parks.  Patos is home to one of four lighthouses in the San Juans (two of which are owned by the BLM) which was constructed in 1893 and has since guided ships traveling between the US and Canada.  Patos island, called isle de Patos by Spanish explorers, is translated to island of ducks, this name coming from a stone structure closely resembling a duck head and body on the eastern most point of the island.

The Namesake of the island, stone duck at Toe Point, Patos Island.

Patos Island is a popular spot for kayakers and boaters visiting the lighthouse, camping at its 7 pristine campsites, and exploring its 1.5 mile trail around the island.

Boats anchored in Active Harbor, Patos Island

Patos is a charming though challenging spot for a botanist.  As one of the wetter sites in the San Juans, it supports a vigorous plant community.  It supports novel species that grow only occasionally in other parts of the islands.  Among the prettier species are Tiger Lily (Lilium columbianam) White Fawn Lily (Erythronium oregonum), Red Huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium), Douglas Maple (Acer glabrum), Paper birch (Betula papyrifera), and Black Cottonwood (Populus tremuloides), Garry Oak (Quercus garryana) and, my favorite, California broomrape (Orobanche California var. californica).

Bluff with Garry Oak, Toe Point, East Patos Island

Patos also has an abundance of plants common elsewhere in the islands.  Walking from the shoreline to an interior transect, I was frequently confronted with a wall of shrubs (Salal, Nootka Rose, Baldhip Rose, Trailing Blackberry, and Oceanspray) that was more than 200 meters thick and 3 meters tall.  Upon reaching the interior, I found an undergrowth plant community dominated by 2 meter sword fern.

Despite obstacles and shrubbery, I completed 7 transects across the island using the AIM (Assessment, Inventory and Monitoring) strategy.  Transects were in woodland, forest, maintained grassland, and coastal bluffs. Outside of my transects, I began a plant list on the island and documented several invasive species that had penetrated the thick forest vegetation.  I found a marsh in the middle of the island as well as a garry oak habitat on the eastern shore.  Oh, and I took lots of pictures.

I hope everyone is enjoying their internships and the areas they are based out of.

Jennifer McNew

Sunset and Lighthouse at low tide

Mussels found all along Patos Island at low tide

Sunset on Canada. Isn’t Canada photogenic?

On July 12th the Exotic Plant Management team helped in hosting the Weed Smack down, which is a one day event to get people in the Copper Basin involved in the effort to control invasive plants. This event is aimed to control White Sweet Clover, which a very aggressive invasive in Alaska, below is the press release for the event.

Thanks to all of the fabulous Weed Warriors who showed up, the 2^nd Annual Glennallen Weed SmackDown was a smacking success! On Saturday, July 12, more than 40 community members pulled and bagged 2,032 pounds of White Sweetclover from 35,458 square feet (0.82 acres) of heavily infested areas near the intersection of the Richardson and Glenn Highways, where many travelers pass.  This year saw a 4-fold increase in participation in the Copper Basin Cooperative Weed Management Area (CWMA) led SmackDown over last year with a 15 month old as the youngest Weed Warrior. Research shows that White Sweetclover (and its relative, Yellow Sweetclover) competes with our native berry crops for pollinator attention and binds gravel soils along streams and rivers, impacting the quality of spawning areas.  White Sweetclover is one of the most common weeds found within the Copper Basin CWMA and has been further spread by the recent road construction in the Glennallen area.  The SmackDown achieved its goal of removing the plants before they go to seed and spread further. The event was topped off with a Thai lunch, and participants received t-shirts.  Thanks to all who helped!

To learn more about the Copper Basin CWMA and how you and your organization can become involved go to the website or look for our new logo (above), designed by Cordova High School Junior Cadi Moffitt, at cooperator booths at the upcoming Kenny Lake Fair. The Copper Basin CWMA is comprised of 13 public, private, and nonprofit parties in the region. Of those partners, the following key members organized the SmackDown:  Laurie Thorpe, Bureau of Land Management Glennallen Field Office; Danielle Verna, Don Hofstetter, and Kate Morse, Copper River Watershed Project; Megan Weidman, Conservation Land Management Intern with the Chicago Botanic Gardens; Ann Biddle, Kenny Lake Soil and Water Conservation District; Robin Underwood, Wrangell Institute for Science and the Environment; and Peter Frank and Miranda Terwilliger, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve. The US Fish & Wildlife Service and the Alaska Association of Conservation Districts provided additional support. We’d also like to recognize the Student Conservation Association and the Southeast Alaska Guidance Association students and the National Park Service trail crew for their participation. The Alaska Department of Transportation signed the shoulders and allowed us to work in the right of way. Thanks also to several private land owners who allowed us to pull on their properties.

Hello my lovely fellow interns,

Since we last virtually spoke (as in I post and you maybe read), I have been doing a lot more work with invasive and rare plants.  I’ve familiarized myself with NISIMS and conning ArcMap/ArcPad into doing what I want and have been out to Chicken, AK (tiny town southwest of Fairbanks) and Coldfoot, AK (even tinier town (10 people at last census) north of the Arctic Circle) collecting NISIMS data.  Mostly we are focusing on white sweetclover and bird vetch so I’ve gotten really good at identifying white and purple blurs along the roadside as we cruise by in the trucks in the rain.  White sweetclover and bird vetch are both marching quite steadily up the Dalton Highway, which leads way north up to Deadhorse, the northernmost city in Alaska accessible by car (about 8 miles from the Arctic Ocean).  This is obviously bad news.  White sweetclover grows pretty much continuously from Fairbanks (Dalton Highway milepost 0) to Coldfoot (milepost 175) and beyond.  Bird vetch is less continuous so we were focusing on that—recording where it is and how dense it is.  We found it as far north as milepost 196, yikes!  After we gather data the hope is to develop a management plan to figure out how to handle this problem.  The Dalton is used mostly by the oil industry to haul supplies to and from Deadhorse and the oil infrastructure on the North Slope (in fact it used to be called the Haul Road) so you can probably see how invasive plant species might be abundant there.

Dalton Highway leading north into the Brooks Range

The rare plant front is progressing a little more slowly.  We learned that the GIS rare plant data that we have is fuzzed and thus not very useful for navigating to sites to monitor rare plants.  Now it seems we have resolved the problem so I will soon be able to get out to the field, hopefully tracking down some of these populations to monitor them and scouting areas where new populations might be hiding.

For the month of August I will also be working with another wildlife biologist in the office to re-visit some plots that were monitored pre-2004 fire to see what they look like post-fire.  Said biologist had been noticing that spruce forests are not regenerating post-fire as they used to and instead earlier succession environments are persisting.  Hopefully the data we collect here will help shed some light on this situation.

The latest adventure I’ve taken part in was a 38 mile float/raft trip down the Fortymile River, southwest of Fairbanks.  I tagged along with the office realty specialist and his intern and learned how to conduct mining compliance inspections at long term mining campsites along the river.  I also used this time to do invasive species inventories at these campsites.  I was surprised (but encouraged!) to find no invasive species at any of the 14 sites that we visited.  Despite some rain and cold, the raft trip was one of my favorite thus far—floating down the river was obviously lovely, I was able to learn how to raft from some experienced mentors and our three person team took part in several adventures such as rescuing a sunken hovercraft and helping guide a suction dredge down a series of rapids.

Beautiful view down the Fortymile

Doing mining compliance inspections

Suction dredge floating in the river

No invasives but plenty of gorgeous native plants…

Labrador Tea, Ledum palstre ssp groenlandieum (among many other taxonomic synonyms)

Cloudberry/Salmonberry, Rubus chamaemorus

Bog Blueberry, Vaccinium vliginosum
And most delicious!

Bluebells, Mertensia paniculata