Home for the holidays in a land of snow and ice, I’ve taken some time to reflect on the past nine months working as a Seeds of Success (SOS) Intern at the Institute for Conservation Research, San Diego Zoo Global.  Being back where I started prior to the internship makes me wonder if it all really happened or maybe it was just my imagination.  Did I really work in such extreme landscapes with crazy plants that look like the illustrations from a Dr. Seuss book?  Was I really there to see the subtle changes of seasons from spring to summer to fall and winter?

Blooming Desert

Working at a non-profit international research institute provided a tremendous amount of insight into the world of conservation.  Working as an SOS intern I developed an intimate knowledge of the plants of several ecosystems found in Southern California including: coastal sage scrub, chaparral, chaparral/oak woodland transition, high desert transition (Mojave/Sonoran), low desert transition, and desert.  It was a steep learning curve at first, but each day as the landscape became more and more familiar it was easier to rely on memory and basic botany skills to identify plant species.

I worked for the Applied Plant Ecology division of the Institute.  This gave me the opportunity to participate in other projects as well.  The Zoo has its own seedbank that aspires to maintain, in long term cold storage, a collection of seeds from each species found in San Diego County.  As part of the seedbanking efforts we had to care for the collections with steps beyond those SOS interns normally experience.

Duel Collecting

The seeds need to go through a series of techniques to remove excess vegetative material.  Different species have different methods that work best and could include rubbing, sifting, use of an air separator, and hand cleaning.  The process can be time consuming and in many cases it is a trial and error experience to determine the best techniques for each species.  Once the seed is clean it needs to be placed in desiccant chambers to dry before it can be packaged and placed in the freezer.  After being in cold storage for at least one year, germination tests are done to determine the best method of bringing the seeds out of dormancy.

Other projects I was able to work on were habitat restoration projects for the Stephen’s Kangaroo Rat and Coastal Cactus Wren.  This included: vegetation surveys, invasive species control, animal behavior studies, site preparation for small mammal relocation, bird surveys and song recording, cactus herbivory studies, seedling propagation, and site preparation for planting.

The hands-on experience in the field was great, but I also got to learn about other research being done at the Institute and by other organizations in the surrounding area during the Institute’s weekly seminar series.  I learned how the zoo combines research of the behaviors and needs of their collection animals at the zoo with studies conducted on wild populations.  The data are then applied to the conservation and restoration of natural habitats.  It was good to see that the conservation effort runs deeper than the charismatic mega-fauna that the public generally sees.  My invaluable experience at the Institute has broadened my knowledge and skill base in conservation action; I will carry this on with me as I develop my own conservation philosophy and build my career.

Contemplating the Scenery

Sarah Brewster

SOS Intern

San Diego Zoo Global

Contemplating the last 5 months working at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park

Five months of collecting seeds is coming to a close.  As I think back through the months working at the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research, I’m amazed at how much I’ve experience and learned.  Not only have I had the opportunity to learn about the plants native to Southern California’s deserts, chaparral, and coastal sage scrub ecosystems, but I’ve gotten to see how research is conducted at a location other than a university, and even more uniquely at a non-profit organization.  The Applied Plant Ecology Division at the Institute has collected seeds for the Royal Botanical Gardens Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank the  for several years.  With a system already established, it was easy to learn the process of locating target populations, monitoring, collecting, short-term storage, and shipping.  We completed our required 50 collections, plus several more, giving us a feeling of accomplishment.  The long hours working in the hot blazing sun pay off when you come back with two complete collections of 10,000 seeds, one for SOS and the other for the Zoo’s seedbank.  There have been many great adventures from the past few months that will be told over and over, making this an experience I will never forget.

Sarah Brewster

San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research

The San Diego Zoo's sign board describing their commitment to the conservation of native plants

The field truck with a flat tire

The seed drying room full of seeds

I went for a run the other day down a trail that goes along the fence line of the local strawberry fields.  People were out harvesting the berries, slowly walking down the rows of plants picking as they went.  As I watched, mentally savoring the taste of fresh ripe strawberries, the realization came to me that my job and the berry harvester’s job were quite similar, aside for a few minor differences.  The strawberry fields are neat organized homogeneous rows of plants that are planted at specific times of the year so their phenology runs in time with the climate of the area, at the time we call strawberry season.  The plants we collect seeds from are naturally established scattered throughout the ecosystem according to various seed dispersal methods.  The plants are required to comply with the forces of natural selection, or just darn luck, for the seed to become established, germinate, grow to maturity, flower, and produce seed.   Sometimes you have to do a bit of searching to find the next plant, luckily in the desert you just have to stand in one place and let your eyes do the wandering until they find the correct shape/color of the plant you’re collecting from.  The strawberry collectors get to collect large tasty fruits into their buckets, although I’m sure their work regulations don’t allow snacking on the produce while on the job, it must be delightful to think of all the possible uses the strawberry consumers may indulge in.  We don’t get to snack on the seeds we collect either, but we can think of the future uses of the seed; the SOS Seed Bank, various garden experiments, and restoration projects.  Our seeds aren’t always as easy to collect as the strawberries.  Some seeds are small and need to be picked one at a time, some are bunched together and can be tapped into a bucket, others have pappuses that threaten to blow away the moment you touch them, and some are prickly and require gloves.  Some collections are quick and it’s easy to get 10,000 seeds, others require multiple visits and additional hours to meet the quota.  As with the strawberries, our seeds can be subject to predation, leaving us to collect empty seed cases.

Ambrosia dumosa (burro-bush) seeds

Dendromecon rigida (bush poppy) seeds

Seeds from Encelia farinosa (brittlebush)

Harvesting food and materials has been an element of human survival for all of time.   Our modern society is largely disconnected with the act of harvesting, and when we do take part in the process it is usually in a garden style setting.  Participating in the SOS seed collections draws out the inherent, yet often submerged, connection between human and environment.

Sarah Brewster

Escondido, CA

San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research

The view as we botanized along the San Pasquel Valley Trail

Showy Penstemon (Penstemon spectabilis) a native perennial.

Hillside flowering yellow with Deer Weed (Lotus scoparius).

Wildflowers along the Sunrise Highway, Anza Borrego Desert State Park, CA.

View of our desert collection area in McCain Valley.

Testing the boundaries of my comfort zone has become the theme for my internship experience in Southern California.  The coastal sage scrub, chaparral, and desert ecosystems are about as different as can be from the northern hardwood and boreal forests of the upper Midwest where I have the vast majority of my ecological experience.  To start the ‘next step’ in life after graduating I was looking for a new environment to challenge not only my ecological abilities but also give me the experience of living somewhere very different, this CLM internship has proven to do just that.

Learning all new plants and systems can be an intimidating yet exciting prospective.  My fellow intern and I are very lucky to be working with a number of very talented, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic botanists and ecologists.  Our first field trip was filled with gasps of excited exclamations of “Oh the Pickeringia montana is flowering!   And the Malacothamnus densiflorus is blooming so nicely.  The Dendromecon rigida and Romneya coulteri are having a good year so far.  Was that a Lathyrus vestitus among the Adenostoma fasciculatum back there? Oh!  What a beautiful swath of Lupinus bicolor!” while botanizing out the truck window as we bumped along the dirt road heading up and down the hills.  To me all the vegetation was a conglomeration of patches of bright colors interspersed with greens and browns.  As a landscape it was beautiful, but my brain could not distinguish all the parts that made up the whole. Gradually, through the weeks, the patchwork of colors has separated into different plants that my mind is starting to define as unique species with accompanying common and scientific names.  I learn (and relearn) new ones every day.

Just learning the plants is only half the battle in becoming acquainted with doing field work in a new environment.  Physical challenges such as becoming acclimated to a hot and dry climate and developing the stamina to climb up and down the hills that are mountains to a girl from a glaciated land are overcome with time and the vigilance to remain hydrated.  There are also new environmental hazards that I need to be consciously thinking about, such as remembering that certain plants are not friendly and will poke, scratch, or bite.  And of course, there is the danger of being bit by a snake, something I’m not naturally cautious of since I’ve never lived where snakes are a safety issue.  I survived my first close encounter with a rattle snake; I walked away with a pounding heart and the reminder to watch where I step.  There are some cultural differences to get used to as well, including the presence Border Patrol as they make their rounds through our collection sites, and the generally faster paced California lifestyle.  Some things are easier to get used to like the abundance of avocados and oranges that grow on trees in the front yard.  Working out of the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park provides not only the chance to be involved in different research projects, but also the opportunity to work in the hills above various grazing exotic ungulates and to hear the gibbons calling for breakfast in the early morning.

All in all there are a lot of new things, but when it comes down to it, the field methods are familiar; it’s just a different location.   Many of the same field work related stories will be created; everybody needs to have the ‘day we got the work vehicle stuck’ story.  A month and a half into my internship, I’m amazed at how much I’ve already learned and have had the opportunity to experience.  Looking back makes me even more excited for the adventures and opportunities that are in store for the remainder of the internship.