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

The past couple months I have been completing a couple documents to aid in the management of two species of plants, one that is endangered and one that could be.  Both of these species happen to inhabit parts of the North Park Region of Colorado, one inhabiting the Coalmont barrens that spot the sagebrush steppe of North Park and the other inhabiting the unique dune system near the Colorado-Wyoming border.  The two species I have been working with are the Coalmont formation inhabitant, Phacelia formosula and the sand loving Corispermum navicula.

Recently the Denver Botanic Garden completed their genetic research for Phacelia formosula and Corispermum navicula that shed additional light on the two species population dynamics in their respective habitats.  For the Phacelia species the research was about two additional Phacelia species in the area and their relationship to each other as well as Phacelia formosula.  The results of the research state that the Phacelia found in Jackson County, CO are all Phacelia formosula and that there might be distinct subpopulation throughout Jackson County but a more intensive DNA collection needs to be done to get the refinement needed to determine the boundaries of the potential subpopulations.  The other research Denver Botanic Gardens just completed was on the Corispermum species that inhabit the sand dunes in North Park.  The question was if there were two distinct species of Corispermum or a single population of only Corispermum navicula present.  From the results the question was answered as a single population of Corispermum navicula with a very plastic morphology throughout the dune system which accounted for the questioning of if there were two species present within the Dune system.

So in an effort to aid in the persistence of these two species of plants a different approach was taken for each of the species.  Since Phacelia formosula is an endangered species a Recovery Plan was written when the plant was listed, but it is outdated and needs to be updated, so to aid in that I wrote up a status report for the species to be a reference in created a newly updated Recovery Plan for the species.  For all intents and purposes the document is done, aside from a few conference calls to discuss certain aspects of the reports.  The second species of concern is Corispermum navicula and since it is not listed and has not been monitored due to the unknowns surrounding the status of the population, but since genetic research has shown that the population is all the same species a monitoring plan can be constructed to gain a better understanding of the species.  The monitoring plan is the second project that I completed in the past couple months, which was based loosely on the pilot study that was ran in fall of 2014.

With two major reports completed I now start to turn my focus to field season only a few months away and start to make plans about new plot locations for certain species, new monitoring for certain species and of course seed collection goals for the 2015 field season.

Regards,

Nathan

The past couple weeks here in Colorado have been busy with wrapping up field season and continuing the analysis of the remainder field data.  In the past weeks I had the opportunity to help fisheries and hydrology personnel at the Kremmling BLM office with an education day for the local 8^th grade class.  Had groups of kids complete stream flow and water quality exercises and participate in some of the simple tests a hydrologist would conduct to determine the overall health of a stream system.  Carol and I, along with Betty Ford Alpine Gardens personnel, completed the last of the seed collections for the year at the Leadville site that we have visited so often.   In addition to finishing up seed collections we also finished up the rare plant monitoring with a Penstemon species in western Colorado that resides on the shale covered hillsides of the Roan Plateau near a site that use to be mined for oil shale.  Along with finishing up already established monitoring programs, we ended the field season with the implementation of a pilot study for a rare species in North Park called Corispermum navicula.  The difference in this monitoring was that the species is an annual and therefore presents a unique challenge in how long-term monitoring should be set up.  Over the past year figuring out a way to best complete this task has been a side project and a couple weeks ago I was able to implement the protocol.  So, as the winter months approach, my mindset must turn to office-based work and less time in the field, but with plenty of data to analyze the winter looks to be busy and full of learning opportunities.

Regards,

Nathan Redecker

Lakewood, CO

BLM Colorado State Office

In the past couple weeks we here at the BLM CO State Office have finished up several species monitoring for the year including the Astragalus osterhoutii, Penstemon penlandii,  Eutrema penlandii, Physaria congesta, Physaria obcordata, and Penstemon grahamii.  Traveling to the Kremmling, CO area then to the mountains near Fairplay to monitor the little arctic mustard, and finally out to Meeker, CO and almost to the Utah-Colorado border to Rangely, CO.  With all of the travel we came back to the state office to input the many pages of monitoring data to start the analysis and make any changes needed for next year (adding transects or if we are lucky get to remove a few and still get the same amount of certainty in the change of the populations or we can continue with the same number of transects which is just as good).  Along with the simple functions that we utilize in Microsoft Excel to show the necessary analysis of the monitoring data we are going to try and learn to use R and then hope to apply it to some of our monitoring data as well as the data we collected in the Modified Whittaker Plots in the alpine to create species area curves.  We will see what the learning curve is for R, I do have a little knowledge of C++ so if any of the programming I learned for C++ can be applied to R that would be great.  I have a feeling I am going to be learning a whole new syntax of programming and the crossover from C++ to R might be minimal at best but I will find out.  Since we are not specifically trying to create new programs, and just trying to call existing programs and functions to analyze our data that the learning curve will be acceptable to utilize the program.  Along with this new challenge we are continuing with our sensitive species monitoring with Phacelia formosula and Eriogonum pelinophilum coming up soon and then implementing the new monitoring protocol for Corispermum navicula sometime later.  While we are up in North Park for the Phacelia sp. monitoring we will assess the Corispermum sp site and the current stage of the species to better determine when the monitoring should take place to ensure that the best representation of the population is monitored.  In between all of this we might also be helping out Vail Botanic Gardens in a few seed collections.  Fun Stuff to come here in Colorado!!

Regards,

Nathan Redecker

Lakewood, CO

BLM Colorado State Office

Here in Colorado I have been in the office working on a revised monitoring scheme for Phacelia formosula and critiquing the details of the initial monitoring scheme for Corispemum navicula. Phacelia formosula monitoring will be coming up in August sometime with the Corispermum sp. monitoring to follow shortly thereafter. We went up to the North Park area to do some preliminary surveys of the Phacelia sp around Walden and Cowdrey.  We met up with the Kremmling Field office Wildlife Biologist who is also responsible for T&E species, Darren Long, and discussed future plans for the Corispermum sp. and Phacelia sp. in the area. We also tested out the software on the Juno to help with the monitoring of the Corispermum sp. Darren Long gave me a big binder full of past years data and reports for the Phacelia sp. dating back to to the 80’s.

Once I returned to my office the next week, my task was to comb through the binder and try and utilize the information to create a data history of the Phacelia sp.  Unfortunately, as things look right now this is not going to happen because of the type of data collected and the process in which it was collected. The data collection method was not consistent nor was the party collecting the data. So as of right now our historical data and trend information for the Phacelia sp. is spotty at best. The hopes of comparing it to any of the data that was collected by the CO state office botanist are minimal. In addition to the monitoring of the existing plots of Phacelia sp. an overall assessment of Phacelia sp. population presences needs to be coordinated through extensive surveying of the habitat.

In the coming weeks we will be heading up to the Kremmling, CO area to monitor Astragalus osterhoutii and Penstemon penlandii. Heading up Vail to coordinate with the Betty Ford Alpine Garden to get a SOS team established and help them with a collection and familiarize their staff with SOS protocol. Then the following weeks we will be in Fariplay monitoring the alpine endemic Eutrema penlandii for a week and then on to Meeker, CO to monitor a couple of Physaria sp. in the Piceance basin for a week.

Fun filled travels to come here in Colorado.

Regards,

Nathan Redecker

Lakewood, CO

BLM Colorado State Office

I have been in the field for the majority of the past few weeks .   May started off finishing out some monitoring of Astragalus sp. and then the following week we headed off to High Lonesome Ranch near DeBeque, CO to assist ranch personnel with locating endangered Sclerocactus sp. on their property and to discuss the opportunities that ranch might have in the preservation of the Sclerocactus sp. as well as other species of concern. Long term trend monitoring and additional surveying were discussed as ways to assess the populations status on the ranch.  Then, the next week we headed down to the Montrose area to assist some of the field office personnel with cactus survey that were to be completed along the Gunnison River.  The remoteness of the areas wanting to be survey warranted the use of the rafts to access the survey sites.  Along the 26 river miles the individuals found represented approximately 25% of the supposed global population which makes one wonder if the global population is significantly underestimated.  Finally, the week before Memorial Day weekend we head to the far southwest corner of Colorado to Dolores.  While in Dolores we collaborated with personnel at a the Dolores Field Office to set up some initial long term trend monitoring for Oreocarya revealii in the Big Gypsum Valley.

Regards,

Nathan Redecker

Lakewood, CO

BLM Colorado State Office

In the past couple weeks field season has been getting going and we have completed monitoring on several species.  Traveled to the Delta, CO area to complete Sclerocactus sp. monitoring and check historic locations of Sclerocactus to try and find new populations of the species.  Got the chance to hike back into some of the BLM wilderness areas looking for Sclerocactus and see some of the area that BLM has set aside and how they manage those areas as well.  With this particular species the controversy around the federal listing status is always a topic of conversation and always a way I get to learn about new ideas researchers are proposing and how the BLM is going about to understand the whole Sclerocactus dynamic in an effort to insure that the species are being managed correctly on BLM lands.

Data entry followed the week of monitoring and analysis of that data as well.  The following week another monitoring trip was imminent, so preparations for the trip were made.  Past years data had to be examined to insure that the proper sample size was being used and new data sheet were created as a slight adjustment to the data collection method was made, minor tweaks were made it past sample size calculations but no additional transect were needed as a result for the tweaks.  With everything prepped for the Astragalus monitoring Carol invited Phil and I to sit in on a meeting/ collaboration with CNHP up at Fort Collins  where certain aspects of management were discussed in relation to climate change.  The meeting was a preliminary event to test the water of how much BLM could get done with the help of CNHP on the monitoring of the species on the BLM sensitive species list state wide and how much has been done on each of the species on the list.  Later in the year there will be a larger meeting with BLM biologists/specilalist and CNHP personnel to hash out the finer details of the future monitoring schemes that will be implemented to achieve the goals set.

The following days we traveled to the area around Silt, CO to complete the monitoring of the Astragalus species with personnel for the Colorado River Valley Field Office and from the Grand Junction Field Office.  The monitoring went well with some of the sites being strangely sparse of plants relative to previous years while other locations showed an explosion of recruitment with seedlings being the dominant age class within the transects. The analysis has not been done on the data yet, so the degree of recruitment is not yet known, but what was seen at certain sites was a very welcomed site for this species of Astragalus.

Regards,

Nathan Redecker

Lakewood, CO

BLM Colorado State Office

The first day of spring was yesterday and it was actually a nice spring day with a high of 66, but it didn’t last long as a cold front came in and the weekend will end up being in the high 30s.  I have a feeling this will be the weather pattern for springtime here in Colorado.

I have completed the Phacelia formosula monitoring scheme and am now tweaking it slightly to present it to Fish and Wildlife Service.  I will soon start on a complete status report for P. formosula as well.  I finished up the GIS mapping for the possible monitoring of Corispermum navicula that will hopefully be started this field season.  I still have to work out all of the issues of that monitoring scheme to make it easy enough to be follow by all field personnel.  Soon enough I will be implementing the monitoring that I have been working on over the winter.  It is always a joy to see the office work being applied to the field, improving the management of the natural resources that were entrusted to the Bureau of Land Management by the public.

I talked with Carol and Phil and we are getting ready for field season by scheduling dates for future monitoring trips, as well as possible seed collections.  I am also trying to determine the best times during the next 6 months to go and check the Phacelia formosula populations in order to get the best understanding of its germination cycle.  Soon enough the field season will start and I will not be in the office as much, but will be out enjoying the beautiful Colorado backcountry once again.

Nathan Redecker

Lakewood, CO

BLM CO State Office

Here on the front range in Colorado it seems like a very mild and sporadic winter.  One week we get anywhere from 2 inches to 8 inches of snow and then the next day or the next week the snow is gone and it is 60 degrees out.  I’ve been told that the spring along Colorado’s front range is when the snow comes in feet and it is a heavy wet snow, so I am looking forward to seeing how my mountain bike handles those commutes.

At work I have realized that model building in excel will be somewhat helpful to a certain extent, but after that I believe a more robust modeling program will be require to produce the results that I am looking to find for the species I am studying.  For a week and a half I was scouring every biostatistical text that my mentor had, trying to figure out how to apply a McNemar’s sample size specific equation to the data for the Phacelia I’ve working on and did figure it all out.  The issue was the results for the sample size, which was considerably higher than excepted.  Since I am trying to establish an easily followed monitoring protocol, a high number of transects might introduce a risk of misidentification due to fatigue possibly and the fact that it won’t be as quick.  So I have decided to find a different method to monitor the Phacelia that is quick and results in data that is robust enough to hold up to scrutiny from peers.

As much reading and research as I have been doing, I have only been able to get out of the office a couple of times.  I went up to Fort Collins for a Landscape Genetics workshop, which was a part of the Colorado Chapter of the Wildlife Society Meeting that was happening the entire week.  At the workshop the subject matter was all wildlife related as expected, but the methods used in tracking gene flow across the landscape could possibly be implemented into a plant population or at least the software could be utilized.  Even though my main focus right now is on plants, I still found the methods use and subject matter quite interesting (wolverine movements, greater sage grouse, a general overview of genetic lab work, how population genetics can help you transfer into landscape genetics).

The group here at the state office also went to silt to a Level 1 group meeting which include personnel from USFWS, USFS and BLM and was a discussion of the current management going on for sensitive species, both plants and wildlife, and updates on listing status and certain projects that have been completed or want to start.  It was an open discussion type meeting where inputs were given on methodology and application and overall was a very interesting day to see the differences in management priorities between the different federal agencies.  It gave me some insight into the type of management that I would prefer doing in my career and then which agency I would like to work for based on those management priorities.

Regards,

Nathan Redecker

BLM CO State Office

Lakewood, CO

With the new year rolling around additional tasks have been added to the list I am responsible for. One of those tasks is to look into how to implement habitat into some modeling and finding such models in the literature to utilize for this task.  Along with the habitat information, additional climate information needs to be found and added to all of the other parameters that will be a part of the model by the end.  The issue is to determine the best way to monitor the species of interest and the best way to implement that monitoring across bureau lines, specifically with the Fish and Wildlife Service.  We want to establish a monitoring protocol that is simple and functional so that usable data can be collected, compiled, and used to better manage and monitor the species.  With this additional amount of collected data, potential problems within the species population might be detected earlier and actions might be able to be implemented to resolve the problem.

Along with the additional responsibilities, other opportunities have become available for me to take advantage of. Workshop on the BLM’s National Invasive Species Information Management System (nisims) and the opportunity to get an applicator’s license are just two of the potential resume-enhancing opportunities that have been made available to me.

I am looking forward to the upcoming year and all of the potential career-building opportunities that this internship will provide.  I am thankful for all of the experience it has given to me during the first part of the internship.

Regards,

Nathan Redecker

BLM Colorado State Office

Lakewood, CO