My CLM internship with Big Thicket is finished in a week, and I leave Texas better able to deal with all kinds of new extremes: extreme humidity, extreme thunderstorms, extreme heat, and extremely sharp palmetto leaves. I experienced so many things during my work and time off, both good and bad: I felt the pain of fire ant attacks, had my car invaded by crazy ants, was bitten by mosquitos the size of a quarter, chased black widows and centipedes out of my bed, stepped on a copperhead, watched a rattlesnake eat a frog, spent more days than I want to think about up to my waist in swamp muck, watched the sunrise over the Gulf of Mexico, lived in the hometown of George Jones, ate something called a Super Monster Burrito, hammocked in the Thicket, stood on the highest point in Texas, ate phenomenal barbeque, went to an Astros game, and worked in a national park. While not always comfortable, working at Big Thicket certainly gave me the adventure I was asking for and helped me improve my work skills. I leave Texas with no regrets and hope to take what I’ve learned to the next stage of my career!

The coolest thing I’ve been involved with the last month is helping UT-Tyler biologist Dr. Neil Ford with his mussel surveys on the Neches River. These surveys are part of the ongoing All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory at Big Thicket NP. 50% of my time as an intern has been helping the ATBI researchers in the field, the other 50% has been spent in the office mapping their findings. Helping out with the ‘Mussel Guys’ has been by far my favorite field activity. A typical day of musseling involves taking an outboard motor fishing boat with a small crew down the river and jumping in the water at 5-6 different locations to comb the bottom of the river with our hands looking for mussels. I had no idea how much mussel diversity exists at the bottom of a river. It’s like a relaxing float trip down the river, only you’re doing science along the way!

July/August have been my busiest (and hottest) months so far at Big Thicket. Here’s some of my adventures in pictures.

Scouting Little Pine Island bayou by kayak:

Lake Hyatt at the Watson Rare Plants Preserve:

The very rare Chapman’s fringed orchid:

Slime mold spores on a blade of grass under the microscope:

This week wraps up nearly 2 months as an intern at Big Thicket, Texas. The last 4 weeks began with a trip to Chicago for a weeklong workshop at the Botanic Garden, where I had a great time meeting all the other CLM interns and enjoying the cool, comfortable Chicago weather. Back in the Thicket, I’ve been continuing to work on updating the All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) by organizing spreadsheets and creating maps of species locations. But, I’ve also seen a healthy portion of fieldwork. With our office’s spiffy Garmin Montana 600 series GPS, part of my job is to journey into the Thicket to obtain geographic information to map. On one such quest, I discovered a dried-up tupelo bog whose presence had been long-suspected, but never confirmed. Last week, I made a trail map for the Watson Preserve, a local, privately owned rare plant preserve.
The ATBI is dependent on specialists visiting the preserve to do species collections so they can accurately tally species of all orders, including all types of animals, plants, and fungi. Two weeks ago, researchers from the University of Nebraska came here to do collections of nematodes. We took them to three different units of the preserve to get soil samples, which they took back and will analyze under a microscope to count the number and species diversity of nematodes.
Outside of work, I have been trying to explore the surrounding area as much as possible. I went to nearby New Orleans, LA, a few weekends ago to take in the jazz music and consume copious amounts of catfish, crawfish, shrimp, beignets, and po boys. I’ve also fallen in with a cycling club in Beaumont, TX that I’ve been riding with on the weekends.

Later,
Alex, Big Thicket NP

Here are some pictures:

I’m halfway through my fourth week as an intern with Thicket of Diversity(TOD) at Big Thicket National Preserve in southeastsern Texas. TOD organizes the Preserve’s All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory(ATBI), an interdisciplinary scientific effort to catalogue all species in the park. So far, TOD and its associated scientists have logged 117,418 specimens representing 2,714 individual species, 12 of which are new to science! Most of my time has been spent mapping these species – it’s a bunch of data and we’re working on getting it into a presentable visual format. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far if you want to check out the web map: http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=08ca0d874d534614bf1f29241f7a8ad8 I’ve also had chances to go out in the field to help with collections, trudging through the bayous and slashing through rainforest-like forest in the name of science. Last week, we discovered a previously unknown bog with 3 carnivorous plants (pitcher plants, sundew, and butterwort), longleaf pine (which is struggling in SE Tex), and 3 types of orchids! Lots to learn and do here. On my weekends, I’ve been making the 1 hr drive to the Gulf to relax and take a dip in the sea to escape the oppressive heat and humidity of the Deep South. All in all, not a bad start to my internship!

Pitcher plants:

Swamp tupelo off of Turkey Creek: