When it comes to doing field work in South Florida, you will inevitably end up soaking wet. South Florida is surrounded by water, with Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean on the east side and the Gulf of Mexico to the west. An extensive system of canals, built in the 1950s and intended to drain the wetlands to create developable land, still works to pipe fresh water out into the bay. The most famous ecosystem in South Florida, the Everglades, is a flooded prairie whose resident flora and fauna are dependent on the water that makes the Everglades unique. Big Cypress National Preserve to the north of the Everglades is full of deep water cypress strands, and contains the bromeliads and Spanish moss that comes to mind when we think of swamps. To top it all off, all of South Florida sits mere feet above a massive freshwater aquifer.

Everglades National Park: The River of Grass

Cypress strand with bromeliads (Tillandsia sp) in Big Cypress National Preserve

In the course of doing work with the South Florida/Caribbean Inventory and Monitoring Network branch of the National Park Service, I have found myself wading through knee deep (or deeper!) waters in marshes of Big Cypress National Preserve and the Everglades, or taking on a good amount of sea spray as my crew travels across the bay.The cool thing about working for an I&M branch of the Park Service is that they work in regions of parks, not just in one, so I’ve gotten to spend time in three really different areas (Everglades, Big Cypress and Biscayne National Park). I started my internship on September 1st, so I feel like I’m just getting started!

While I was supposed to be only attached to one project, related to tracking invasive species, I’ve had the opportunity to work on several projects revolving around water quality since coming to work for the Park Service. In the first, we deployed paint can sized mechanisms, called Polar Organic Chemical Integrative Samplers (POCIS), in various locations in canals and in Biscayne Bay, in order to test for the presence of wastewater. They were left underwater for a month, and then retrieved and sent off for analysis. They test for compounds commonly found in cosmetics, and are so sensitive that you can’t wear sunscreen or bug spray when handling them.

POCIS after a month underwater - gross

In the second major project just last week, I got to go on a trip into Big Cypress to take samples of periphyton, a slimy conglomerate of different species of microscopic organisms, primarily algae. Periphyton doesn’t look like much, but it is the basis for the food chain in the wetlands. We took periphyton samples from areas that were only accessible by helicopter, while another team rode ATVs to pick up other samples. The samples will be sent off for analysis, and we’re hoping that different community compositions will reveal levels of pollution.

Black bear seen from helicopter

Floating mat periphyton

Me in my flight suit

I applied for the CLM program hoping that I would figure out what I want to be when I grow up along the way. There have been many moments, both in the field and in the office doing various ArcGIS projects or simply data entry, where I have thought to myself “Yes! This what I want to do!” I feel incredibly lucky that I’ve gotten to have this experience and I am indebted to Dr. Kevin Whelan and the supercool staff of the SFCN office, and of course to Krissa and Marian (you ladies rock)!. I’ve learned so much about working for the National Park Service, doing scientific research, and living far from home and by yourself — and that doesn’t even include all the new plant and animal identification skills I’ve developed, or all the incredible things I’ve learned and seen about south Florida ecology. As a May college graduate, I couldn’t have asked for a better way to ease myself into the “real world”!
Carolyn “Lara” Ariori
National Park Service, South Florida/Caribbean I&M Network
Photos property of NPS SFCN

The Yampa Canyon

Gates of Lodore. Lodore Canyon, Green River

 For more info on the Yampa, check out http://www.yampariverawareness.org/

Heavy duty tamarisk call for heavy tools. And heavy duty people. Like the Weed Warriors, pictured here removing a monster tamarisk root with a tripod!

 For more info on the Weed Warrior program, check out  http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/publication/pub__6803066.pdf

NPS/Pete Williams

 Another line of defense against the Tamarisk invasion is this little fella pictured above, the Tamarisk Beetle (Diorhabda elongata).  After nearly 20 years of studies, 50,000 beetles were approved for release in the park during the summers of 2006 and 2007.  Since their release, the beetles have gradually extended their reach throughout the park and are creating visible areas of  Tamarisk defoliation.  Considering the signifant impact that the beetles have had in only three years, it’s exciting to think about the impact that they will have in the future!

Tamarisk Beetle Monitoring in Lodore Canyon of the Green River

A third instar Tamarisk Beetle emerging from it's molt. It will begin munching Tamarisk about 2 seconds after it molts! NPS/Pete Williams

 Another invasive tree which poses substantial threat to the health and function of the river riparian areas is the Russian Olive.  Due to it’s highly aggressive nature, it is likely the number-one candidate to move into the voids of Tamarisk that will be created by the Tamarisk Beetle.  Although very attractive, the Russian Olive is not a nice tree.  Capable of growing over 40 feet high, it is covered with sharp, dagger-size thorns.  For a job like removing Russian Olive, we call in the pros.  They are the best of the best, the Special Forces of weed management if you will, the Exotic Plant Management Team (EPMT). They came from far away places like Glacier National Park in Montana and Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho with chainsaws, herbicides, and the raw grit & determination necessary to tackle Russian Olive.  I’m proud to say that after 2 weeks of work with the EPMT, I helped to remove the last of the  Russian Olive from the park!

Myself w/ the EPMT crews from Glacier NP and Craters of the Moon NM

After a long night of night sky monitoring

 

When I decided to move to Tucson for my internship I promised myself one thing, I wasn’t going to sit on any cacti, I wasn’t going to realize that cliché of an Easterner gone West. Within one week that promise was broken by a poorly placed agave. Despite this tragedy for the seat of my pants, I can gladly say that this internship has been one of the most exciting and surprising experiences of my life. Having never been to Tucson before, I took the stereotypical New Yorker view and assumed it was all desert, complete with saguaros and rattlesnakes. While I have definitely seen my fair share of both, I’ve also realized that a lot of the land around Tucson includes grasslands and riparian zones, complete with diverse ecosystems that I never expected to see here.

Grasslands on the Audobon Research Ranch

Cholla Forest on the Ironwood

Because my internship doesn’t revolve around one major project, I’ve gotten to help out on a wide variety of research with a lot of different people and organizations. The largest project I’ve worked on so far has been monitoring the grasses on the La Cienegas National Conservation Area. Prior to this job I’ve had very little by way of plant education, so this was a crash course in grass identification. To make matters worse, this has been a bad drought year for Tucson, so nearly all of the grasses were missing their seeds. Despite all of this, I’ve actually come to really enjoy vegetation work. I can now reluctantly say I have a favorite upland grass…

"Take a picture for your mother"- upland grass monitoring

The work that I was most surprised to find here was fish research. I’ve gotten to expand on my experiences in stream ecology, helping to survey and catch some of the endangered species of fish that live in the Gila and San Pedro Rivers. I’ve gone seining for Top Minnow, laid traps for Gila Chub, and conducted water quality testing. I never thought there would be this many opportunities to don chest waders in Arizona.

Counting Minnows

My internship has also included a scattering of random jobs here and there. I got to spend one day last week helping out with the Historic Empire Ranch Roundup, a sort of cowboy festival that benefits the restoration of an old ranch on BLM land. Two weeks ago I got to go down to a ranch right on the Mexican border to work with the Nature Conservancy on some vegetation monitoring they were conducting. A few weeks before that, I was helping out with the reintroduction of prairie dogs into areas where they were previously hunted to extinction. Although it’s hard for me to predict what I’m going to be doing for work more than a few days in advance, the work keeps me on my toes and more often than not it’s exciting.

Petting the mini-horses at the Empire Ranch Roundup

Can you spot mexico?

Prairie Dog Release

Unlike most of the other interns in this program, I didn’t start until mid-august, so I still have a few more months in Tucson. I’m ready for whatever comes after this, but I’m more excited to find out what I’ll be working on next week.

Tucson Sunset

-Peter Leipzig-Scott

Snowy Sierran peaks

Work as a CLM intern in the Carson City BLM office is in a period of transition right now. In the last month we have seen the clouds roll in from the west, darkening the skies and settling white snow caps on the peaks of the Sierra Nevada.  A spring and summer spent in the hills, mountains, and scrub scouring for seeds, conducting vegetation surveys, and helping BLM rangeland health teams must inevitably come to an end as plants die or go dormant for the winter.  Our work has taken us throughout western Nevada and past the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevadan ridge into California.  Now in the twilight of the growing season and our internship, we move indoors and focus on office work.  We have now come to a point in our internship at which we naturally feel compelled to reflect on our earlier experiences.  Since there are six of us in our field office and a number of events on which to “reflect”, we have decided to each contribute a small section to this collaborative blog. Hopefully our reflections will give you a comprehensive enough idea of what it was like in our field office, while still preserving the uniqueness and interest of individual experience.  –Chris

Gina and Dave diligently collecting seed in the eastern Sierra.

We have been, and will continue to be, seed collecting maniacs.  As part of the national interagency Seeds of Success program, the Carson City Team has made over 60 collections this season on our travels through the Great Basin and the Sierra Nevada.  Our collections have ranged from tiny desert annuals, to shrubs and grasses.  The most memorable and stimulating collection in my eyes was when the team employed the ‘box and tickle’ collecting method.  For the desert shrub, Eriogonum heermannii, we fashioned cardboard boxes to place under the buckwheat and proceeded to gently “tickle” or “massage” the plant (depending on personal preference) so it would generously drop its seed into our boxes.  Hence ‘the box and tickle.’  Another memorable collection was the one we made for Mountain Mahogany.  Soon after beginning to collect, we found that this tree’s seeds have a knack for digging into skin like piercing shards of fiber-glass, making collection quite an enjoyable experience.  Most collections however, are slightly less eventful and often less painful.  We collect seed in beautiful places and it is very relaxing work which builds our plant identification and berry picking skills.

Chris and Miles show their climbing skills!

Whatever the conditions of our seed collecting efforts, it feels good to know that the seed will go toward restoration efforts throughout the western US.  Some seed will even be used locally in a Nature Conservancy restoration effort of the Truckee River, just north of Carson City.   Seeing the site of a restoration effort that we will directly impact by contributing seed is very rewarding.  As November approaches, we will continue to collect seeds of desert shrubs east of Carson City with hopes of pushing our grand total to 75 collections.  -Matt

Matt, Cassy, Dave, and Chris with CNPS instructor Jennifer Buck

During the summer, our team was able to participate in a Vegetation Rapid Assessment Workshop through the California Native Plants Society (CNPS). The workshop took place at the Clair Tappan Lodge and Onion Creek Watershed located just west of Donner Pass (Donner Pass is located in the northern Sierra Mountains and is the site where the famous Donner Party spent the winter of 1846 and resorted to cannibalism in order to survive). Over three days we learned rapid assessment protocols, applications of fine/large scale vegetation sampling, and how vegetation sampling is used for mapping projects. It was a great experience getting to work first hand with CNPS botanists and our lead instructor Todd Keeler-Wolf as well as our co-students. This workshop was also a rewarding opportunity for us to learn new vegetation monitoring skills and to networkwith other agencies. Our cohort consisted of professionals from UC Davis, Santa Barbra Botanical Garden, CNPS, and the California Department of Fish and Game. Overall the workshop was a great experience!  -Gina

Best in the Desert Off-Road Race

In August, the final portion of “The Best in the Desert” off-road race took place in our area.  Participants raced motorcycles, ATVs, UTVs (think of a golf cart on steroids), cars and trucks for nearly 1000 miles from Las Vegas to Reno, NV.  We loaded up early Saturday morning and headed out to help monitor the race to make sure that the racers were staying on the designated course as they zoomed towards the finish line.  The course was well marked with flagging but we were there to look for any signs of racers missing the roads, observe any impacts to the adjacent vegetation, and to make sure participants weren’t driving through any sensitive playa areas.   We encountered some spectators camped out in the middle of the desert who had been following the whole race and they gave us an insider’s knowledge about all things racing.  By the end of the day, we had met a lot of nice people involved with the race, seen that the racers were, for the most part, sticking to the course, and even did some scouting for a great collection of Atriplex torreyi! -Miles

Pine Nut Mountains

Throughout the fall we have been working on the endemic species Pine Nut Mountain Ivesia (Ivesia pityocharis) located just southeast of our Carson City field office.  Our task for this project was to locate and map the extent of this diminutive little plant as well as collect some basic statistics on its status (density, age class recruitment, etc.). Lucky for us, this Ivesia is mostly found in the higher elevations near ridges and just below peaks and so our work provided us with beautiful views and amazing camping as we worked high above the valleys each week.   One September morning we even woke up to a layer of snow at our campsite! At first our task was rather difficult; we scoured dry meadows for this tiny Ivesia for long days and weeks at a time until we found ourselves seeing Ivesia in our sleep and counting them like sheep as we drifted off.  Initially, we struggled on how to best map the plants occurrence; over time we grew better at identifying potential habitat and found efficient ways of working together to map each occurrence.  Working on this project made us realize that the goal of the BLM is much different than the academic world we are used to.  Our mapping and data collection efforts were the beginning of what may be a long-term monitoring effort to protect this plant.  We had to constantly remind ourselves not to pay attention to every nit-picky detail and instead focus on getting our data collected as efficiently as possible so a future monitoring campaign may be developed.  We all hope Ivesia pityocharis has a bright protected future thanks to the data we collected this year. – Dave

Why we love to be outside, Red Canyon Overlook

It’s a good thing that office work is limited to about 10% of our time (I think all six of us would agree on this one) though there is extremely valuable knowledge to gain in this portion of the internship. GIS work has got to be my favorite. Because we get to explore the land 90% of the time, GIS helps digitize roads that may not be on maps and helps us find locations we want to navigate through. It is also an amazing tool for putting together crucial data for conservation efforts such as the habitat of the sensitive endemic, Ivesia pityocharis and other sensitive species.  In the office we also get to exercise our plant identification skills increasing our repertoire of native plant species! Other office work includes packing and sending seed to the seed extractor for the SOS program, working on conservation projects that contribute to the BLM’s efforts, and attending meetings on local weed control boards. After going to a couple of meetings I think the BLM has lived up to the nickname of the Bureau of Long Meetings! (Justkidding… well sort of).

The overall internship experience for me has been GREAT, not only because of the location and skills it has to offer, but also because of the people I work with.  I love exploring the west during work and out of work and I’m really glad I made the decision to come out here. This internship has helped me grow as a botanist and has facilitated my decision to continue with conservation efforts throughout my career.  -Cassy

So, you see that we have been busy and lucky enough to participate in a diversity of projects that have challenged us to develop new skills (both in the field and in the office) that will serve us well for careers in botany and natural resource management.

Thanks to Chicago Botanical Garden for providing us with this amazing experience. Special thanks to Krissa and Marian for all of your hard work and to Dean for putting up with us for the last six months.

Carson City Team- Matt Koski, Gina Robinson, Miles McCoy-Sulentic, Chris Mausert-Mooney, Cassy Rivas, and Dave Miceli

View of Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View

Before my internship at Yosemite National Park the furthest West I had been was Yellowstone National Park. So, on the drive out here in mid-August, everything was exciting and new – a preview of what was to come in my internship. When I first entered the park from the East entrance I was instantly in awe. I was driving on Tioga Road which travels from the East entrance of the park to the West. The ride took about 2 hours and was stunning from start to finish. I saw granite cliff faces, clear water, large forests, huge trees, waterfalls, and mountain peaks. I would later learn that this drive still amazes NPS workers that have lived in this area for 20+ years. I don’t think I could ever get jaded!

The very first week on the job, I was out in the backcountry with one of my mentors, a park botanist, and her team in the Virginia Lakes area. The project we were working on was unique lake flora monitoring. This included travelling to remote lakes and inventorying the aquatic plant species. Sometimes this included standing on the edge of the lake and looking at the plants below the high water mark, other times this included getting into freezing cold snow melt water to see what plants were in the middle of the lake.

 As we traveled between lakes, we were constantly on the lookout for rare plants. When we found them we would set up a plot and record data about the habitat. This could take anywhere from 1-3 hours.

Collecting hydrology data from a small, mucky pond

On these trips we would spend a lot of time collecting plants that have few vouchers from certain areas of the park, identifying plants (I am getting better at expanding my botanical vocabulary), and inventorying aquatic and rare plant species.

Beginning our day at Boundary Lake

My botanist mentor and her team have found almost 100 new species for the park in the past couple of years. She has also described a new plant to science – Platanthera yosemitensis or Yosemite bog orchid. It is endemic to California’s Sierra Nevada range. More populations of this orchid are expected to be found up to 50 miles south of the known Yosemite sites. It is exciting to work with someone who is so devoted to the work!

Tofieldia occidentalis in a rare plant plot

Narthecium californicum in a rare plant plot

Drosera rotundifolia in a rare plant plot

The cowboy with the horses and mules carrying our food and equipment

One particular day on the job I was able to canoe around Lake Eleanor and inventory the aquatic plant species. This lake is one of the most diverse in the park. We found almost 30 different aquatic species in or around the lake in two days! A lake in the park typically has 2-7 aquatic species, usually with a similar combination depending on the area.

Canoe day on Lake Eleanor

 At the end of September I got the opportunity to travel around the park with a group of 10 lichenologists from all around the world! They were conducting the first lichenblitz for Yosemite. It was interesting to learn about all of the different areas of expertise within the lichen field. Some worked exclusively on lichen that grows on trees, others worked on rocks, some on certain geological formations. The chisel and hammer hitting the rocks became a very familiar sound when travelling with this group (and a good way to find people if they went missing). I learned that a lot of the time it is not easy to identify the species in the field, so the team collected samples to take back and identify in the lab.

Lichenologists taking samples from rocks on the side of Bridalveil Falls

One night, I was able to follow the wildlife management team around chasing bears out of campgrounds and populated areas. The shift started at 6PM and went until 3AM. The idea is to teach the bears that it is not OK for them to be in certain areas of the park, where there are a lot of people because it is potentially dangerous for the visitors and the bears. Therefore, most of the bears in the park are radio collared so they can be monitored using GPS. The “bear team” does rounds to check up on problem bears all night long. I have little experience with wildlife management, but this experience was an extreme introduction!

A couple of black bears near Crane Flat

Now that the field season is over, I have been working on mounting and labeling the specimens that we collected this past summer. Along with that, I have been working with the museum registrar (my other mentor) data-basing specimens, reorganizing, and editing the herbarium in hopes of getting it online within the next year or so. It is exciting to be a part of this project that will improve the quality of the resource accessibility.

It has been great to get to know people from many different divisions of the park. I have worked with the botany team, vegetation and restoration, wildlife management, museum curators, and interpretation. In addition, I have been able participate in trips that included botanists and hydrologists from USGS, and knowledgeable botanists contracted out through the park.

The many different experiences that I have had through this internship have taught me so much about different areas of conservation. The work that I have had the opportunity to partake in has been challenging, enjoyable, and rewarding. I’m excited to learn what my internship has in store for me in the following months. I have quickly learned why this place is clearly irresistible to many!

A field day in the northern park of the park

Stephanie Zinken, N.P.S., Yosemite National Park