The foothills of the Brooks Range as seen from the Dalton Highway

Alaska is big. Really Big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. It follows then, that we Alaskan Bureaucrats of Land Management who are concerned with invasive plant (weed) management simply cannot be in nearly all the places we would like to be, and see nearly all the things we would like to see, in the oh-so-fleeting field season. We set out, therefore, to indoctrinate as many field-going automatons as possible; that they might do our conservation-oriented bidding.

It is in light of these facts that I have spent the majority of the past few weeks here at the Bureau of Land Management Fairbanks District Office (BLM FDO) preparing a class entitled: Invasive Plant Identification and Management. So far, I have taught the class once to BLM employees here at the Fairbanks District Office. I will be holding more sessions for Alaska Fire Service and BLM employees here in Fairbanks, and tentatively another session for the general public at the Arctic Interagency Visitors Center in Coldfoot, AK.

The primary goal of this class is to get as many eyeballs as possible in the field, capable of recognizing and reporting invasive plant infestations (see “Alaska is big.”, first paragraph). The BLM FDO utilizes an Early Detection Rapid Response management strategy for the control of invasive plants. Most invasive plant infestations in Alaska are in the very early stages of establishment, and control and eradication is significantly more feasible before a species becomes wholly established in an ecosystem.

I have also been lucky enough to be able to make several trips to the field since the much abated spring thaw has finally decided to show up. Earlier this week I traveled with my mentor to Tok, AK, for an interagency meeting on caribou management with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Along the way, we were able to do some spectacular drive-by botanizing on the Richardson Highway, spotting the lovely pasqueflower (Pulsatilla patens), arctic lupine (Lupinus arcticus), and mountain avens (Dryas octopetala). Regrettably, we have also already spotted the highly invasive white sweetclover (Melilotus officianale) and the equally repugnant bird vetch (Vicia cracca). Let slip the (Early Detection Rapid Response invasive plant management) dogs of war!

June has arrived in the Sierra foothills, and after a few periods of cooler temperatures and even a bit of rain in May, temperatures are rising. Its common knowledge that California’s Central Valley gets blazing hot, but this year seems to be exceptionally hot, with temperatures already starting to get into the 90’s and even over 100 degrees. Most of the grasses are completely dry and light brown, although some are stubbornly hanging on to a fringe of green color and herbaceous pliability. Most of the wildflowers are done, except for a few late bloomers, such as the harvest brodiaea (Brodiaea elegans), which are in full swing. Seeds are maturing and dispersing rapidly, and seed collection has occupied most of fellow intern, Julie’s and  my time. So far we have about 9 or 10 collections completed or soon to be completed.

A few weeks ago I was able to attend a grass ID class at CSU Chico. This class was extremely useful, especially since we are trying to concentrate on grass seed collections this season. The class was specifically devoted to springtime grasses of the central valley and sierra nevada foothills, which made it even more relevant. The class consisted of sitting for eight hours in a classroom, bent over a microscope and the Jepson manual, until my eyes couldn’t focus and my brain stopped functioning. The teacher systematically went through the Poaceae (grass family) key, and showed us many samples of local grasses. Since the class, my desk has been strewn with pieces of dissected grasses; lemmas, glumes, paleas, awns, ligules… and of course a hand lens and the Jepson manual open to the Poaceae key.  My confidence with grasses, a plant group I often ignore due to the difficulty to ID them, has increased.

Grass ID

As with learning about any layer of natural history, delving into grass ID has changed the lens through which I view the natural world during my excursions into the field. Most of the  formerly lush green grass at our Kanaka Valley parcel is the exotic annual barbed goat grass (Aegilops triuncialis), which seems to be creating a near monoculture of dense thatch. On the other hand, I am more attuned to patches of native perennial bunch grasses persisting in rocky outcrops or the shade of oak trees.

Elymus glauca, blue wild rye

I was also able to visit an interesting area of the Mother Lode Field Office, the Red Hills. This ACEC (Area of Critical Environmental Concern) is about a two hour drive south of our office. The botanist, former botanist, wildlife biologist, fellow CLM intern and I left highway 50 and all trace of Sacramento as we headed to Calaveras county.  After driving through many small foothill towns of 200, or even as few as 50 people, and then driving down a labyrinth of rough dirt roads, I felt reassured that I am working for the BLM. The Red Hills is a sparsely vegetated belt of serpentine soil that is reminiscent of a desert, although it gets the same precipitation as the surrounding oak woodland and chaparral, meaning the magnesium and iron rich soil must inhibit normal growth patterns. Ceanothus cunatus, which is almost the only shrub, is spaced widely with large gaps of soil filled with forbs. Thousands of white tarweeds, a late bloomer, waved in the breeze as we searched for yellow star thistle populations, that the former office botanist has spent years removing by hand. We didn’t find any, except at a site adjacent to a constant seed source, proving that persistence and early detection can stop aggressive weeds.

The Red Hills, with the snowcapped Sierra in the background

Joe Broberg

Mother Lode Field Office

El Dorado Hills, CA

Well, there’s no two ways about it — it’s June already. I would stop to wonder at this surprising fact, but there’s too much to do! Seed collection preparations continue, with collecting plant specimens, scouting for sites, and identifying plants once they acquire all the physiological characteristics that allow them to be keyed out, such as seeds or flowers. We’re more than halfway through golden eagle nest monitoring now, with the little chicks being approximately 40 days old. I only have one little guy in my assigned nest, and right now it’s still fluffy and white but showing dark lines and spots on its wings where feathers are growing in to their sheaths. The chick will probably fledge at about 60 days old, give or take a few days.

Another project has been planting native silver buffaloberry shrubs at a habitat improvement project site. I feel bad for the place, having suffered severe takeover from Russian olive and saltcedar (nasty invasive species), then a wildfire, and now an invasion of knapweed. The BLM has worked hard on invasive species control in this area, cutting and spraying the olive and saltcedar every year for several years now. I myself participated in the spraying during the winter of 2011. It’s disheartening to know the knapweed has created another relative monoculture there, but hopefully our little shrubs will be able to get a toehold and outcompete some of the nasties. On planting day, we also investigated a great blue heron rookery (collection of nests in a single tree) nearby, which was very interesting. Four babies were in one nest at the time, being monitored by a watchful adult.

Other ongoing projects continue as well, including investigating unknown raptor nests for activity and species identification, acquiring GPS data about powerlines and fences, and checking stock tanks for wildlife escape ramps.

In summary: life is busy, but as usual, I can’t complain. Day by day I work toward crossing things off my ever-present to-do list, knowing one little intern can only do so much. At day’s end, you just have to realize that you did the best you could, you’ll try again tomorrow, and at least more is done today than was done yesterday.

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:

Last week, for the first time since I’ve been here (a month and a half), we unexpectedly had several days of rain.  This kept us inside, working on our sensitive plant species guide rather than doing restoration monitoring.  Dirt roads become very dangerous with even just a little bit of rain and we were getting a lot by Vale standards.  Despite our restlessness, we were all glad for the rain: the plants needed it.

Yesterday, we returned to the site of the Bonita Fire where we had previously identified several populations for potential seed collection.  The fact that we had gotten rain was very apparent here; the mountain-top flats were in full bloom in an astounding array of colors.  There were purple Alliums (wild onions), several different types of yellow Lomatiums (carrot family), lavender Erigerons (daisies), native thistles, red and yellow Eriogonum (wild buckwheat), and about four different Crepis species (hawksbeard).  Crepis modocensis had been our target species for collection and we decided that the seeds were able to be collected.  So now we have made our first collection of SOS seeds!  It seems as though all the plants are starting to seed at the same time so we have the possibility of several more collections this week.

Up until recently, I had not had a clear idea of what SOS seeds are used for except for the vague term “restoration.”  However, we got a clearer picture of that purpose several weeks ago when we visited the Oregon State University (OSU) Ag Research Station for their native seeds field day.  OSU is working with the Forest Service and BLM to try to come up with the best methods of growing native sagebrush flora to inform and encourage commercial farmers to grow these crops alongside their food stocks.  BLM and the Forest Service want to be able to buy these seeds to use to restore lands following fire or other disturbance.  This program is perhaps still in its infancy; BLM is not able to secure the quantity of seeds that it would like but perhaps, with more efficient methods of growing these plants, farmers will be more willing to consider planting them.  We learned that many Lomatium species can be grown in a field with 8 inches or less of irrigation in a summer.  Compare that with onions that need at least 40 inches!

I am looking forward to go to Chicago this weekend.  I do miss the east and although Chicago is the midwest, I like to think that its bringing me a little closer to home.  It also looks like we have a great schedule of workshops lined up for us during the week!