The two native agaves of the Patagonia area are critical nectar resources to the two species of migrating nectar-feeding bat that flies through the area biannually. The agaves and bats coevolved, timing major life-events with each other. As bats fly across the grasslands and desert of Southeastern Arizona in spring and fall, these two species of agaves are timed to shoot up their flowering stalks to lure the bats into moving pollen from one flowering stalk to another with the reward of nutritious and plentiful nectar. Therefore, maintaining healthy populations of these two species of native agaves is critical to maintaining healthy populations of these nectar feeding bats.

Last week, a whole crew of us descended upon a large population (400+ plants) of the Huachuca Agave, Agave parryi var. huachucensis. Many of these individuals were clonal pups, crowding each other out as they continued to grow.

Harvested pups were brought to the Borderlands Restoration greenhouse located on the Native Seeds/SEARCH Conservation Farm to be grown out by Francesca. Eventually these babies will be used to create new patches of Huachuca Agave throughout the landscape.

These special agaves flower themselves to death. As they age, sugars and nutrients are collected in the “heart” of this creatures rosette. With a final hurrah, the agave shoots up a stalk a dozen feet in the air that flourishes with hundreds of flowers dripping with delicious nectar. Many other pollinators are supported by the sugar-packed nectar the agave produces to entice support in its reproduction. Like many plants, the agave hedges its bets. It also produces clones, pups that oftentimes outlive the parent.

Here in the Stanislaus National Forest every day is an adventure in the Rim Fire burn scar! There are sections of the forest wiped out with little regrowth but there are many areas with lots of regrowth or were not touched by the fire. Everyday I am learning more and more species as we do sensitive/ rare species surveys as well as weed surveys. These last few weeks have also taught me a lot about the forest and the incredible amount of recovery work happening this summer.

So far we have spent all of our time doing surveys in the field but come Monday the two other CLM interns and I here in the office will begin taking over data management and map making for the crew. We will all be getting a great refresher in GIS and soon will be pros. I am looking forward to our new responsibility, continuing to learn species in the field, and getting to know the forest and those who work in it.

Cheers, Emily

Erythronium tuolomnense, Tuolumne fawn lily. I have only seen them in one location so far and am hoping we find more soon.

fa

We have been seeing/flagging a lot of Mullin (Verbascum thapsus) these last few weeks, along with bull thistle.

Though some areas are still pristine, there are many areas within the Rim Fire scar that were completely destroyed.

In many meadows we have been seeing this species of interest; Trillium angustipetalum.

It is my first week at the US Fish and Wildlife offices in Klamath Falls, Oregon and I hit the ground running to catch up with the progress of Casey, the other intern who began two weeks before me. Our project for the next six months is to begin rebuilding shortnose sucker (Chasmistes brevirostris) populations, affectionately called “suckers”. Klamath Falls is an area with an impressive history of water management. Most of the land has been modified by levees and dams to create extensive farmland where there were once miles of lake. It’s a situation that has been great for people but bad for suckers, whose populations have declined to endangered levels as a result of limited access to spawning grounds, poor water quality, and entrapment in water control structures.

We will be attempting to rebuild the populations by growing juveniles in several nets on two lakes, and in man-made reservoirs on a wetland habitat. These semi-controlled environments will hopefully give the fish a higher chance of survival by providing protection from predators and aeration to improve water quality. Although other fish populations have been successfully raised in suspended cages or reservoirs, no one has yet applied these methods to suckers.

In my (short) experience with scientific research, I have found that on your first try nothing ever goes as planned. This first week has been no exception. For example, we currently have no fish. None at all. In the two weeks before I arrived, all attempts to catch spawning suckers had been unsuccessful, including suspending a 150ft seine net across the length of the river. On my first day, I was told that we may snorkel three miles of the 9°C river as a last attempt to find the suckers. As an avid SCUBA diver and lifelong swimmer, this didn’t sound too terrible although, it was certainly intimidating. Luckily (or not so luckily, depending on your perspective) my day was instead spent studying the shortnose sucker recovery plan, watching two hours of training videos, and attending my first office meeting before finally driving out to see the reservoirs where we will hopefully be rearing some of our fish.

The reservoir ready to be filled with water and suckers

I returned to work Tuesday with the overhanging possibility of a snorkeling adventure. Instead, Casey, Josh and I took the boat on its first post-winter test run. Upper Klamath Lake is gorgeous and I am so excited to spend the next six months working on it. The lake is sprawling and surrounded by snow capped mountains on most sides, including the steep volcano that hides Crater Lake in its peak. Our nets will be located on the fringe of the Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, a large, protected wetland habitat made up of tall reeds and home to myriad bird species. When you research Klamath Falls, most of the websites that come up are related to its famous birding. I’m not much of a bird watcher but I may have to pick it up while living here.

Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuge with Mount McLoughlin

The boat started perfectly from its winter hiatus without any major problems but after that, the difficulties began. We had brought with us one segment of our unassembled dock. We planned to suspend our fish pens from the dock and intended to moor them in place with three meter steel poles in about two meters of water. At first, the poles sunk satisfyingly into the muddy lake bottom, securing the dock in place and I was sure that the sunny, calm day was going to be problem-free. That is, until the poles continued to sink through the holes in the dock and straight into the miles-deep silt layer as if it were quicksand. We were able to retrieve them but it was clear that a new plan was in order.

Our retrieved dock and poles in the boat

The rest of this week has been spent reassessing our original mooring plan (to include mushroom anchors designed for muddy bottoms) and fine-tuning all other aspects of the dock setup. This has mostly involved a large amount of computer research and visits to all the hardware stores in town to create a comparative quote list for the materials we will need to connect anchors, nets, signs, lights, etc. to our docks. In addition to hardware store visits, we trucked the giant metal box that will contain our aerator and small generator to all the wielders in the area, in a weird sort of wielder show and tell. Apparently no one can give you a quote for the price of drilling a hole and attaching a weather resistant air vent to your giant steel box until they have seen your giant steel box.

As a break from all this research, as well as hours of additional paperwork and federal forms, we also took a short excursion to a common spawning location on Wednesday. Naturally, there weren’t any fish there either and the search continues.

Do you have any shortnose suckers?

I do not.

Go fish.

-Alanna

Hi everybody –

Last week I was able to take advantage of the option to participate in an alternative to the CLM orientation in Chicago. Since my internship with the USGS in Henderson, NV started in February the CLM program offered a stipend for me to enroll on a workshop, symposium, etc. of my choosing in my field of study. I was able to work out two alternatives to the CLM orientation–one the Smithsonian Botanical Symposium in Washington, DC which I went to last week, and the other a Jepson Herbarium workshop through UC Berkeley I will travel to next weekend.

The theme of the Smithsonian Botanical Symposium was “Location, Location, Location: Recent Breakthroughs in Biogeography.” The event kicked off Thursday night with a poster session where I mingled with the presenters and other folks. Most were Master’s and PhD students presenting their research–some were describing new plant species, others creating phylogenies to recreate plant family lineages. The symposium continued all day Friday where the invited speakers presented their research. The talks ranged from biogeographical patterns of tropical reef fishes, how to calibrate a molecular clock to create a phylogeny using newly discovered fossils, and the fate of Andean frailejones–some with an entire range of only 4 square-kilometers–under different climate change models. Overall the talks were very stimulating and the symposium was a great experience for me. I even had time to enjoy the museums, art galleries, monuments, and memorials on the National Mall.

I look forward next weekend to touring botanic gardens in the San Francisco Bay area with folks from the Jepson Herbarium. The weather’s heating up here in Las Vegas so after a long week of field work we’re all looking forward to a few days of rest in the A/C.

Sam Somerville

USGS Las Vegas Field Station, Henderson NV

One of the best and worst parts to starting a new project is just that, it’s new.  You really never know what to expect, which the creative and adventurous part of me loves but the overly organized part of me cringes at.  I’ve now been with the Fish and Wildlife Services office in Klamath Falls, Oregon for three weeks.  I’m working on a propagation project for the threatened shortnose sucker, Chasmistes brevirostris.  Which would be great, except we can’t seem to find any!  We’ve been spending quite a bit of time out in the field just trying to track down individuals who are ready to spawn.  I’ve also been working on building floating docks and putting together other equipment which are going to be used to keep the fish alive once we catch them and put them in pens.  These steps haven’t come without their own issues of course.  The docks don’t seem to be able to handle the depth of water which we want to use them in, and some of the power tools I have at my disposal haven’t been used in a few years, and don’t seem to have any intention of coming out of their retirement!  So improvisation and creative problem solving has been coming in handy, along with a few trips to the hardware stores.

Future site of propagation pens.

Despite this, or more likely because of it, I’m having a great time and learning a lot.  Not only am I putting my field work and research skills to use, but it’s also great to see that people who have been working in this field for decades don’t have all the answers and have to spend quite a bit of time trouble-shooting.  Plus, I am learning how to collect fish using seine nets and cast nets, tag fish and use a tag reader to keep track of them, water quality monitoring equipment, and various other tools of the trade.  I’m also learning a lot about the history of the area as well as the native (and invasive) species of fish, birds, plants, and wildlife.

Learning to throw a cast net.

Finally, I’ve started working on a project involving morphogeometrics.  In short, we’re trying to look at the shape and structure of different species of lake suckers and, using a computer image analysis program, determine if there are defining shape and structure features which can be used to identify different species.

Overall, it has been a great first few weeks.  I am really enjoying all this job has to offer; challenges and victories included, and I’m really looking forward to what else is in store this season!

Klamath Falls, Fish and Wildlife

Last week Nathan, Carol, and I met with Ken Holsinger and Brandi Wills from the Uncompahgre Field Office to complete our first monitoring trip of the season. We were investigating a rugged area formed by tributaries of the Gunnison River which has carved the sandstone and shale landscape of the high desert basin into dissected canyons as the river arcs north towards its confluence with the Colorado in the Grand Valley. The Grand Mesa, the world’s largest flat-topped mountain, the snowcapped West Elk, and massive San Juan mountain ranges crown the scene gleaming snowcapped in the hazy distance.
We were looking for cactus. Not just any cactus, we were looking for Sclerocactus glaucus, a small ball-shaped cactus which often doesn’t exceed the size of a tennis ball and has a proclivity to hide out in these shaley areas of hardscrabble amongst pygmy woodlands of pinyon Juniper. A species listed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as threatened, S. glaucus is a deceiving species, shrouded in a cloud of confusion surrounding its precise taxonomy. I had found out just how contentious views of the species are over the previous six weeks or so while sifting through all of the available literature while compiling a status report for the species.

The genus Sclerocactus consists of approximately 15 distinct species based on systematics. The trouble is that, like other genera of cacti, Sclerocactus’s morphology is highly plastic, making it difficult to classify based on structure alone. Populations of Sclerocactus are isolated in unique environments across the arid west, and most display unique morphological characters. The trouble has been that recent phylogenetic investigation has been beginning to illustrate that the cactus are actual more closely related than previously believed. Some populations which are believed to be genetically pure even possess mixed morphologies, suggesting that the genus may be composed of a large complex of individual ecotypes dictated by geography more-so than effects of genetic drift.

For being a local endemic S. glaucus is notoriously difficult to locate. Known only from four counties on Colorado’s western slope, its patterns of distribution are somewhat confounding in that it is found in a variety of different habitat, soil types, and densities. Plants are small, cryptic, and difficult to locate in the field outside a couple weeks a year when they are flowering; thus making our task to locate new populations to understand the full extent of the range and generate a realistic population estimate based on sound statistical methods a somewhat daunting task.

After a month of in-depth research into the species, seeing it in its native habitat shed light on the difficulties this species presents when trying to get a sense of its abundance and distribution. Miles and miles of potential habitat exist in the form of alluvial river benches and adobe badlands stretching to the horizon.  Yet Sclerocactus populations are few and far between, existing in patchy niches where plants are at times locally abundant. Despite this fact, we were able to locate several populations suitable for sampling, and set up several new plots.

The coming weeks are slated to hold more cactus work. We will be setting up new plots on BLM and private land to monitor the trend of specific populations. We are additionally scheduled to search for populations on the large High Lonesome Ranch near Debeque, Colorado. As well as raft a twenty some miles stretch of the Gunnison to clear areas of suspected cactus occupancy in the Dominquez Canyon Wilderness Area.

Phil Krening
Colorado State Office – BLM
Lakewood, CO

The Adobe Badlands of Delta County, CO (Mancos shale formation) ©Phillip Krening http://headwaters.sqsp.com

Sclerocactus glaucus in flower ©Phillip Krening http://headwaters.sqsp.com

Walking in to the quarters I will be living in for the next 6 months hangs a John Muir quote which states “Going to the mountains is going home.” For a weary traveler 2,827 miles from what has been “home” for a better part of my life (unfortunately), I couldn’t ask for a more appropriate welcome. Though I am no where close to the man John Muir was (and still is in many ways), the title to this blog seems more than fitting.

California living, where do I even begin? Week 3 of my 26 week stint on the west coast has just ended, and each day that passes I seem to fall in love with this place even more! Having traveled here from northeast New Jersey, the arm pit of the United States, (I apologize to whom ever might get offended by this, but it’s kind of true), life and work has never been better. I’m located in the little community of Mi-Wuk Village at around 4,200′ elevation. The nearest “town” is about 10 miles away, and in between that is forest for as far as the eye can see. No light pollution, airplanes flying over, and barely any car/truck/motorcycle noise (aside for a distant logging truck roar); is this paradise?

Now those of you who have ever been on the east coast will understand this, but the trees here are enormous! Ponderosa (Pinus ponderosa) and Sugar (Pinus lambertiana) pines, along with Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) appear to be scratching the underside of clouds. The diameter of these trees is immense as well and though they are no Sequoia sempervirens or Sequoiadendron giganteum; to someone who has never seen these arboreal sentinels before and is used to the flora of the northeast, I tend to be left in awe and speechless at every corner. I am truly thankful for this experience.

Having graduated from college with a forest biology and ecological forest management degree my “job/position” here is a little out of my element but I am a human being, I ADAPT to my surroundings as well as any flora or fauna. Everyday (aside for the office days) I journey with my crew leader, Pat, into the California wilderness to monitor for fire sensitive plant species within the Rim Fire boundary. For those who might not know what fire sensitive species is, it is a species with a “relatively high” probability of being injured or killed by fire (McPherson and others 1990) as defined by the U.S Forest Service.

In my three weeks here not only have I learned of new species rare and native to California such as: Allium tribracteatum (Three-bracted onion), Balsamorhiza macrolepis (Big-scale balsamroot), Erythronium tuolumnense (Tuolumne fawnlily), Mimulus filicaulis and pulchellus (Hetch Hetchy monkeyflower and Pansy monkeyflower) and many more but I now realize I have taken “fire” for granted. Not until you walk through “a forest necropolis”, gazing upon the shell of what used to be a living and breathing ecosystem, thriving and teaming with life will one comprehend the power of fire.

If one was to tell me that I was to be paid for hiking the California countryside while learning about native flora and fire ecology, I would never believe them. We botanists, naturalists, ecologists, foresters, etc. are truly blessed.  If by some happenstance this internship was to end tomorrow I would walk away with years of experience/knowledge I would have never gained anywhere else. Never forget how fortunate we are.

Until our paths cross again, may fortune and knowledge smile upon you all,

Mi-Wuk Ranger Station

Forest Service

Jake

 California poppies (Eschscholzia californica)

Sonora Pass (~9,500′ elevation)

Effects of fire

Fallen over trees due to the fire

Fields of Lupin where a fire had gone through

Pansy Monkeyflower (Mimulus ppulchellus)

Effects of fire on a slope

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

I have come to the realization that land management is dependent on people management. To accomplish important conservation and resource management objectives, a thorough understanding of the science involved is essential. But land management on any significant scale is impossible without having the skill to engage people who don’t have the years of education that people in the BLM (and the Forest Service, Park Service, private conservation organizations, non-profit activist groups, etc.) often take for granted. Especially in the public sector, ecological expertise means nothing without the political skill to convince the public that we’re all working towards the same goal (as much as possible).

When I worked for the BLM in the heart of the Mojave, I was not confronted with this seemingly basic realization. The Needles office manages millions of continuous acres in one of the most sparsely populated areas in the nation. Neighbors are few and far between. But here in Arcata, with fragmented and dispersed BLM properties, it’s clear that the BLM does its best work when the neighbors are happy. A happy neighbor may be helpful. Heck, even Jesus recommended loving thy neighbor. And sometimes all it takes to please the public is a listening ear, a small price to pay to achieve work in an agency that manages 13% of the surface of the United States but can struggle on projects of 5, 50, or 500 acres. To vaguely quote my mentor, “A project can be a marathon. Too often people are unwilling to start running due to an argument about what will happen at mile 25.”

To mitigate the struggle, it’s also essential to be efficient with time and money that’s too often pressed. As the forestry projects are about to start, we’ve been conscious about focusing the contracted labor on areas where we’ll get the most “bang for the buck”. We don’t want to be “spinning our wheels” when we are the stewards of government funds. Adequate funding is hard to come by, so it’s important to make the most of it when it’s available. The ideal treatment nudges the land onto a course where future human intervention is unnecessary.

For a guy prone to periods of pessimism on the fate of humans and the environment, a certain project in particular has been unexpectedly inspiring. Our office is working towards a prairie restoration on an historic prairie that has become an overgrown Douglas Fir patch. There is some commercial potential of trees in the patch, but it’s mostly stuff that is traditionally unmarketable. However, a biomass-generated electric plant has recently opened in the area and they are interested in the shade-grown, scrawny trees that the timber industry has long considered junk. The BLM is selling these trees as biomass to help cover some of the costs of the prairie restoration. And as technology improves in the biomass conversion industry (eg. torrefaction and gasification), this will increasingly become an economically viable option. When the means to an end (habitat restoration) involve restoring energy independence to a small rural community, I’m on board.

Prairie and forest.