Sooooooo…………..

I’ve been really busy. Interns have come on, scheduling them, Youth Corps, seed collection, site visits, training, rare plant surveys and range monitoring. And meetings. There’s always meetings…….. 

This was the first week for us North Carolina interns to venture out into the field on our own, without our lovely supervisor, Amanda. We traveled through many National Wildlife Reserves and NC Coastal and Estuarine Reserves in search of seeds for our SOS East collections. Around this time of year, many of the seeds of sedges, grasses, and rushes are ripening, so we particularly had our eyes pealed for those.

We visited a total of four parks in search of seeds: Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, Alligator River NWR, Currituck Banks Coastal Reserve, and Kitty Hawk Woods Coastal Reserve. They were all extremely beautiful, and we ended up making a total of six seed collections over the course of the week!

Collecting Juncus effusus (Common Rush) while at Pocosin Lakes.

Lauren collecting drupes from Prunus serotina (Black Cherry).

We also found some Monarda punctata (Spotted Beebalm) which we are excited to collect from in the future!

Though our trip was filled with many seeds, wildlife encounters (we came across a total of six black bears while at Pocosin Lakes, as well as dolphins at Currituck Banks), and beautiful landscapes, we also had our fair share of wandering through thick forests! We found ourselves cutting through brambles of Smilax (like Common Greenbrier…their thorns will get you!), Quercus virginiana (Live Oak), and sadly, our least favorite Toxicodendron radicans (Poison Ivy) several times. Luckily, after unsuccessfully walking for an hour and a half through some thickets at Currituck Banks in search of some Typha (Cattail) species, we exited the brambles right next to our car! We felt this was a major victory and celebrated our chance to take a break in some air conditioning.

This is what we had just hiked through…

And this is what we felt like…

…But Emily, Jake, and Lauren were also pretty pumped that we came out of the woods right next to our car!

All in all, it was a great trip. The Outer Banks are beautiful, and we felt lucky to take a dip in the ocean after one of our long days out in the field. We’ll definitely be back here come August and September, so until next time!

-Maggie

CLM Intern at the North Carolina Botanical Garden

Frasera speciosa (Elkweed)

Hello To All,

I’ve enjoyed a busy month out here on Colorado’s western slope.

We just wrapped up our field data collection for HAF / Gunnison Sage-grouse; now it’s time for analysis!

HAF Green Mountain, Crawford, CO

We also had the opportunity to work with BLM State Botanist, Carol Dawson, and CLM veterans Nathan and Colleen, collecting data on the threatened Sclerocactus glaucus  and BLM ‘sensitive species’ Astragalus naturitensis.

Sclerocactus glaucus (Colorado Hookless Cactus)

Establishing long term monitoring plot for Astragalus naturitensis

Astragalus naturitensis

A. naturitensis fruit

In addition to all our floral adventures, the past month has been fantastic for wildlife viewing – Big horn sheep, elk, antelope, bull snake, scorpion, and many a raptor !

Hope you all are enjoying your CLM adventures !!!

The past month has been busy in Klamath Falls. Last week one of the damns from the Klamath Irrigation Project was shut down, so we went out with the Bureau of Reclamation to try and salvage some fish! To do this, we set tramp nets in the pool beneath the damn and we also electroshocked for fish in some of the smaller rocky pools beneath the damn. This was necessary because as the summer continues, the pools will either dry up or the oxygen levels will plummet, causing fish die off events. Both species of endangered suckers are found in the reservoir, so US Fish and Wildlife wanted to make sure as many individuals as possible were saved. We only found five suckers in the pools, but a lot of other fish including catfish and perch. The suckers that were caught were pit tagged to determine how well the fish are surviving in the reservoir after they are moved and how well they are moving through the river system. We also took general condition data on the suckers and took genetic samples.

Pit tagging fish!

Juvenile sucker

I’ve also been working down at Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. I’ve been taking water quality measurements as well as trapping the ponds to see if fish are able to move through the water supply channels. I still haven’t caught any fish in the smaller ponds, which is good. The largest pond should have fish in it, but I hadn’t caught any until last Friday. I caught four small Sacramento Perch.   This is a little concerning because Perch eat suckers. They also grow much faster than suckers, making them easy prey. We still have not caught any suckers in the large pond, but we are getting larger traps, so hopefully we will be able to find them.

Sacramento Perch

Earlier in the month we worked more with Applegate’s Milk-vetch. As part of the mitigation plan for reducing the impact of runway construction on the endangered Milk-vetch, seeds were to be collected from the plants along the runway. The seeds would then be taken to a nursery to be planted and grown to a certain size and then planted out at a Nature Conservancy preserve. This method was chosen because typically transplanting Milk-vetch has been unsuccessful, due to both a deep tap root and a close symbiotic relationship with mycorrhiza.  There has been some success taking seeds and planting then with soil taken from sites where Applegate’s Milk-vetch already occurs.

Unfortunately this was not a good year for Milk-vetch. A lot of the plants at the airport had aborted the seeds in their fruits. In addition, Milk-vetch is a plant that annually dries out and goes underground. A lot of the largest plants, and the easiest ones to collect seeds from, had already begun to dry out. This meant that we will not be able to collect many seeds from the airport. Luckily some of the other populations were in better condition so we were able to bag plants at other locations. It was surprising to see how different the condition was of Milk-vetch in different populations.

I also helped a professor from the Oregon Institute of Technology. As part of the recovery effort for Milk-vetch, plants were grown up from seed and then planted at a preserve managed by The Nature Conservancy. This preserve was bought and is managed specifically for Milk-vetch. There is currently a demographic study on the out-planted Milk-vetch plants that is looking at survival and reproduction, a project looking at the wild plants just received funding from USFW. In addition, there is a study looking at the plants that grow around Milk-vetch to see if there is a correlation between survival and the plant community around Milk-vetch. This was a super fun survey to do because it meant that I got to learn a lot of new plants, including some common grasses. Can’t wait to see what the next month brings!

The Buffalo BLM range staff, Dusty Kavitz (standing center) and me (standing right), teaching body parts of an insect to first graders.

May 27, 2015 Buffalo, Wyoming-Dusty Kavitz, Rangeland Conservationist, and myself, Range Intern, headed down to the Clear Creek Trail System to teach about insects, particularly grasshoppers and crickets. Upon arrival we visited with Nicole Schmidt, an elementary school teacher at Buffalo’s Meadowlark Elementary School. There were other professionals teaching too; Wyoming Game and Fish Department teaching about Aquatic Invertebrates, Johnson County Weed & Pest teaching about Mosquitoes, US Forest Service teaching Bugs & Trees, and Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality teaching Food for Fish. The roughly 70 first graders piled in with their respective teachers.

Our first group of first graders ready and willing to learn about INSECTS! Dusty started out explaining insects are made up of head, thorax, and abdomen.  One volunteer was chosen to stand in front of the rest and get dressed with head (helmet), antennae (costume antlers), wings (costume wings), exoskeleton (garbage bucket cover), and an egg (plastic Easter egg) for the abdomen. After the dress-up was finished we sang “head, thorax, abdomen and three legs” to the tune of “head, shoulders, knees and toes”. First we would sing at normal speed and then faster, telling the group they were the fastest yet.  Next, Dusty quizzed them on what is an insect? A spider? No. A roly-poly? No. A lobster? No. A cricket? Yes. A grasshopper? Yes.

To make the lesson a bit more specific we focused on grasshoppers and crickets. These insects live in grasslands of wide open spaces in Wyoming. They are an important food source for birds and help break down plants to turn into soil. The difference between grasshoppers and crickets; crickets are nocturnal and grasshoppers are diurnal. Grasshoppers have vivid colors and crickets are more neutral colors to blend in with the landscape. We ended each session with a poem Walking on Ears from the Center for Insect Science Education Outreach at the University of Arizona. The poem relates how a cricket chirps, hears, sees, and smells to how humans see, feel, smell, hear, and sing.

After 5 different sessions and 3 hours of sunshine in a grassy field, our work was done. The kids were heading back to school and the professionals heading back to their respective offices.  What a terrific way to start the day!

Over the past several weeks the New England CLM interns have been focusing on salt marshes and the species that grow there, especially the ubiquitous Spartina alterniflora, S. patens, J. gerardii, and Distichlis spicata.  However, at our latitude the phenology schedule lags a bit behind those of our colleagues further south, so it wasn’t until July 14th that we made our first collection; at Scarborough Marsh in southern Maine, we collected some seeds and vouchers of saltmarsh arrowgrass, Triglochin maritima, family Juncaginaceae, which bears six seeds per pod along a stalk bearing 35-80 pods.

Saltmarsh arrowgrass (Triglochin maritima), Scarborough Marsh, ME

We are planning to continue our reconnaissance and collection over the coming weeks and months as more species start bearing ripe fruits; the Juncus is nearly ripe and we hope to start collecting that within the next few weeks!

CLM has been so rewarding in offering an opportunity to identify and learn about not only plants, but also insects and birds as well, which frequently accompany us on our excursions.  Here are a few snapshots:

Eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) on common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), Great Marsh NWR, NH

Hairy woodpecker (Picoides villosus), Scarborough Marsh, ME

Greetings from New England! It has been a truly lovely summer up hear in the northeast. The New England Seeds of Success (SOS) team has been getting lots of sunshine while we travel to project sites. We’ve continued our focus on salt marsh habitats but have also added projects inland such as a dam removal site in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

New England SOS team plus Laney Widener, NEWFS Botanical Coordinator

Last week we attended a Survey of Grasses workshop at Garden in the Woods, New England Wild Flower Society’s headquarters in Framingham, Massachusetts. The workshop was led by Dennis Magee, author of Grasses of the Northeast (2014). We spent a good chunk of the day reviewing over 40 genera that Magee divides into 12 tribes (groups of genera with common characteristics). Using informational handouts, dried specimens, dissecting scopes and a 10x lens, our group dove into the taxonomy of one of the largest plant families. It was a fantastic opportunity to work with a plant family I personally struggle to identify in the field. With each genera we discussed a variety of field characters that will help us be able to feel more confident in our accurate identification of grasses.

This week we have finally collected seed! After what seemed like months of training, preparation, research, and communication with land and property managers, our first common native plant species of interest are producing seed. Our first collection was Triglochin maritima (seaside arrowgrass) in the Juncaginaceae family. We found a viable population in the Scarborough Marsh in Scarborough, Maine (about 15 minutes south of Portland, Maine). We’re still waiting on seed collection bags, so we used a large brown paper bag and my lunch bag to make the collection! As we surveyed the marsh and upland margins, I was happy to notice my improvement in recognizing plant species and being able to recall their latin name and whether they were native or invasive. Although our first few weeks were slow in field work, this time for me has been well spent with my head deep into Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide (1989), A Field Guide to Coastal Wetland Plants of the Northeastern United States (1987), Life in the Shifting Dunes (1960) and A Beachcomber’s Botany (1963).

Salt marsh in Rowley, MA.

The rest of the week the New England SOS team is heading to Charlestown, Rhode Island and then to the Cape. We’ll be camping at Nickerson State Park to get an early start to our collection in the Cape. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to camp during my work week – what luck! Until next time!