Despite our rough start, we made it out to the Delmarva Peninsula last week, and managed to get a fair amount of scouting in for our SOS seed collections.

After only about 140 miles from our start at the NC Botanical Garden on Monday morning, we stopped on the side of the road with a flat tire. Changing a flat on a truck is really no different from changing one on a small car, but at first we had trouble finding the spare. Once we located it under the truck (who knew?) we got it lowered, jacked up the truck, and replaced the tire. We all took turns using the jack, which for some reason was made in such a way that with every turn, the hook came out of the loop. I don’t know cars well enough to give a better description than that, but in the end, it made a simple job just a little bit tougher. Here are some pictures of the flat:

Flat as can be!

Emily’s turn to crank

Big hole!

Our first stop was at the Great Dismal Swamp, and as the name suggests, there is something very dismal about it. The water barely moves, so the mosquitoes were out in full force! I had on a mosquito net over my hat to protect my face, and we all drenched ourselves in bug spray. We did see a lot of potential at this site, however there was nothing ready to be collected in a large enough quantity for our purposes. We did see some Magnolia virginiana (Sweetbay) there, but by far not enough to collect. There were also really pretty legume flowers that I photographed.

Magnolia virginiana

Some kind of pea

That evening we ate dinner at a hole in the wall Mexican restaurant and grocery store called El Crucero Tienda y Taquería. They had amazing, freshly made food. Unfortunately we were too hungry to stop and take pictures, but I had Huaraches (look it up if you’re not familiar – the pictures are mouth-watering) and Emily got Pupusas. Maggie and Lauren both got a vegetarian version of Fajitas, or something similar – I can’t remember exactly. I was entranced by my meal!

El Crucero

We saw a beautiful sunset from our hotel room in Pocomoke City, MD, and rested up for the next day.

We started off not too far from our hotel at Nassawango Creek Preserve where we saw lots of potential for the upcoming months in seed collection for species such as Rhexia mariana (Maryland Meadowbeauty) and Asclepias sp. (we saw a few), as well as populations of species like Vaccinium corymbosum (Highbush Blueberry) that are definitely large enough to sample from next summer.

Rhexia mariana

Asclepias sp

Next was Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. We ran into some trouble identifying species of the genus Eleocharis, since a microscope is essential for differentiating between minute details in the structure of the tiny nutlets. We also saw Schoenoplectus americanus (Chairmaker’s Bulrush) and a slew of other sedges and rushes on a section of the Refuge on the side of the road. In another area, we saw tons of Typha angustifolia (Narrowleaf Cattail) among other species on our list. We made a collection of Schoenoplectus pungens (Common Three-square), though it cost us $3 per vehicle to enter that section of the Refuge.

Lauren botanizing

Pretty landscape

S. pungens seeds

Wild turkeys!

We’re finding that both Maryland and Virginia love taking money from people, be it by way of toll roads, bridges, National Forests, Nation Wildlife Refuges… you name it. Luckily our native North Carolina doesn’t charge us to enter any preserve nor to cross any bridge or use any road. To add to that, NC sites don’t seem to lack at all in quality, ease of navigation, helpfulness of rangers, etc. I’m a big fan of NC!

Next we visited (or tried to visit) Choptank Wetlands. The highlight of that visit was a sighting of a few Bald Eagles. Due to the fact that the only access road into the wetland was a road cutting through private property, and that we don’t own a boat, canoe, or kayak, we weren’t able to actually visit the site. However, on the way there we saw fields full of Hibiscus moscheutos (Crimsoneyed Rosemallow) and Kosteletzkya virginica (Virginia Saltmarsh Mallow), both of which we hope to be able to collect in the near future.

Kosteletzkya virginica

Hibiscus moscheutos

Hibiscus galore

Saggitaria flowers!

Our visit to Battle Creek Cypress Swamp was an enjoyable one, and we hope to return in the fall to collect Taxodium distichum (Bald Cypress) and other species. We only made two collections this trip, but we got a lot of scouting out of the way!

Bald Cypress Swamp

Till next time!

Wow, I cant believe we are already into August! It feels like my time here is whizzing past!

We have had another couple of extremely productive weeks at the Eagle Lake Field Office. We have gone out to the field nearly every single day, scouting for new seed collection sites, checking on old ones, and performing collections.

We are up to 17 completed collections, with a few more species on the back burner until the seeds are slightly more mature.

Our band (SOS team) album cover.

We love to have photo shoots in the field. Photo taken at Painter’s Creek, CA.

Im starting to realize how different each area in our field office is. My fellow interns and I ventured up to one of the higher areas in our field office yesterday to the Ferdonyer Peak. This was one of the prettiest areas that we have scouted so far! We were surrounded by trees and a smorgasbord of species we havn’t even seen since we have been working. We could see most of the field office by doing a 360 degree turn, everywhere from Observation Pt. to the other side of Eagle Lake.

View from the lookout at Ferdonyer Peak! Thats the very low Eagle Lake that you see in front of the mountain.

Andrea, Lillie, and Rachael doing some scouting at the peak.

While at Ferdonyer, we also got a chance to visit the lookout. It was a very interesting day to be there becuase we could see the smoke from the Dodge Fire, which has been burning since Saturday night. I’m thinking I wouldn’t do the best job at scouting for fires from the lookout, since Monday I was looking at the same area that was burning, thinking the clouds were looking exceptionally cool, and failing to realize it was actually a fire burning!

What do you think, Fire or crazy awesome cloud?

Since then, it has burned to 10,700 acres. This is an area that we visit often for seed collections and it is crazy to think of how much of this area will now be burned the next time we see it.

We also had the chance to work with a couple of the interns from the Alturas field office this week! We assisted them with the collection of Idaho Fescue and Snowberry on a beautiful Mountain in the Modoc Forest. They were a couple of species that are lacking in our field office, and were pretty fun to collect.

Hunter gathers picking snowberries.

My weekend adventures have also continued. I had another trip to San Francisco and Santa Cruz a couple weekends ago. It has been so long since I had the chance to play in the sand and put my toes in the ocean.

Bonny Doon Beach in Santa Cruz, CA.

And just this past weekend, I had an amazing reunion with a few of my friends from my Puerto Rico internship! We visited both Lake Tahoe for a little hike and play in the water, and Lassen National Park!

Me and my PR pals in Tahoe!

At at beautiful waterfall in Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Well! Thats it for now! Until next time, Jillian

I finished my 5-month internship in Carson City, NV last Friday (July 31, 2015). Although an extension was offered to all members of the CLM intern team, I did not take it, as I have other plans for the fall and winter. I had a wonderful time in western Nevada. The Great Basin Desert and the Sierra Nevada Mountains are unique and beautiful ecosystems. Most of the locations I traveled to were isolated and displaced from the well-traveled paths; places that I probably would have never gone to, even if I permanently lived in the area. I was able to explore the unspeakable pulchritude of the sage brush steppe in the desert and the impressive array of granite rock in the Sierras.

Castilleja sp. and Fallen Leaf Lake, Lake Tahoe Basin, NV.

Yellow-bellied Marmot (Marmota flaviventris) near Mt. Tallac, Lake Tahoe Basin, CA.

Lake Tahoe.

The Great Basin Desert, NV.

So why did I choose to do the CLM internship in the first place, and why did I choose an internship with the Bureau of Land Management? In order to answer such a question, we must first dig deeper into understanding why I even care about the public lands and wilderness.

I was born and raised in Durango, Colorado – a small southwestern town, located about an hour and a half away from the Four Corners Monument. The town’s adjacency to the Rocky Mountain alpine tundra, the red rock desert of Utah, and the badlands of New Mexico provided me numerous opportunities to venture into the wild. I grew up camping, backpacking, and climbing mountains. As I grew older, I explored other methods of discovering bliss in the wild – including mountain biking, fly-fishing, and rafting. The wilderness is who I am; without it, I’m lost.

The Weminuche Wilderness in the San Juan Mountains was (and still is) one of my wilderness destinations.

I discovered my passion for conservation biology and land management through my various adventures in the wild. I cherish the public lands and wilderness areas. Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, CO.

It saddens me to imagine a world without these large expanses of open canyon country and forests. In my early college days, I realized that I wanted to study nothing else other than ecology, conservation biology and land management. I have a profound obligation to pay the land respect and fight for conservation in exchange for the happiness and life it gave me. But, although I cherish the public lands and wilderness areas immensely, I used to not know what happened behind the scenes. How were we managing lands and natural resources? How were we promoting the health and biodiversity of public lands? Once I got the job offer in Carson City, I realized that this internship would be a great way to discover what it is like to work for the BLM and to understand the mission of this agency in greater detail. I also wanted to recognize the obligations and relationships between the BLM and other collaborative agencies, stakeholders and the general public.

I graduated from Fort Lewis College in May 2014 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and a GIS Certificate. My undergraduate research experiences focused on plant-pollinator interactions and avian biology. I’ve taken advantage of my current break from school to explore different biological studies and to discover the type of research and career path I wish to further pursue. I was interested in the position of Botany Intern for several reasons. During my undergraduate career, I conducted two independent research projects focusing on plant-pollinator interactions in the subalpine forests of Colorado. I was particularly interested in understanding how various climatic factors may influence floral rewards (e.g., nectar volume and sugar concentration) and how such variation may affect the survival and fitness of pollinator communities. As a result, I’ve always had an underlying interest in plant biology.

I studied plant-pollinator interactions and avian biology throughout my undergraduate career. I had an underlying interest in botany and wanted to discover if botany was a study I wished to further pursue. Bombus bifarius pollinating a species of aster, Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Gothic, CO.

But another large portion of my undergraduate career also focused on studying avian species – including the Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) in Virginia and the Emperor Goose (Chen canagica) in Alaska.

One of my undergraduate research experiences included working as an assistant field biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey-Alaska Science Center. The project primarily focused on studying the nesting success and population dynamics of the Emperor Goose (Chen canagica) along the Manokinak River on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, AK

With my plant and avian research experience, I’ve developed an interest for understanding how nesting success and population dynamics of various avian species may be affected by food resources, habitat composition, and climatic variations. Furthermore, I’m interested in understanding how such factors could influence the short and long-term temporal and spatial variation in population dynamics.

I wanted to be a Botany Intern to see if studying plants was my true passion. From this internship, I have undoubtedly realized that I do not want to pursue a career focusing only on plants and taxonomy. Although I do not wish to obtain a career in botany, I still have a fond interest for plant identification and biology. In fact, this internship has made me a more well-educated biologist, and I can strongly use my botany background for future research. As a wildlife biologist focusing on habitat composition and availability of food and nesting resources, I will find it very beneficial to understand the type and extent of vegetation within the area. This internship provided me with an opportunity to refine my academic interests and career goals.

I have a gained a lot of new skills through this internship. My resume is now saturated with new skills and training. Some of the training that I participated in include the following: (1) Integrated Pest Management and Pesticide Applicator Certification, (2) Vegetation Rapid Assessment Relevé Workshop, (3) Conservation and Land Management Workshop, and (4) CPR First Aid Certification. My favorite training was the Vegetation Rapid Assessment Relevé Workshop in Yosemite National Park, CA. The workshop was provided by the California Native Plant Society and focused on applying rapid assessment and relevé methods for vegetation sampling, classification, and mapping. I discovered how valuable this training was to my career as a biologist. I’m now more confident with classifying vegetation cover and determining the best methods for vegetation sampling. Additional skills that I have gained include competency with ArcPad 10 software, plant identification skills, experience with pressing, mounting, and archiving plant specimens, experience collecting viable seeds from native plant populations, and familiarity with the AIM (Assessment Inventory Monitoring) of fire rehabilitation.

Lupinus stiversii, Yosemite National Park, CA.

Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) near Yosemite National Park, CA.

John, Stevie, and I in front of Upper Yosemite Falls.

Rain drops an an Iris, CLM Workshop, Chicago Botanic Garden, Glencoe, IL.

Hemerocallis middendorfii, CLM Workshop, Chicago Botanic Garden, Glencoe, IL.

Echinopsis sp., CLM Workshop, Chicago Botanic Garden, Glencoe, IL.

I contributed to the CLM intern team and the BLM office through a variety of ways. I was able to use my GIS education and knowledge to georeference grazing utilization maps, help manage the GPS and GIS data, develop maps for scouting and seed collecting trips, and guide my fellow interns in the use of GIS software. I was also able to use my plant-pollinator and avian knowledge during an environmental education outreach program focusing on Fliers: Bugs, Bats and Birds. I was very content with realizing how I could apply my education and experience in a professional setting.

I have a lot of good memories from my time as an intern. One of the best memories I had was going to Yosemite National Park for the Rapid Assessment Relevé Workshop. I had never before been to Yosemite. My parents have this remarkable Stephen Lyman painting of Half Dome in the living room at home. I grew up staring at Half Dome every day, but that was in Colorado – about 1,000 miles southeast of the actual granite wall. When I got to Yosemite, I could not believe how impressive Half Dome truly was. During the evening, after our first day of class, we went to the Yosemite Valley to eat and rest. My priority was to see Half Dome and nothing else – dinner could wait. When we got to the valley, I wandered off to a meadow where I sat for an hour as the sun set. I just sat there and stared at Half Dome. I wasn’t thinking about anything else but the wall, and I tried to imagine the thoughts John Muir had when he first wandered into this valley more than 100 years ago. The internship not only provided me with a great training, but it also offered me the opportunity to be immersed in Yosemite Valley and to watch the alpine glow majestically appear and disappear on the face of Half Dome.

Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, CA.

Another memorable moment occurred during a scouting mission near Pyramid Lake, NV. Pyramid Lake has almost the same surface area as Lake Tahoe and is just as wonderful and blue as Tahoe itself. The lake is jaw-dropping. But, the lake’s distance from the Sierras and the Jeffery Pine (Pinus jeffreyi) forests has caused it to not be a destination for the majority of vacationers. Furthermore, there is almost no development on the lake and in the area compared to Tahoe. For me, the lack of development is pure joy; for others, the opposite. One day, the team and I were scouting for potential seed collections in an area known as the Hardscrabble Canyon Allotment. We split up and went on our separate ways. I followed a route up a high ridge. At the time, Amsinckia sp. and Blepharappapus sp. were blooming. Being a botany intern can mean staring at the ground for long hours at a time. I would often forget to take a break, to look up, to view the surrounding landscape. During this scouting mission, I remembered to stop and look around. When I did, I saw my co-workers and supervisor wandering on the adjacent slopes. Behind them, the deep sapphire blue of Pyramid Lake stood out remarkably against the dusty desolate desert. Storm clouds were forming along the eastern horizon and lighting bolts were striking randomly across the hills. The dappled landscape and stormy scene were collectively beautiful and I could not remove my stare from the contrasting desert colors. In that moment, there was nowhere else I would have rather been.

I’m spending the rest of August and part of September backpacking, mountain biking, and fly-fishing throughout the Rocky Mountains. My journey will take me to Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. In mid-September, I’m moving to Laramie, Wyoming where I will spend the fall and winter months. I’m hoping to have a biology-related job during this time. Next spring and summer are full of unknown adventures. I would love to return to the last frontier and explore the Alaskan mountain ranges in more depth. I will be returning to school within the next year to obtain a Ph.D. in plant-animal interactions.

With the end of my blog, I will leave you, the readers, with one quote to ponder upon:

“Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature’s darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature’s sources never fail.”

-John Muir

Lupinus sp., Yosemite National Park, CA.

Greetings!

This summer has been flying by- it’s hard to believe that my internship is already more than half over!

The majority of my internship has been spent collecting native seeds for the Seeds of Success program. At the beginning of the summer I was worried that this would become monotonous, but it still hasn’t! To date, we have completed 21 collections. Our most recent was Cirsium barnebyi, one of the seemingly few thistles which are actually native to the Uintah Basin region. Like many other thistles, this one is pretty prickly, so it required a certain amount of dexterity whilst removing the seeds from the flower heads. In addition to the prickles, we had to fight off some bumblebees trying to pollinate the late-blooming Cirsium flowers, as well as hundreds of worker ants carrying off the seeds, plus some other unknown bug that way laying eggs in the newly opened seed heads! Although Cirsium barnebyi was a pain to collect, it is nice to know that we are collecting a species that seems to serve such an important ecological function for insects.

 Cirsium barnebyi, a Uintah Basin endemic species

Later this week we took a break from seed collection and embarked on our first river trip! Our mission was to cut and spray teasel, along with some other invasives including Canada thistle, bull thistle, and white top. The weather was perfect, there were no bugs, and we spent a relaxing two days floating down the river.

Perks of the job.

In addition to killing weeds, we also had our eye out for a threatened orchid, Spiranthes diluvialis (Ute ladies tresses). This plant is very tricky to survey for, since it pretty much blends in with every other riparian grass species, unless you happen to catch it in bloom. Therefore, the window to conduct Spiranthes surveys lasts only about a month. However, this trip we were in luck, and we found over 70 plants on one riverbank!

 The elusive Spiranthes diluvialis in bloom!

All in all, it was a great week! I can’t wait to see what the next month and a half here in Utah will bring. 🙂

Jinny Alexander
BLM Vernal, Utah

Since the beginning of my internship with the Grand Junction, CO field office I have been exposed to a great variety of projects and disciplines. I am thankful for the diversity of professionals within the field office because I feel that I am being educated as to how different data from various sources all contribute to an overarching prescribed ecological plan. Already this past month I have worked on field projects under the guidance of Engineers, Geologists, Wildlife Biologist, Archeologists, as well as my mentor the office Ecologist. Due to these different work opportunities, I not only have been exposed to many different ecosystems within the Grand Junction field office region, but I have also directly benefited from decades of scientific research experience. Each project that I have the privilege of contributing to provides a fortuitous opportunity to benefit from the instructors’ knowledge.

One of my favorite projects in July was searching for fossilized dinosaur bones and water tracks for several days with the office Geologist. Over the course of my life I have always been interested in Paleontology, but never have I actually had the opportunity to see a fossil in person, let alone in nature. While undertaking the great search of these treasured objects I could not help but feel overjoyed at the experience I was having. Upon discovery of several fossilized watermarks, I was surprised at how the fossils appeared so anachronistic laying there in the desert sand. Some millions of years ago during the Mesozoic Era these animals were swimming in what was at the time a large body of water. Now, resting there next to a rusting discarded “COORS” can in the middle of the high elevation desert of Colorado, lay subtle clues that this world once existed. It was amazing, and again, I did really find the experience rewarding.

There have been many different experiences similar to the one aforementioned in this blog post. It is relieving to know that there are career options in this country that not only help protect the earth but also continue to surprise you.

The last three weeks I have been working on a project surveying vegetation recovery at oil well sites across the Colorado Plateau. Our sites have taken us to Bluff, UT, the Moab area, and Virgin, UT, near Zion National Park. Many of these wells are very old (some as old as the 1920s). This makes finding them quite difficult, as GPS was not around in the 20s… It has been fascinating, though, to find each of the wells and to assess the vegetation effects of disturbance!

At each site, we establish 30m transects and measure both cover as well as density. For the purposes of recovery, we are only measuring perennial plants (with annuals included, the task would be much greater!!). We then find a suitable reference site (an adjacent area with similar soils, topography, and ideally free of disturbance).

Along the way, we have identified and learned to recognize countless new species, including Lygodesmia grandiflora, Oenothera pallida, Muhlenbergia pungens, Dalea candida var. oligophylla, Machaeranthera tanacetifolia, Townsendia incana, and Chaetopappa ericoides. And of course some interesting Utah lizards…

I’m looking forward to looking at the data more closely to tease out the differences in vegetation recovery between sites, especially the older ones from the 1920s!

Til next time,

Daniel

Background-

Prometheus: 

The ancient Greek story of the Gift of Fire is often viewed as literature’s most archetypical double-edged sword. As the story goes, the Greek god Prometheus brought the fire of the gods down off of Mount Olympus and gave it to mankind. Prometheus was duly punished by the great god Zeus by being chained to a rock to have his liver eaten out by a large eagle. However, Zeus could not take the fire back from humans. While fire was a great and useful technology as Prometheus had hoped, it was also extremely dangerous to its human masters, since it could bring light and heat, but also death and destruction. 

I’ll never forget the sight of my first wildfire. It was July 4th, and I was at a party on a hill overlooking the small town of Burns, OR. We were eating delicious blueberry cobbler and watching the boys next door shoot off a regular arsenal of fireworks. It was getting late, and we were getting ready to leave when someone exclaimed that there was a fire. All at once, everyone was up and straining to see the orange glow and when I saw it, I thought the town was done for. It danced eerily all along the top of a long ridge just out of town, close to the BLM office where I work. It looked huge and out of control. Little did I know how tiny it was.

The fire was out by the next morning, and I was informed that it had only burned a couple hundred acres. By contrast, the Miller Homestead Fire, whose aftermath we have spent a lot of time monitoring, burned more than 160,000 acres before it was brought under control. In an area with such large fires, management necessarily occurs on a huge scale. Tens of thousands of acres are reseeded with various mixes of seed dominated by the non-native yet potentially useful crested wheatgrass. Despite the valiant Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation (ES&R) efforts, thousands of acres are also home to vast swaths of invasive annual grasses, primarily cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) and medusa head rye (Taeniatherum caput-medusae).

Before arriving in the west, I had learned something about fire ecology in the midwest, specifically fire dependent Ozark Glades. These patchy south facing slopes characterized by naturally thin soils are hosts to a wide variety of endemic plants and animals. Historically these areas were kept free of eastern red ceder (Juniperus virginiana) by regular fires. Fire suppression by white settlers eventually resulted in invasion of Ozark Glades by eastern red cedar which threatens to destroy almost all instances of this unique ecosystem.

Funnily enough, when I was talking to one of the range conservationists I learned that fire suppression in the US is best personified by a cartoon character. Smoky the Bear first appeared in 1944 in an advertising campaign to educate the public about the dangers of wildfire. His slogan, “Care Will Prevent 9 out of 10 Forest Fires” urged people to avoid providing a source of ignition for wildfires, and ushered in an age of fire repression in America. The attitude that spawned these advertisements, the attitude that wildfire was undeniably bad, accompanied an unprecedented suppression of natural fires across the country. This policy resulted in the rapid accumulation of juniper trees (Juniperus occidentalis), brush, and other fuels, which eventually led to devastating fires far worse than those the policy had tried to prevent.

While returning fire to the ecosystem on a regular schedule would seem to be a logical solution, the results of fire suppression are playing out on a changed and modern stage, covered in invasive annual grasses. While the solution to the invading junipers is to burn, burning leaves open spaces for invasive annual grasses to recruit. Presence of these grasses increases fire intensity because they are completely dry during the summer fire season, unlike perennial grasses. The higher fire intensity results in more death of desirable perennials, increasing the population of invasive annual grasses. Controlled burns might help prevent larger fires, but such projects are prohibitively expensive for such a large amount of land. Increased cattle grazing decreases fuel loads which helps slow fires, but also provides disturbance that invasive annual grasses need to spread. Getting cows to graze on the invasive annual grasses is nearly impossible, as they are only palatable for a few weeks annually, and are low in nutrients. Juniper trees can be chopped down, but this too is prohibitively expensive.

Thus we come to an impasse. Sagebrush steppe covers a huge area of the US, and much of this area is threatened by fire and by lack of fire. People have their favorite solutions to the predicament, and each solution has its problems. But as the storms blow over the steppe, billowing clouds punctuated with bolts of fire-starting lightning, the fires rage on and the sage grouse populations fall steadily. Maybe research will come up with a solution. Maybe management will be enough to minimize presence of invasive annual grasses. Maybe someday we humans will learn to better control the gift of fire, but until then, it will remain one of nature’s greatest double edged swords.