I’m still fairly new here but I’m starting to feel very comfortable with my new position. Over the past 6 weeks working for the West Eugene Wetlands BLM office I’ve gained a lot of botanical survey experience and have learned to identify many new species!
Lupinus oreganus
Although nearly all of the areas we perform rare plant surveys are within Eugene’s urban industrial complex, it’s amazing how many native plants still exist despite daunting anthropogenic pressures. In the past weeks I have spent many hours talking a census of Lomatium bradshawii, Lupinus oreganus, and Erigeron decumbens at all of our project sites.
Some of these populations are natural and others have been planted for restoration purposes. Most recently I have been working on monitoring and weeding a particularly successful installation of Erigeron decumbens [pictured below].
Erigeron decumbens installation
Despite the monumental task of keeping this site weeded and counting each flower (yes you read that right) it was still exciting to see these plants thriving. Unfortunately, there are few examples of rare plant installations in the Willamette Valley that are this successful.
In order to track changes in species composition at many of our project sites, I assisted with low intensity monitoring. At each site we estimated percent cover at many randomly placed 1-meter square plots. In many cases each one-meter-square plot contained on average 10-15 different species. In some of the most diverse plots we found more than 25 different species!
Species composition monitoring plot
By monitoring species diversity and abundance in this way, it is possible to identify potentially problematic weed infestations and also allows the BLM to quantify the effects of management practices like prescribed burning and mowing on their sites. Doing these surveys introduced me to more than a dozen non-native prairie species and refreshed my knowledge of an equal number of native species. I’m excited to continue to hone my skills as a botanist in the upcoming months of this internship!