Steens to Nevada, exploring mountains for ERUM!

Posted on 5 September, 2023 by Beth Haney

This month has gone by fast! The Rocky Mountain Research Station has been busy this month!

Since my last post, I have been busy traveling for seed scouting. One of the research station’s techs, Marguerite, joined me on a seed scouting trip. We are completely focused on Eriogonum umbellatum, and we went looking up by Council, Idaho. We went to this neat lookout with an amazing view.

While we were searching for ERUM, we came across something pretty cool! We left it alone, but it was a neat find!

Then, Elric and I went out to Nevada with another one of the RMRS techs, Bebe! We had a great time searching for ERUM in northern Nevada. This was during the tropical storm warning, but we lucked out and never hit rain once. We found wonderful places to camp and explore, and we saw some gorgeous sunsets and stunning alpine lakes! We also collected one population of ERUM, and are going back in the future when the plants are seeding to collect from two more populations!

Elric and I went to explore South Mountain (in the Owyhees in Idaho) in search of ERUM. We found a ton of Eriogonum heracleoides, but unfortunately no ERUM. We stopped at a neat lookout and had a nice time exploring the area.

To end August, a forest service tech Joe and I went to explore Steen Mountains in Oregon! This trip was grand. Steen Mountains has a 60 mile loop road that is accessible for most cars (washboards but no potholes), and is 100% worth the trip. We found ERUM all over this range, and in the high elevation site it was still blooming! Joe and I had a nice time exploring the area, and we woke up one morning and realized it was in the 20s while we were sleeping (brr). After a successful seed collecting trip, we traveled back to Boise!

This was a great month of exploring and seed collecting! looking forward to next month with my team!

The Anything But DRy(iNG) Summer

Posted on 23 August, 2023 by Katelyn Diehl

This summer started like any normal summer, with lush, green landscapes and a plethora of wildlife. The beginning of the season was serene and unusually cool. I took in the views of our field sites along with a whole load of knowledge regarding the experiment and data collection. The spring was rainy many days and the cloud cover was definitely welcome. Although I was sure my knees would give out from kneeling all day after just the first week, I somehow survived.

I have learned so much this past summer about grassland ecosystems and the organisms that call it home. Some could say, maybe even a little too much. I grew attached to my favorite forbs and grasses. Many times, I would dream about doing stem counts or aerial cover. I also made enemies with many small, biting insects. Every morning began with dousing myself in sunscreen and bug spray. By the end of the day though, I still went home with souvenirs on my skin. The days were long and often tiring (on hot days especially), but the work was equally rewarding. It was such an interesting experience to be a part of the data collection and processing, and start to glimpse the outcome of our work. Being outdoors all day also allowed me to get very familiar with the larger wildlife, like the Western Meadowlarks that perched fenceposts, the prairie dogs that littered the badlands, and the occasional rattlesnake in our plots.

Images of the BBR taken this year (left) and when I visited last year (right).

The sheer amount of consistent rain this summer was an outlier compared to normal years. Our sites stayed green for much longer than usual, and bogs of collected water were present all summer. The mosquito season was far prolonged and the air remained humid even on some of the hottest days. Our plots directly reflected the abnormal weather patterns, regrowing in a few days after mowing.

The experiences I had and the connections I made this summer were priceless. On my second to last day on the job, I had the opportunity to join the Wildlife Biologist at RMRS on a herpetology survey of the Badlands Bombing Range in South Dakota. We spent all day looking for herps and talking about what being a biologist in the real world is like. Although I still have a couple more years in college, it was a very insightful experience which will guide me throughout my education.

Month 2!

Posted on 17 August, 2023 by Elric Mack

Lately I have actually been doing my job! We have finally started sampling tissue and collecting seeds from around Idaho which includes Oregon, Nevada, and California. Our Erum hunts have been fun! I had no idea how many different types of Eriogonum there are or even just variations of ERUM itself. I have taken tons of pretty pictures over the last month or so and I’ve been to so many cool places! I’ve been to Modoc Plateau a couple of times, and we also went to Ketchum, which was beautiful! Recently I traveled all over Nevada, finding different collections of ERUM.

I am getting quite good at backcountry driving. I was not too well versed with the subject coming into this job, but I have been doing it more and more, and it is actually really fun! I like the challenge of dodging rocks and potholes and trying not to get the truck stuck in mud.

I also went on a GLORIA alpine monitoring trip which was super fun! We climbed sheep mountain and I learned a ton of new plants from some super experienced botanists. I also discovered my new favorite camp snack. When I get lazy and don’t want to cook at all, I simply make myself a tasty cold cheese burrito. It is surprisingly good, although my fellow interns protest it.

The truck that we have dubbed mountain goat just reached 100,000 miles! We stopped and celebrated on the side of a mountain. Overall, this past month has been a ton of fun, and I have really enjoyed being out in the field more searching for plants!

Hornworm Kisses to Alpine Hiking!

Posted on 14 August, 2023 by Beth Haney

Another month down! This month has been packed with trips and projects for the Rocky Mountain Research Station.

First, Elric and I headed to Sun Valley to scout for some Eriogonum umbellatum and Lomatium dissectum. We hiked this scree covered mountain, and when we got to the top we found a small population of Lomatium! It was super windy up there, and as we were hiking some jets flew over our heads! We also took a beautiful hike in Antelope Valley, and found two varieties of Eriogonum umbellatum!

After that successful trip, I decided to go visit some other CLM Interns in Council, ID! Dan and Levi introduced me to their housemates, and we explored the beautiful area around Council. Dan knew a spot for (low) cliff jumping by a waterfall, and we camped on this huge rock.

Then, we had a busy week ahead of us! Our station went to the Botany 2023 Conference in Boise, ID. We got to interact with botanists from all around, go on rafting on the Payette and Boise rivers, go on hiking field trips, and sit in on talks about botany research! It was an amazing time to get to see what the world of botany is like, and meet many peers who love the field! Such a wonderful time with great people.

Right after the conference, Elric and I departed to Eastern Idaho to take part in the GLORIA (Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments) Project! We met up with Kat and Alex, who work in Idaho Falls (Alex is a CLM intern and Kat works in the Idaho Falls office as a Resource Assistant!) Our group hiked up to Sheep Mountain South and began alpine monitoring. Luckily, the weather was cooperative while we were there, with only one small sprinkle while we were on the peaks. Our group had 4 peaks to survey, and we split up during the day to cover more ground and set up our monitoring equipment. It was a great weekend and a nice change of pace working in alpine environments!

Overall, it’s been an exciting and busy month! I look forward to what the rest of August holds!

Murder on the Grassland…

Posted on 7 August, 2023 by Katelyn Diehl

As our team finished the stem demography and aerial cover portion of our summer, we moved onto more solitary activities. Instead of working in groups or pairs on a single plot, we now work mostly alone. Pre-mow clipping was the first to come. We would lay out measuring tapes on each plot and place a small, plastic quadrat with long legs in the correct spot. From there, we roughly sorted the plant material by Bouteloua, warm season, cool season, and cactus. The rest went into a plastic bag to be sorted later in the lab. This continued for all of the other plots. After clipping, the plots were mowed to a specific height.

Then, the fun part came. In order to simulate the trampling from grazing cows, horses from the forest service were brought in to walk over each plot. I gained the official title of professional pooper-scooper. I counted the number of times the horses walked over the plots and removed any fecal matter that could alter the nitrogen levels.

The following week was forecasted to be in the high nineties, so Jackie opted for a week in the office sorting, weighing, and entering data. With my trusty tweezers in hand, I began the long process of sorting through each plastic bag for PASSMI, perennial forbs, annual forbs, and standing dead (along with any misplaced cool or warm season grasses). As we neared the end of the sorting, I weighed and entered data for the remainder of the week. It was a much needed break from the scorching badlands sun.

This past week, we returned to the great outdoors, now conducting post-mow biomass clipping. A few crucial things are different about this procedure. Instead of having legs for the quadrats, we are clipping a few centimeters from the ground. All of the plant material also has to be sorted in the field instead of partially in the A/C. Lastly, the mowing of the plots makes it more difficult to identify the grasses and forbs. As a result, the plots take much longer to clip than before, with my first taking me almost two hours.

Now, to the murder part… The solitary and monotonous nature of last month’s activities has been pretty enjoyable, actually. The clipping and sorting is pretty satisfying and almost meditative. However, the lack of mental stimulation was almost exhausting. My four nearly identical Spotify mixes were wearing thin. So, I decided to start listening to a podcast about historical murder cases and other criminal cases. It was well-produced and kept my attention on long, hot days. However, in an introspective way, I do find it somewhat humorous to be in the middle of nowhere, looking at grass all day, and learning about Lizzie Borden. In a somewhat symbolic way, there was a true murder on the grassland. My team and I were deceived, and the image of our favorite grass was killed right in front of us. BROARV, or Bromus arvensis, is an unassuming, fuzzy little grass. (See Below) Until recently, we thought he was our friend -“Good ol’ Arv”. As it turns out, he’s actually an imposter and he has to go. 🙁

Regardless, this month has been full of learning and new adventures. I can’t wait to see what the next few weeks have in store!

My friend Collin: An Account of Events That Actually 100%, No Exaggeration, Happend

Posted on 31 July, 2023 by Kyle Thornton

It was a hot summer day when I first met Collin. The sun was high, searing my back with radiation, meadowlarks sang on fenceposts, cows mooed cordial greetings. I’m working hard collecting biomass clippings at our Cedar Pass field cite, making sure to properly sort my species. Cool season grass in one bag, warm season in another, work which would otherwise be tedious if not for the sweet sweet strummings of Masayoshi Takanaka massaging my brain through pale earbuds.

I clip the final blade in my rectangular quadrat and grasp at my canteen. Out on the prairie it’s essential to remain hydrated, especially on certified steamers such as this. “Alass! ‘Tis empty! Whatever shall I do?” I announce to the world. A nearby cow responds with a sympathetic, “Moo”. I reel back, shaking a clenched fist at the sun, cursing the infernal radiator which sears my skin. I quickly come to my senses and remember the large cooler filled with ice cold water residing within our vehicle. With a newfound purpose I stagger towards the truck, trudging slowly through the brush. After what feels like 30 seconds I’m no more than 50 meters from the truck, and that’s when I see him.

A small creature dressed in an olive green burlap sack, hunched over like a gargoyle on the tailgate of our truck. “Must be the accursed sun playing tricks on mine eyes, a mirage of sorts, says I,” but as I continue my approach, the creature remains. I reach the truck and the creature stands to greet me. Assessing its features: pointed ears, knobby knees, and a long hooked nose, I conclude the nature of this odd organism; I have come face to face… with a goblin.

“Greetings friend,” the goblin croons, “I have been waiting for you.”

I respond calmly (for I am used to such things), “Salutations, what brings you round these here parts?”

“You, brave mage, I am here for you. My people have lived here for generations, supping from the earth its bountiful gifts. We have flourished by living in balance with the ecosystem which supports us. However, I am afraid our times of peace and prosper are nearing their end. For you see these lands are suffering; plagued by the industry of man, unable to sustain natural equilibrium. Our village seer foretells a great warming of the globe, which spells the eventual destruction of not just our people and our home, but of yours as well. I am but one herald of thousands, sent to seek people such as yourself and forewarn them of this forthcoming doom”.

“Tell me, wise one, what role do I have to play in this epic? What shall I do?”

“What you can, young one, what you can. My goblin intuition tells me the work you are doing here could potentially aid in maintaining the balance of these lands. Apocalyptic weather conditions await us, and the data you are collecting now will serve as a roadmap, or foundation for future generations to survive the storm. You must continue collecting and surveying, for knowledge and science are a powerful magic, human.”

“I will try my best,” I state, looking out at the beautiful landscape surrounding me.

I fill my flagon, and begin to return to my work. Just as I cross the barbed wire fence, I realize, I never asked the name of this brave messenger. “Wait! What is your name wise goblin?” I shout before even turning around, but as I do, a powerful gust of wind rips at my clothes, blowing off my hat. A cloud of dust bellows, swallowing the goblin. When the dust settles, he is gone.

Forlorn, I stare at a lone cloud in the sky. “Collin…” a voice calls out to me as the cloud slowly starts to form the shape of the creature, “my name is Collin, and child…”

“Yes?” I ask the sky.

“Tell my story.”

As I hear these final words, the Collin cloud slowly forms a thumbs up and smiles, revealing the sun hidden behind. I wince, raising my arm to shade my eyes. Once my vision refocuses, the cloud is gone, and Collin with it. For a second I doubt he was ever there to begin with; just the heat playing tricks on my mind. My heart, however, knows the truth.

“I will Collin… I will.”

Kneeling over to pick up my hat, I soak in the beauty of the earth for a brief moment before returning to my work, to save the world.

Grass’s Entry Into the World of High Fashion

Posted on 28 July, 2023 by Tess Rutstein

The tides of fashion and style are fast-moving and ever changing. We have moved on from the passé world of aerial cover and stem counts. The new, hip trends are biomass clipping and stem demography. An untrained eye might be wondering how these new styles differ from last season’s, but never fear, for I will spend the next 500 words explaining exactly why biomass clipping and stem demography are all the rage.

Biomass Clipping – Getting the perfect trim and avoiding split ends

In my journeys for the highest echelons of sophistication, I spent several weeks fully immersed in the world of biomass clipping. The process is quite simple. All you need is a pair of gardening shears, a quadrat elevated 15 cm above the ground, and bags to sort the clippings into. And also chaining pins to hold the quadrat in place as well as tape measures to ensure you’re clipping in the right place. And you can’t forget about a ruler to keep the shears level, a pencil, datasheets, and a box to hold everything in. Like I said, simple.

It is vitally important to make sure you correctly sort the clippings because, as any amateure would tell you, pattern mixing is an immediate faux-pas. My boss claims that we have to sort correctly because it is important to know exactly how much of the different plant functional groups there are in order to answer our research questions about drought and grazing, but I think we all know the main reason is because of fashion.

Once we have biomass clippings from all 162 plots, we take them back to the lab and put them in a drying oven, so that we can get their dry-weight. As someone who spends hours a day in a tanning bed, I can vouch for this method. It’s so important to dry yourself out, and it makes your skin look incredible. Now any street savvy fashionista may be thinking “plants don’t have skin, silly! How can you even make that comparison?” Well, darlings, the results speak for themselves. After spending 72 hours in a drying oven, the plants aren’t sagging anymore. They’re stiff and hold their shape beautifully.

Stem Demography – Bringing Pampering Into Your Fieldwork

Now we simply must move on to the wonderful world of stem demography and leaf stage development. The process of collecting this data involves measuring the culm and longest leaf height of specific blades of grass as well as counting stems in a very small quadrat. As a purveyor of style, there is nothing more in vogue than self care, and there is no better mode of self care than collecting stem demography and leaf stage development data.

Gone are the days of stem counting where you have to collect the data and write it down. When collecting stem demography data, you need only speak aloud the data you have collected and your partner writes it on the data sheet. One feels like a queen, speaking a completed data sheet into existence since when you went down to examine the grass, the data sheet was empty and upon coming up, it is full. Treating yourself luxuriously is one of the cornerstones of self care, and luxury is at its peak when you are face first in the dirt with sweat dripping straight onto the ground instead of down your body. I will be recommending this method to my spin class immediately, and I advise all of my dear readers to do the same.

Would you look at the time! I hate to leave you, my loves, but I must away. Keep an eye out for next week’s article about another trend Treans (Tree jeans)

Don’t forget to walk the runway of life with purpose and panache 💋

The beginning…

Posted on 7 July, 2023 by Elric Mack

The first month of this internship has been adventure at every turn. We started with helping the forest service technicians with common garden experiments. We have been studying how certain plants are growing, and the amount of herbivory that is present on them. We have taken breaks to look for Lomatium dissectum and Eriogonum umbellatum.

LODI

ERUM

It has been fun hunting for our target species, and we were able to find some LODI and ERUM up at Bogus Basin, but there were not enough seeds to harvest. All life was going well until things got a bit crazy. We went to Modoc Plateau to get tissue samples of various target species from a range of different wetland sites. We were cruising along, making good progress and driving through some pretty intense backcountry roads. It was day 3 of our trip, when we were not careful enough and ended up getting stuck in a huge mud bog! It took us a day to be rescued, and even then we had to work together to pull the truck out of the mud. It took a ford F-250 to help pull a ford F-150 (Mountain goat).

All in all it was a great bonding experience, and a memory I will never forget. You live and you learn!

Fantastic Foray to Stuck Truck

Posted on 6 July, 2023 by Beth Haney

The Rocky Mountain Research Station in Boise, Idaho is incredibly busy! I started off my internship by travelling with some forest service coworkers to a Botanical Foray at the Desert Experimental Range (DER) in Utah. Marguerite, Bebe, Anna and I met some amazing botanists who are passionate about the Great Basin. We hiked up Tunnel Springs Mountains, I collected and pressed some cool cacti (and made my first ever voucher!!), and we socialized with like minded botanists. We filled some of our free time with campfire stories, hunting for scorpions, going to Great Basin National Park to scout for rare plants, and seeing some beautiful scenery.

In the middle of June, I helped assist a BSU project in Bruneau, Idaho. We camped at Bruneau Dunes State Park. We identified species in blocks for a master student’s data.

My last big trip of the month was to the Modoc Plateau in Oregon, California, and Nevada. Elric and I went with Joe, a forest service seasonal employee to scout for plants in predetermined wetland sites for a follow up survey of an AIM season. Hiking in the Great Basin is so unique, one minute you are in sagebrush steppe or desert, the next you are in small wetland areas.

We found some amazing plants that weren’t on our species list- like this huge puffball!

Then… we hit a little speed bump in our trip. We got stuck in some mud, and ended up having to call for a rescue from Boise. We were about 6.5 hours away, but Jessica and Anna came to our rescue! Elric, Joe and I camped out for about 40 hours waiting for help to arrive, since we got stuck in the late day/early evening on Wednesday 6/28.

After long hours of working on the truck’s escape from the mud, we finally got it! We had a celebratory spaghetti dinner, and then we camped close by for the night. We were able to finish out assignment in the Modoc Plateau! We got back late Friday (6/30), and we are so relieved to be back home.

Overall, this has been such a thrilling first month to my internship! I can’t wait to see what the rest of this season holds with these amazing people!

Grasslands, Badlands, and Bananas. What more could you want?

Posted on 5 July, 2023 by Katelyn Diehl

The first week of interning was mainly an introduction to the Forest Service, trainings, learning local plant species and getting to know our team. We took trips to the field and collected plants to make our own sort of field guide to the grasslands. I also took one of the most interesting driving tests of my life. Our driving instructor (Brian Dickerson) wanted us to get some solid experience driving the trucks on dirt roads, so he took us on probably the most treacherous road in the area. I’m talking winding turns, loose gravel, lakes in the middle of the road, and steep boulders I didn’t even know the truck was capable of climbing. At the end of the day though, it did make me a more confident driver…I think. After drivers test, we got to help Brian check on some owl boxes in the area and look for frogs in the mud. Overall, 10/10.

View from the bunkhouse in Hill City, SD.

Week two was where things got interesting. We started the process of aerial cover on our plots out at the Hay Canyon field site. This basically consists of moving large (heavy) “boardwalks” over each plot, identifying all species within a particular area of the plot, and then estimating the cover of each with another coworker. The first couple of days, it was pretty difficult for me to do all three of those things. I referred back to my field guide a lot and practically trial and errored my cover estimates until I could present a reasonable argument to my team member. We also started performing stem counts in the plots. For this procedure, a small PVC rectangle is placed in the lower left corner of the plot. Every single stem within this small rectangle must be identified to species and counted. Looking at the size of the rectangle, it does not seem so bad. However, some of the plots contain tricky species like Bouteloua gracilis, Bouteloua dactyloides, and Carex filifolia. Picking through each and every stem, verifying it is an actual stem, identifying it, and recording it can become a bit tedious at times, but I do feel quite accomplished when I am finished. Aerial cover and stem counts made up the majority of this last month, and I have gotten pretty good at identifying plant species.

Hay Canyon Field Site. (Those tiny specs are people).

Stem demography was next on the training list. We took measurements of development stage, stem length, and leaf length of marked grasses within each plot. This activity was rather cushy, compared to aerial cover and stem counts. One person sits and records all the numbers, while the other looks measures the stems of a small amount of grasses.

We also learned some new skills when it comes to measuring soil moisture, weather patterns, and maintaining the equipment. There are PVC tubes that go straight into the ground in the middle of each plot. Using a soil moisture probe, we can precisely measure changes in the soil throughout the growing season. We also use less advanced probes to measure the soil moisture at just two specific depths using a system called EC-5. The weather station monitors sunlight, wind, and precipitation at each of the field sites. We learned how to perform checks on all of the equipment. Lastly, our rainout shelters are an important part of the project. They simulate an extreme drought by blocking 50% of the precipitation a plot receives. Studying the differences in plant species and demography at these plots tells us a lot about how the grassland responds to drought. The shelter (see picture below) is at the mercy of the elements. The plastic shingles can become brittle in the sunlight, be severely damaged by the wind, and most recently, be absolutely annihilated by hail. After the last big storm, every single one of our rainout shelters at the badlands site was damaged and needed shingles to be replaced. Needless to say, we all learned a lot about maintaining these shelters.

After we finished aerial cover, stem counts, and stem demography for the Hay Canyon site, we got to move on to the Cedar Pass site, which is just south of Badlands National Park. The views from this site are beautiful, and the flora and fauna is just as interesting. However, the mosquitos, flies, and extreme heat were a bit much some days. It felt like no matter how much deet bug spray I put on, the insects still wanted to be all up in my business (and eyes, and nose, and ears). Like Tess said one day, “The flies are a great motivator to finish your stem counts quickly”. Last week, the heat got pretty unbearable in the badlands. There was little to no wind, no cloud cover, and radiating heat all day. I drank more water than I think I have my whole life and still ended up a little light headed. At least the view is good!

Our team has some fun stories and quirks. One of our supervisors, Jackie, is super energetic and even has her own catchphrases. “Take it to eleven”, referencing the movie “This is Spinal Tap” is one of them. One of the other interns, Kyle, always has a crazy story to tell about childhood, college, or culinary masterpieces (i.e. something he calls “Creamy Beans”). Perhaps one of the most interesting quirks of the team is the banana peel game. This all started when one of their previous seasonals threw a banana peel at Jackie. This seasonal, Brian, and Jackie began a years long banana war, where they would either throw banana peels at each other or hide them in some way. Think: banana peels on cars, in the mail, at your desk, etc. One day, I had a banana at lunch, and Jackie asked for the peel. She placed part of the peel on the dash of our coworkers car, and the other part in the gas cap. Our coworker later found the peel and sent a very serious text about his theories on how the rainout shelters got so destroyed. He believes it was not the hail, but in fact a very devious banana. The holes in the rainout shelters are about the the right size, so it makes sense. Jackie thinks it was more likely a cutie clementine, but apparently they are more into credit card fraud then destruction of property.

So far, I really like working with my team and living the Black Hills. When I am not counting grass out in the middle of no-man’s-land, I am most often enjoying the camping, hiking, and fishing in the area with my boyfriend. The views are stellar, and fishing is pretty good too :).

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