Archive for month: March, 2016

Second day in the field was a success. Michaela, Sadie & I blew through 3 transects on Trail A and moved to Trail B where we did 6 more. (9 in total today!) We had quite a few invasive (Tallow & Chinaberry) in our Trail A transects and not as many on Trail B. Trail B was also not as difficult seeing also our first few transects were only 6 meters in length as opposed to 100m.

So for those of you reading our blog, we are probably using many terms that may seem foreign to our readers. I will attempt to explain what we are talking about. A transect is the line that that we run through the wetland for 100 meters. The tape we run through the forest is the “transect” tape.
For myself, being the data recorder, I have many duties. On my data sheet I am I’m charge of recording the transect stop, the natural & exotic overstory, the understory’s percent of ferns & blackberry, the amount of leaf & wood litter, and if there is or is not a fallen log on the quadrant.  Now to explain all of these concepts.  The transect stop is the length of the recording.  For example, if the transect stop is at 4 meters, we are recording everything in between the last stop (2M) and 4 meters.  Our quadrant for that stop is 1 M on each side of the quadrant.  The overstory is the amount of cover over the quadrant we are observing; native percent is the amount of native vegetation that covers the area and exotic is the amount of invasive species that cover the space.  The understory is self-explanatory in that we record the percent of ferns and blackberry we observe.  The leaf and wood litter is just the amount of leaves and sticks/branches that cover the floor; this section is measured in centimeters.  The final section I am in charge of is whether or not there is a fallen log, which is also self-explanatory because I literally circle yes or no. 
The last section of the data entry that I complete is along with the help of Sadie and Michaela.  The space calls for the identification of all plants in the quadrant we are focused on.  This calls for the name of the species, the height of the vegetation and the DBH (Diameter Breast height).  The DBH is determined only of the vegetation is larger than your breast height.  If so, we measured the diameter of the steam/trunk.  I hope these explanations were helpful!

Research day number two was today, we got a botany lesion today which was very interesting. We learned about various species identification due to some confusion yesterday which helped groups go much quicker today. 

 

Yesterday was our first day doing vegetation surveys at the Woodlands Trail Conservancy. Holly, Hayley, and I teamed up to form the Gumbo Gang and spent the day learning the lay of the land and the different vegetation which inhabits it. We finished two transects and will be completing more today!

  

Today was our first day doing vegetation surveys at the Woodlands Trail Conservancy. Sadie, Lauren, and I teamed up to form the Machete Mamas and spent our afternoon fighting blackberry and getting to know the plants. We finished two transects today and tomorrow I think we will all be even more productive.  

    
 

Today was a great day we learned new methods and plant identification. The methods today included setting up 100 meter band transects. These consisted of Bush whacking through the brush laying out the 100 meter tape and using a 2 meter pvc pipe to delineate a 2 meter by 2 meter square band and identifying all species in the square. The first 2 bands are done as 1 by 2 meter band 1 meter down the tape by 2 meters wide. The transects numbers were written as the higher of the point (if it were point 0-1 it would be recorded as 1).

Than we looked at multiple aspects such as leaf and wood litter. Percent blackberry, ferns, native vegetation canopy and exotic vegetation canopy. We also recorded gps waypoints off of a Bad Elf gps attached to an iPod at 0, 50, and 100. We also took pictures showing the vegetation at these locations looking towards the 100 mark and out past in to vegetation. We also took plant samples for plant identification.

  

    
 Patrick and I using spicy food to keep the bugs away!