Archive for year: 2016

Today we continued to work on collecting data at the Woodland Trail and Park site. We completed path A at 1200m and moved on to path B. We had some folks who help fund the project visit the site. We discussed two reasons why keeping this site preserved is important. One reason is that it acts as a resting site for migrating birds. They have few places to rest already and the decimation of this area could severely affect migrating bird populations. Another reason why this site is important is that it has a much higher chance of persisting through time compared to other sites that are likely to be affected by sea level rise or development. 

While working the transects we encountered a lot of blackberry just as we did yesterday. The three main invasive species we looked for included: tallow, chinaberry, and privet. All of these plants are from China and have had major impacts on the landscape. Efforts have been made to fight these plants. One way is to girdle the invasive tree and spray it with herbacides. We saw this today on some tallow trees within the site. Some of the trees haven’t bloomed yet which makes identification difficult. Our next step is to finish surveying path B and move on to the next site.  

 

Ich hab keine Ahnung was Tag ist was seit hier sein! Die Post von gestern war den 19/3/2016. Heute waren unser erster Arbeitstag und in meine Meinung ein bisschen langweilig, aber meine Gruppe (die Madames Leveaus) sind mit Aspen und Vanessa gut. Wir arbeiten gut und schnell zusammen. Wir identifizieren Bäume und Pflanzen und was ist was und was ist wo, aber ich hab keine Ahnung sooo ich bin sehr frohe, dass ich zwei Umwelt Majors in meiner Gruppe hab lol. Morgen glaube ich ist die gleiche… Ja voll!

Today was our first day of field work in the woodlands, it was slow going, but will pick up soon!  The forest is thick with trees and blackberry vines, so much green!!

 

Today was our first day in the field. We went into English Turn and starred collecting data on our transects. I was paired with Michaela & Sadie. We started on 250M trail marker and team or transect tape 100 meters to the right at a 90 degree angle from the trail.  After Michaela had hacked through all of the blackberry,  Sadie and I began make observations within our different quadrants along the transect.  Sadie did a great job with identifying the plants and I was the one recording all of the data.

Each quadrant was 1 meter wide on the left and right side of the transact tape. This process was related every 2 meters with the exception of the first two, which was from 0-1and 1-2.  We had to identify things such as the plant/tree species, the amount of overhead vegetation cover,  the amount of leaf liter/sticks on the ground and the percent of blackberry present.  We ended up getting through 2 transects. The plants we encountered the most were Box Elder, Elderberry, and our favorite,  Blackberry…. Tomorrow we will be doing the same thing.