Archive - December 2009

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Thinking of Fairchild

Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 01:53:58 PM

Fairchild’s South Florida Conservation team starred in today’s presentation. They may not even realize it – that they are in my thoughts even when I’m not with them, but they definitely are. Their work exemplifies some great plant conservation, so I feature them frequently in my course lectures, case studies, and activities. I was able to show many of the tricks that the team uses to keep organized and to keep research relevant to our land manager partners.

Jennifer Possley monitoring pine
rockland transects.

Jennifer Possley’s work with Miami-Dade County is an example. She recently completed her second year of monitoring baseline information on the structure and diversity of the pine rockland forest. At request of our county partners, Jennifer was asked to develop a monitoring program to determine the impacts of controlled burns and thinning treatments on forest structure and diversity. She and I first met with park managers from Natural Areas Management and the Environmentally Endangered Lands programs to clarify what the management objectives were. After 3 meetings in which we discussed the needs of the county personnel, Jennifer conducted a trial sampling. She analyzed the data and returned to the county to discuss and refine the procedures. Because any monitoring program requires much time, labor and expense, Jennifer’s process is a good one to recommend as it ensured that the information we gathered is going to answer the management concerns. The class especially appreciated being able to see examples of the questions Jennifer asked the land managers after her pilot study. I was only able to use this as an example because Jennifer keeps careful written documentation of her meetings. Thank you Jenn!

With the forecast of rain, yesterday I asked the class if they wanted to do an outside activity. Tired of being cooped up in the classroom all week, they all assured me that they were tough field botanists. This girl has pretty thin Miami blood now. The Bay area had had an unusual weather week. Before I arrived it snowed in the foothills. It must have been beautiful. Since I had been cold every day even without snow, I put on 4 layers – polypropylene, cotton, wool, and goretex rain pants and jacket. I was ready! And I was WARM! The class didn’t disappoint me. They all came prepared for any weather. Thankfully, the rain waited until our activities were completed before it poured! So we only had to walk back up the hill to our cars in the downpour.

Because many in the class were fairly familiar with monitoring, I asked them to design monitoring plans for two species in two different parts of the garden. The task was to keep careful records of the procedure used so that the second group could repeat the procedure and get the same answer. After all, this part is critical in our studies! We all got a big laugh that we were partially successful in meeting this goal. It was a great illustration though of how important it is to document our procedures carefully so that our successors can follow up on this important conservation work.

In all, the weeklong course was well appreciated by the participants and instructors. I was happy to reconnect with old friends and meet new ones, too. And I’m ready to get back to WARM weather at Fairchild.

Joyce

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Fairchild’s Experience with Reintroductions Helps Others

Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 01:33:31 PM

One of the things I enjoy about teaching this Applied Plant Conservation Workshop is that the participants share the wealth of their experience with rare plant species and freely discuss their questions and issues with the class. Today I discussed in situ conservation – rare plant reintroductions. Twenty years ago this was a controversial practice and many attempted reintroductions were unsuccessful. But as the science and practice of reintroduction has grown, the success rate has improved. As Fairchild has done 55 reintroductions of 13 species, we have a bit of experience about this topic. But admittedly our experience is biased. Because many of our species in South Florida are critically endangered with fewer than 5 populations and far less than 1000 individuals, I certainly have a different perspective than some other practitioners working with populations of plants with thousands of individuals spread across many populations. Unlike other regions of the country that have diverse topography and soil types, we are working within areas with comparatively less variation in soils and very slight changes in elevation. Our mild climate and usually abundant rainfall importantly improves the success of our reintroductions.

The most controversial thing we discussed today was the fate of very small populations. One of the participants from Hawaii has shared that she is working with 53 species that have fewer than 50 individuals surviving in the wild. Her priorities for these species are to fence the populations to exclude feral herbivores and to remove invasive species. She feels like she is in a race to prevent these species from going extinct. Our problems in Florida are not as severe as those in Hawaii. Through guidelines and examples the class can learn about how we approach our conservation of very small populations.

An important link is ex situ (nursery) collections with in situ (wild habitat) restoration. Fairchild researchers collect seeds and cuttings of rare species for long-term preservation, research, and reintroduction to the wild. One example is the federally endangered Key Tree Cactus, which has suffered serious decline in the lower Keys within the past decade. We have been making collections and maintaining healthy beautiful plants ready to go back to the wild. See our video about this process.

Key Tree Cactus in the ex situ collection
at Fairchild.

Before reintroducing any species, it is important to learn about its biology, its habitat requirements, and community and then try to find new locations that have similar qualities. Sam Wright developed a great matrix that we have used for both beach jacquemontia and the Key Tree Cactus to assess the quality of potential reintroduction sites. We are currently working to identify potential reintroduction sites for the Key Tree Cactus.

Each part of the world has its issues, but many of the threats to biodiversity are similar. I think what is particularly helpful about this course is that the participants can connect with others working on rare plants and can know they are not alone. The participants share contact information and the instructors encouraged the group to contact us if they have questions after the course, so that we keep the network alive.

Joyce

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Teaching Plant Conservation Techniques

Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 03:39:10 PM

I write these words from Berkeley California, where I've come to teach two modules of the week-long course in Applied Plant Conservation offered by the Center for Plant Conservation. Over the past few years, I've taught parts of this course in Phoenix, Hawaii and Denver. This time our venue is the UC Berkeley Botanic Garden. Some of the folks in the class work for federal agencies, including the Dept of Defense, the National Park Service, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. There are also graduate students and 3 women from Mexico.

Classes for the workshop span the important issues in plant conservation from policy and planning to ex situ conservation, genetics, demography and measuring success of conservation actions. My topics are monitoring and in situ conservation for which I have ~8 hrs of classroom and hands-on activities. Today I spent time planning the outdoor portion of the workshop scheduled for Saturday. I tailor the activity to the particular site and the wonderful plants growing there. The prediction is that the weather is going to be cold and rainy on Saturday, so while I will have something planned for outdoors, I'm also planning a back up set of exercises for indoors. The UC Berkeley Botanic Garden is beautiful, so I really hope the sky will clear up so that these hard working students can get outside! Practicing the techniques with real situations is the best way to prepare students for the real world they will face when they return to the work in their own regions.

Right now I'm appreciating being indoors because I'm cold. My luggage did not arrive with me last night. Luckily I had some warm clothing packed into my carry-on luggage, but I still was glad to pull out the polypropylene stuff from my luggage when it arrived this afternoon! Not to mention that the activities and the equipment I need for the classes were IN the suitcase. Whew! I'm glad they made it!

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Best,

Joyce

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