Michelin Woman of The Marsh,
or,
What's It Like Being A Citizen Biologist?

   
In Summer 2002, I signed up to be a volunteer with the Wetland Health Evaluation Project .

    Mind you, I signed up for lots of sessions in order to meet the requirements for Biology 1185, a 1 or 2 credit independent study course I'm taking from Inver Hills Community College .  (The title will make more sense when I post a pic of me in my hubby's oversized rubber waders).  This journal walks you through my volunteer activities; as I write up my field notes, I'll post them here.

Table of Contents

This journal was getting mightly long, so I've separated the macroinvertebrate and plant entries into separate pages.  C--
  1. Training Sessions     
  2. Macroinvertebrate ("Critter") Collection and Identification  Beetles, damselflies, baggy waders, and a curious raccoon (June 3 - 19; July 22-29)
  3. Vegetation Identification  Dwarfed by a forest of Typha, I struggle to not lose my nimbler teammates (July 1 - 27)
  4. Reflections on Wetlands
Back to Gardening and Wetlands
Back to Carol's Home Page

Vegetation  Identification


July 1, 2002 -- Kipling Wetland Vegetation ID

    I felt  more than a twinge of Midwestern guilt, but I e-mailed and called J#1 (our team leader) that I would likely not be coming on Sunday, then after checking the weather the next morning, made it a definitive NO.  Channel 17, my weather source, said HEAT ADVISORY, the map painted Minnesota the 'high' shade for heat stress.  At 6:00 p.m.  in waders I figured I wouldn't last too long -- I tend to get cold & clammy when I'm too hot (READ:  heat exhaustion, or some variant) and hit that point pretty quickly when the misery index climbs.  Sai la vie, and pray for cooler weather.  Everyone's getting cabin fever at this rate.


July 8, 2002 -- Theodore Wirth Park Vegetation ID (6:00 - 7:20)

    Weather:  Mostly clear, humid, warm, but moderating
    Sample:  10 meter x 10 meter; water .6 m deep on shore side, 1.25 m deep farther out

    Well, sort of that size.  The vegetation identification plot is supposed to be a 10 x 10 square, marked out first by planting one pole, marching forward 10 meters, unreeling the tape measure until you hit 10 meters.  Plant a stake there.  Then head out the hypoteneuse, at a 45 degree angle, and place the 3rd pole.  First of all, we couldn't remember if the diagonal was 14.31 or 14.13 meters, so I grabbed my notepad and did long hand multiplication (14.1ish we decided).  We sent K out on the diagonal, since she's tallest of tonight's group (6 women -- me, J#1, J#2, B, A & K).  She disappeared into the lush cattail forest.  She squealed; "It's getting pretty deep!", after the water splashed over her wader tops.  Slowly poking ahead with the stake, she managed to stretch out far enough to plant it at the requisite 14.1 meters out.  Measure out 10 meters on the bottom of the square, then divide it in 3rds.  B and I pushed ahead through our section, scooping through the duckweed, hoping to find other submergents below.  We called out our findings to A, waiting on shore, who recorded species by category on the vege metric worksheet.

    It's weird feeling dwarfed by cattails, but they provided dense shade on a warm evening.  The waders sucked against my legs, making it awkward to walk, but certainly cooled me off.  That, and the water trickling in the crack in one wader leg.  

Findings:  
    Moss (on a dead log)
    Phalaris arundinacea :  Reed canary grass -- not much in our square, but quite a bit closer to shore
    Typha :  or cattail, lots and LOTS of cattail.  It looked like the skinny variety, but J#1 said the two kinds have hybridized so much it's hard to tell them apart

    Submergent:   Potamogeton (pond weed, a very narrow-leaved species) , Coontail (Ceratophyllum demersum) , Spirodella polyrhiza (big duckweed) , Lemna trisulca (star duckweed) , Wolffia (watermeal)

    Canopy:   Salix (two willows with their feet wet, might be a black willow, but didn't look that closely)

    Not a lot of variety -- we filled out the worksheet (you get so many points for variety and quantity as well as specific types of plants), and the wetland rated a "poor", just missing the next level up by one point.  The neighborhood is under construction (new homes), and the bank above the wetland is barely covered with plants, so probably washes sediment during rains.  A small stream running down the bank looked like it could get run-off from the large parking lot above.  There's also a golf course on one side, so by the time you add up extra nutrients, silt, probably road salt and maybe herbicides, maybe it's not surprising the wetland is struggling.

    On a plus side, we did hear a bullfrog, wood duck, nuthatches; J#1 saw grebes, and a red fox wandered across the parking lot, carrying its dinner, as we left for the night.

July 13, 2002 -- Vegetation ID (7:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.)

    We started bright & early, Saturday notwithstanding, in order to beat the heat.

Legion Lake, Minneapolis (7:30 a.m. - 8:15 a.m.)

    Weather:  Cool, mostly sunny, nice time to be out
    Water Level:  Way up compared to when we did our bug sample (June 12 ).  Legion Lake had been basically a dry field of old cattails except for the little pool almost in the center (can you say eutrophication?)  Now is ankle deep to about a meter.  
    Bottom:  Slippery and uneven, have to watch out for dips, hard to walk in.
    Plot:  10 meter x 10 meter, located in same area as bug sample.

Findings:  Cattails (Typha) are incredibly dense, so hardly anything grows here.  J's going to give me a copy of the datasheet, but here's a quick round up:
Diamond Lake, Minneapolis (8:20 - 9:00)
   
    Water Level:  Higher here too, mid-calf to mid-thigh, so 8" to 3'.  A HUGE culvert drains into the lake
    Sample:  10 x 10 (100 square meters) again, about 1/2 open water, 1/2 in Typha, same area as bug sample
    Bottom:  More stable, sandy under the thinner muck layer

    Findings (rough counts for the journal, J has the datasheets):
And out of a possible low of 7, Diamond Lake earned an 8.  Poor, poor & poor!  Maybe Bush Lake will score better.  But while walking the tape and stake to its spot, a yellow-headed blackbird scolded overhead.  

Reflections

    I'm bummed -- here I learned all these really interesting plants and our samples are the wetland equivalent of a front lawn -- a few well-fed thugs and a sprinkling of choked-out neighbors.  Even though we picked the most interesting, varied spot in Legion Lake, it still rated a Poor, which is reasonable, considering the rest of the "lake" is a cattail forest.  So much for native species always being the "good guy".

July 27, 2002  Bush Lake -- Saturday, 9:00 - 11:00

    Sunny and approaching toasty as we head into the bog.  J thinks it's really a bog because of the sphagnum moss, rather than a fen.  K forges ahead with the first stake, stopping short at the floating island  -- her waders are too short for her long legs and she can't get a foot up to the edge.  J grabs the white stake and moves out, stopping to give a safety pep talk:  Be sure you know how deep the water is because it's easy to fall through the vegetation; always keep one foot secured before moving.  Alley-oop, and she pulls up onto the island, stepping out slowly to reach firmer ground.  She sinks the white stake into oblivion, so back to the water's edge to swap it for the longer 6 foot green pole with the orange tape flag on the top.  Out again.  Oops, forgot the pencil, so a well-aimed toss gets that out to her.

    Who wants to take the other stake in?  Me, me me!!  and off I head on the hypoteneuse.  Slide through the shallows, over the mucky/sandy bottom, until I no longer can push forward.  The hip to waist-high "island" before me is really a floating mat of moss and twigs, piled up over the seasons and maybe an acre around.  This is crazy.  My leaky rubber waders aren't designed for climbing .  I grab a handful of Salix and grassy things, drag a boot onto the bog's shore and heft myself up.  Success!  Poking ahead gingerly with my green stake, I find the water isn't getting deeper and the bottom is still sandy down below.  Fwoosh!  One leg plunges through.  Great, now I'm split in half, drowning in damp greenery.  I'm distracted by the paler green leaves in front of me.   Hey!  Touch-me-not!  and a fern!  Focus, Carol, focus.  First get extracted and then oggle the plants.  

    Physics to the rescue -- spread the force out, so I heave-ho up and onto my knees.  I shuffle onward, pulling the measuring tape behind, getting direction adjustment's from B on the opposite end.  13 meters .... 14.... 14.1 okay, you're there!  And I stop and am amazed.  From my wader pocket I pull my damp and increasingly dog-earred plant guide.  The fern is a Theolypteris I figure out from page 29.  The fuzzy pink flower is definitely Spirea  I yell to J.  Wait, wait!  She's busy writing down the team's findings, hollered in from all corners.  What a bonanza compared to the cattail deserts.

    We finish our survey, then stand around slowly sinking in the muck while J double-checks the list and we attempt to figure out cover classes.  As in Plant X occupies approximately Y percent of its slice of the wetland.  I look down the water's edge -- the nearby homeowner has grass down to the few rocks placed at the edge.  Barren, compared to the dense vegetation where we're standing, which makes me wonder what's slipped into the water to account for so few submergent plants in an otherwise lush area.  Or maybe the duckweed has just shaded out its relatives.

Plant List & Findings

One 10 x 10 meter plot; shallow water about .3 m and deeper water about 1 m at the edge of the mat.
 26 different plants all told, and the wetland rates a high Moderate.  We are surprised that it's not excellent, but then it's short on submergent vegetation -- no bladderwort, coontail or milfoil. (7/28/02  I'm actually writing this list of plants from memory and the amazing thing is I think I remembered all of them -- they impressed themselves on my brain after seeing darn near nothing but Phalaris & Typha at the other places.  I'll double-check it with the data sheet tomorrow when I go to count bugs.)

     I'm saddened that this is our last outting for the year, other than counting bugs Monday.  WHEP sponsors a party in the winter to celebrate and to present the findings.  I'll just need to sign up again next year.

Summary by Wetland

(Write when processed samples)
Kipling Wetland

    Bottle Traps:  
        Practice run:  Set June 3, collect June 5
        Official Collection:  Set June 10, collect June 12

      Wetland Type & Justification:

Bush Lake

Diamond Lake

Legion Lake


 

Handy Wetland Links

(This is probably a winter project -- See 'Gardening and Wetlands ' for my summer project)
Bird Identification


Last Updated:  July 29, 2002   'Michelin Woman of the Marsh' is solely my opinions, viewpoints, etc & other people in the project may have other ideas.  Updated sporadically over summer/fall 2002.  Copyright (c) 2002 Carol L. Albright