Nelson's checkermallow delisted due to recovery! |
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Our vision is a world where all people and wildlands are healthy and interact positively, biological diversity flourishes, and environmental challenges are met with a social commitment to solving problems with scientific principles. |
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"We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it." - William Faulkner |
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Not in Kansas: Native Prairie Restoration through Bison Grazing in the Willamette Valley |
Admittedly, the Willamette Valley is not the first place that comes to mind when I think about bison, or even native prairies. The Great Plains seem much more obvious for both. Of course, you can find native prairies throughout the Willamette Valley. Best estimates, however, suggest that less than 10% of original prairie habitat remains. Hence the need for restoration. Bison, though? Read More
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Strengthening Connections to Nature Through Forest Bound |
This year marked the sixth year of our summer educational program, Forest Bound, a native plant immersion and conservation skill-building program that teaches students about native plant species through a botanical, ecological, and cultural lens. Each year, Forest Bound students get to explore the Santa Fe and Cibola National Forests for a whole week. Read More
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Sagebrush Farmers. . . in Prisons!? |
The Sagebrush in Prisons Project is a partnership between the Institute for Applied Ecology (IAE), The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and various state and federal prisons in six different states to—that’s right—farm sagebrush! Adults in custody are hired to grow sagebrush and other native plants from seed to maturity. Read More
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Surveying the Sagebrush Steppes of Idaho |
by Heather Poyner and Michael Mitchell
The Institute for Applied Ecology’s Idaho Rare Plant Crews concluded another season of rare plant surveys for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in July 2023. For three months, we called the sagebrush steppe our home, performing botanical surveys and camping across south central Idaho. Read More
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Fall Volunteer Opportunities in Oregon |
It’s almost planting season in the Willamette Valley. After a brief hiatus from volunteer activities during September, we are excited to announce a new series of fall volunteer events! Join us out in the field to help put more native plants on the landscape, and contribute to the recovery of ecosystems across Oregon. All are welcome! Read More
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Announcements
& Brief Updates
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Nelson's Checkermallow Delisted! |
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Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officially announced the removal of Nelson's checkermallow, a perennial flower with spectacular pink blooms, from the federal list of endangered and threatened species due to recovery.
As noted in the announcement, the delisting of Nelson’s checker-mallow is the latest in a string of recent recoveries for federally listed Pacific Northwest plants. Golden paintbrush was delisted in July after a remarkable comeback, and Bradshaw’s lomatium was delisted due to recovery in 2022. Read the full announcement from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service here.
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Southwest Seed Collection Update |
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The Seeds of Success (SOS) crew has been busy this summer! Based out of the Bureau of Land Management's Carlsbad, New Mexico Field Office, they have been looking for large populations of grasses, forbs and shrubs. In the field, they often stop to check the phenology and readiness of wild seeds that could be used for habitat restoration.
These plant populations grow in the midst of working lands, as well as oil and natural gas development. The Carlsbad Field Office administers over 2 million acres of surface estate and 3 million acres of mineral estate in the southeastern portion of New Mexico, as well as permitting more oil and gas permits to drill than any other field office in the country. These factors make the collection of wild seed all the more important—to preserve the impressive genetic diversity that covers the landscape of southeast New Mexico.
The Carlsbad Seeds of Success crew works to conserve plant materials and mitigate the impacts of development on the biodiversity of the region. Their efforts will allow land management agencies to put plant diversity back into the landscape, to enhance habitat, and to preserve the ecological integrity of the region.
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Fall Volunteer Opportunities in Oregon |
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Abstract Deadline for the 2024 Native Seed Conference Extended! |
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The NNSC invites you to submit an abstract that focuses on Native Seed Production or Seed-Based Restoration. Preference will be given to abstracts that also focus on Indigenous Knowledge or Climate Change. Presentation time slots are 30 minutes which includes 5-10 minutes for questions. Notifications will be sent in late November.
Please visit the NNSC website to complete the submission form.
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'Worm Farming' at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center |
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Incarcerated teenagers in Nevada spent their summer turning food waste into plant food, also known as compost! IAE's Ecological Education Program teamed up with Evergreen State College’s Sustainability in Prisons Project to deliver a "Foundations in Composting" course to ten students at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center in Carson City, Nevada.
Through this program, the students were able to receive two college credits and high-school credit for their work. They also spent time starting a flower garden and tending to vermicomposting bins, or as they like to call it, ‘worm farming’.
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Nonnative Plant Invasion increases urban vegetation structure and influences arthropod communities
Different theories exist about forest structure, and circumstances in urban forests allow for the comparison of two of these theories. Research supports that greater complexity in vegetation structure, and diversity in plant communities, can increase arthropod abundance and diversity. Other research associates nonnative plants with low arthropod abundance and diversity.
Urban forests, like those studied in Raleigh, NC and Newark, DE, often contain dense forest structure and nonnative plant invasion. Therefore, we used urban forests to determine whether forest structural complexity associated with nonnative plants will increase or decrease the abundance and diversity of arthropods.
We found support for the hypotheses that dense vegetation will increase arthropods, and against the hypothesis that nonnative vegetation will decrease arthropods. Arthropod abundance and biomass, but not diversity, increased with greater nonnative and native structural complexity.
Invaded urban forests may provide adequate food (via arthropod biomass) to transfer energy to other organisms, but likely fail to provide ecological services and functions offered by diverse species, like forest specialists. Urban land managers should survey urban forests and prioritize replacing dense nonnative plants with native species when allocating vegetation maintenance resources.
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Consequences of fire and other prairie management treatments for macrofungi in the Pacific Northwest
Fungi provide critical ecosystem services such as decomposition, mitigation of disease and pathogens, and establishment of mycorrhizal relationships (which allow plants to access additional resources than they would on their own). However, the role of fungi in the health of native prairies is still poorly understood.
To address this knowledge gap, IAE Senior Ecologist Tom Kaye and Research Ecologist Denise Giles participated in a study recently published in Fungal Ecology that evaluated the effects of habitat restoration practices on the abundance of sporocarps (mushrooms) in prairies in the Puget Trough and Willamette Valley ecoregions.
The research was led by Bitty Roy from the University of Oregon and included scientists from several organizations in a collaborative analysis. After revisiting restored sites and experimental restoration plots to observe macrofungi, their primary finding was management practices have strong impacts on fungal abundance and diversity.
For example, prescribed burning followed by herbicide (glyphosate) treatment resulted in the highest abundance of sporocarps. Other treatments included a no treatment control, mowing, grazing, a grass-specific herbicide, and carbon addition. Interestingly, the grazing treatment resulted in similar sporocarp abundance levels as the no treatment control.
This study highlights the importance of habitat management for conservation of macrofungi, which are regionally diverse (over 400 species in grasslands) and a critical component of native prairies.
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We are not currently hiring at this time.
Full job descriptions and application details can always be found in the links on our website at www.appliedeco.org/jobs.
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Volunteer, Become an IAE Member! |
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If you'd like to show your business's support
for our work, please get in touch:
(541) 753-3099 x 701
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Ken Bierly, Brandy Humphreys, Cary Stephens, Jack Halsey, Jason Bradford, Anne Bradley, Shinji Kawai, Judy Li, John Savage, Sunia Yang, Graham Frank |
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