The Voltage Gate

When We Let Nature Push Back

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:00:48 -0500

I finally had a chance to get out to Sweetwater Creek State Park last week, and we picked a perfect day for it. It was warm and slightly muggy, just the type of weather to bring out some of the Georgia wildlife I've been looking forward to seeing. Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough to film them, but I did get some pics of things that don't move (perceptibly anyway).

There was a small beaver dam only about a half mile into the walk, but unfortunately the beavers weren't around.

The ruins were perhaps the most interesting part of the park. This was once the New Manchester Manufacturing Company, a textile mill built in 1849, and primarily produced a type of coarse fabric called Osnaburg. In 1861, the Confederacy contracted New Manchester to produce materials for their soldiers' uniforms. On July 2, 1864, Union forces under Sherman's command captured New Machester (the company town and the mill), arrested its employees and burned it to the ground. The 70 or so employees were forced to take an "Oath of Allegiance" to the government, and were dumped off across the Ohio River, and told not to return south until the war was over or face imprisonment, showing just how sweet a guy Sherman really was.

All that's left of New Manchester now is these ruins and the millrace that led to the water wheel. The ruins are gated off (except on tours), so this is as close as I could get.

The way plants grow down is somehow different than up north. I'm used to mainly pine forests, the towering conifers spaced out among blankets of dead needles and sporadic fern. It's never too crowded in the mountain forests of Pennsylvania and Maryland. Georgia, at least in the areas I've been, is a little more populated.

There are entire swaths of sidewalk in my neighborhood that have been consumed by brush, broken by tree roots and barricaded by twisted vines. Midtown Atlanta is hardly neglected by the city, but the plant life down here just seems more aggressive, and forces you to look beyond the pavement and man made structures to the veritable tangle of vegetation between blocks, behind homes. It's easy to imagine that you can actually see the slow takeover, witness nature's reclamation.

It always brings my mind back to precolonial America, the idea that the entire Eastern US was covered in deciduous forest, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. It's the same feeling I get from that primeval, aboriginal fantasy that plays out in our minds when we think of alien landscapes towering ferns and sauropods. What would it have been like to walk in those ancient, untouched Appalachian forests? To hear wolves at night and know that you were most definitely alone in the wilderness, with the exception of the native tribes? Frightening, perhaps, but none the less, an exciting concept.

Americans thought of wilderness in interesting ways back then. The Puritans equated their flight to America from England with Christ's journey into the desert wilderness or the exile of the Jews. So it was considered an appropriate setting for a test of spiritual hardiness. When more and more settlers came to the country and started establishing communities, the wilderness was perceived as working against them, they worked to conquer it.

The American wilderness broke against the successive waves of development to the extent that we had to sanction areas to preserve so that they could never been exploited. Still those boundaries are tested, especially in the past eight or so years, and it seems like nothing is safe from our influence, directly or indirectly.

But there are those moments, that exist maybe only in my mind, where I see nature pushing back, breaking concrete and barring passage, and we just let it, and I get a great sense of peace from that.

Read the comments on this post...

Oekologie

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:03:40 -0500

Ian had some RL issues come up, so this months Oekologie will be a little late.

Plant Sensitivities

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 08:45:13 -0500

Yet another great Monday morning read from Wayne (even if it was posted over the weekend): an explanation of the thigmonastic response, leaf folding in plants, and the differences between movement in animals and movement in plants.

Evaluating the 2008 Farm Bill

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:00:55 -0500

Critterthink, the blog of the Center for Native Ecosystems in Denver, CO has posted a guide to the 2008 Farm Bill from a conservation perspective, highlighting what they call the good, the bad and the ugly. If you haven't had time to review the bill yourself, take advantage of the hard work these folks put into breaking it down for us.

The Farm Bill is an omnibus bill passed every few years, setting a policy toolkit for agriculture in the US. It has massive implications for industry, food, foreign policy and, for our purposes, conservation and the environment.

Here are a few things that stuck out for me:

The new Farm Bill includes the Endangered Species Recovery Act, which will provide tax deductions for private landowners that volunteer to conserve habitat on their lands for threatened and endangered species.

An excellent idea considering many of the trouble areas are on private lands, and NGOs can be a bit intrusive. The guilt trips haven't really worked.

The Wetlands Reserve Program will be reduced by about 25% to just 185,000 acres per year.

Not good. We have already eliminated well over half of the 215 million acres of wetland in the continental US, with some states nearly destroying all of the major wetlands within their lines.

And this bit is just far out of control:

High commodity prices and federal subsidies for corn ethanol production have created intense pressure to plow under remaining native grasslands. Conversion of these lands to corn production not only destroys important imperiled habitats that are home to numerous declining species of birds and other wildlife, it also releases large quantities of carbon stored in grassland soils. A strong Sodsaver provision would have helped counteract these pressures by eliminating federal support and insurance payments on newly broken out land. Sodsaver provisions were included in both the House and Senate bills, as well as the Administration's farm bill proposal only to be taken out during Conference committee. Now producers in the prairie pothole region will be incentivized to break out their lands for fear their Governors will opt into this program. At least parts of the permanent disaster relief program will likely exacerbate the problem by guaranteeing producer income on even the most marginal of newly broken lands. Taken together with the bill's significant retrenchment of the Conservation Reserve Program, the net effect will be to add to rather than ameliorate the pressure to plow under fragile native grasslands--destroying habitat while contributing to climate change by releasing carbon stored in the soils.

Climate change is also contributing to the invasion of brush into the native grasslands of more arid climes in this country. I'm reviewing a paper on the subject and should have something up about it today.

I spent most of my life in close proximity to bogs and marshlands, so the reduction of wetland protection bothers me a great deal. They are beautiful, unique environments where it takes a sharp eye to pick out some of the most brilliant curiosities you won't find anywhere else. I had the fortune of seeing firsthand different kinds of wetlands. The eastern shore of Maryland is home to salty, coastal wetlands where stalk legged herons pick through the muck for food. On the other side of the state, in the mountains of Garrett County, there are bogs that stretch miles, weigh stations of sorts, purifying waters that flow clean off the rocky heights of waterfalls downstream. In the fall, the sphagnum turns deep red, matching the autumn treetops and blueberry bushes that surround the thick, low lying mats of moss, soaked in the muddy bog. Sarracenia purpurea grows on little hummocks, small white flowers poke through the sphagnum and in a couple of months, when everything is covered by layers of snow and ice, the skunk cabbage will still be visible, producing enough heat through its own respiration to melt the winter around it.

I don't think I have ever stepped into an environment so alien, so unique as a bog or marshland, and I hope to track down some local wetlands in Georgia. Perhaps this time I'll have some pictures to go along with the descriptions.

Read the comments on this post...

Strange Nomenclature

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 08:20:49 -0500

Wayne found a neat little site the other day and was kind enough to share it with us. Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature is a site of the strange and notable names given to organisms over the years. It's definitely worth a look.

Geophagy in Amazonian Bats: Detox or Nutrition?

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:45:36 -0500

I finally got around to blogging about this study published in PLoS One a few weeks ago, regarding geophagy in tropical species of bats. The study provides a nice overview of the literature and some of the potential reasons why they (and we) do it.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

I'm Huge on YouTube

Mon, 19 May 2008 11:00:28 -0500

Well, not really. But I'm surprised that I've racked up over 66k views and 86 comments from this video of a peculiar lion roar at the Pittsburgh Zoo, so I thought I'd share it here.

I think someone could start a series of blog posts/videos called "Stupid Things People Say at Zoos". You could literally spend one day at any zoo and have enough material for months of blogging. I swear that guy you hear in the background shadowed us all day.

I've got some more videos I've been meaning to upload, including one of the red panda in the Atlanta Zoo, and another of a polar bear from the Pittsburgh Zoo.

Read the comments on this post...

Atlantans, I Need Your Opinion

Fri, 16 May 2008 13:23:56 -0500

This weekend, should I visit:

Panola Mountain or Sweetwater Creek?

I want to do some hiking/photography.

Read the comments on this post...

Oekologie #16 Is Up!

Thu, 15 May 2008 09:00:39 -0500

Cash has a fresh Oekologie for us, nestled in the Scientific Blogging community, at his blog, Science and Supermodels.

Oekologie Tomorrow

Wed, 14 May 2008 09:14:09 -0500

The May edition of Oekologie will be hosted at one of the lovely blogs at Scientific Blogging (though I'm not sure which...). It's not too late to get your entries in.

Read the comments on this post...

Life in Cold Blood Benched?

Tue, 06 May 2008 08:23:31 -0500

Do we have something against David Attenborough in this country? First his narration for Planet Earth was overdubbed by Sigourney Weaver, and now I've heard that Life in Cold Blood is not even going to be televised in the States.

I got this email from Herpdigest this morning:

Animal Planet just emailed me. "Life in Cold Blood" will not be airing May 7 or 14. They do not know of any new dates. Sounds like they are dumping it. Won't be seen in U.S. And the only way to see it is to buy the DVD if they do produce one.

Lame. At least Herpdigest is offering the book though:

Or you can buy the book, copies still available. $29.95 PLUS $7.50 S&H 288 pages with over 200 Color Photos, By check: Make the check out to HerpDigest and send it to HerpDigest c/o Allen Salzberg/67-87 Booth Street -5B/Forest Hills, NY 11375 Through Paypal our account is asalzberg@herpdigest.org. Or credit cards, we only accept Master or Visa Cards, send us your ccard number (split it into two different emails for security), expiration date, shipping and billing address.

I hope this has nothing to do with staying PC about evolution on the network's part. One of the beautiful things about Attenborough's work is his focus on evolution in his "Life" series. He's not preachy or stiff about it; he tells it like it is and you feel like you are there with him exploring life's greatest story chapter by chapter.

Read the comments on this post...

First Ever Scientific Conference in the World of Warcraft

Fri, 02 May 2008 10:40:17 -0500

In one week exactly, I will be attending a scientific conference in a hot vacation spot for people across the world. Millions flock there every day to relax, socialize and wtfpwn your face with their Night Elf Mohawk.

It ain't Belize, baby; it's the World of Warcraft.

"Convergence of the Real and the Virtual", the first ever scientific conference to be held within WoW, was proposed by John Bohannon, the Gonzo Scientist from Science magazine. It kicks off in Ogrimmar on the Earthen Ring server (RP) next Friday at 12:30 p.m. The conference will focus on MMOs as "natural labs" for research, holding sessions and giving tours of Azeroth (the main area in the game) throughout the weekend. There will still be panels and presenters, but instead of a sea of suits and mismatched sweater vests they'll be wielding melee weapons and donning chain armor.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Further Threats to Coral Reefs

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:15:22 -0500

As if coral in the world didn't have enough trouble, increased storm activity/strength is interrupting the reproductive/colonization process in southern Belize:

The team measured the size of more than 520 non-branching corals in two major coral reef areas in southern Belize: the Sapodilla Cayes Marine Reserve, a world heritage site in the second largest barrier reef in the world, and the Port Honduras Marine Reserve. In addition to providing habitat for an array of marine life, non-branching massive corals--robust and shaped like mounds, and sometimes called 'brain corals'--buffer coastal zones from erosive wave energy.
Crabbe's team determined the surface area covered by the corals and entered the growth rates of the corals into a computer model to determine when in history the coral colonies first settled. They compared numbers of corals that started life in each year with hurricane and storm data, and as suggested by data from fringing reefs of Jamaica, the coral recruitment was much lower during storm years, Crabbe said.

Not surprisingly, tourism and agricultural pollution are the top two threats to corals around Belize.

Read the comments on this post...

Reconstructing Cambrian Food Webs

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:50:25 -0500

If I was given three wishes, I have always said that one of them would be to watch the evolution of life at my leisure, being able speeding things up and slowing them down at will. Of all the time periods we've designated, the Ediacaran and the Cambrian periods would be a frame by frame analysis. Were these organisms really that much different from modern organisms, and if so, did their ecology reflect these differences?

PLoS One published a paper today that attempts to make my pipe dream a reality by taking the well known geological snapshots of Cambrian life, the Chengjiang and Burgess Shales (520 and 505 ma respectively), and trying to reassemble the interactions of the living world of that era.

The desire to reconstruct historic ecosystems has been strong in the field, but many have felt the fossil record was not robust enough to construct any sort of models. Obviously this notion is beginning to change.

Read the rest of this post... |

Remediating Acid Mine Drainage: History and Techniques in Appalachia

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:25:56 -0500

Two waterways meet in a surreal junction at Vale Summit, a small low streambed in the Appalachian forests of Maryland, surrounded by high sandy banks and the faint sound of passing traffic.

Bright orange coal mine drainage from the Hoffman tunnel washes iron oxides and sulfates over rocks and tree limbs and completely distorts the little brown flow of Braddock Run, a smaller, slower but rich stream, providing a home to benthic invertebrates and young fish that the drainage cannot.

Braddock Run exhibits all the attributes of a healthy stream: neutral pH, low iron levels and a diverse scatter of mayfly, stonefly and caddisfly larvae. The rushing waters from the Hoffman tunnel are unable to support any benthic life aside from persistent species of algae.

This is the legacy left by coal mining from over a century ago, and one of many such examples of acid mine drainage (AMD) in Western Maryland.

The Hoffman drainage tunnel was built in the early 1900's when Consolidated Coal built a shaft to drain the deep mines, pumping the excess into Georges Creek. Back in the 1930's, the water was dangerously acidic, hovering around the pH of strong hydrochloric or sulfuric acid.

Despite the neon orange appearance of the drainage, the waters downstream from Hoffman Braddock Run support a healthy brook trout population. However, this is not the case for most waterways affected by AMD; they often require remediation to halt the movement of contaminants downstream. Hoffman is affected because legislation regulating AMD and coal mining in general were virtually nonexistent when the problem began.

I wanted to take some of the information I've gained while living in the area about AMD and some of the more interesting ways scientists are remediating the damage in recent years. I even had the pleasure of speaking with Geologist Barry Maynard from the University of Cincinnati, who shared some information on creating wetlands to remediate the damage of AMD. It's all a bit Maryland-focused, and I eventually want to get some more information about Georgia and its history with coal and AMD.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...