Category: PracticalEcologist

Road Trip Record: Three Ecosystems in One Hike

RMNP Montane Ecosystem
Time to get in the wayback machine for a trip down science/nature travel memory lane.  In the summer of 2012, just after I had finished my MS degree and just before I was slated to move on (and up the coast) to start my PhD, Meridith and I planned and executed the Amazing Besties National Parks Road Trip!  Meridith was tantalizingly close to completing her MS degree as well, so it totally counted as a double celebratory trip!  Our goal was to see as many national parks as possible, with an eye to balancing quality and quantity, and road trip our way from Las Cruces, New Mexico (Mer’s former hood), up to Portland, OR for the Ecological Society of America conference, then scoot back down the California coast to Long Beach, where I would pack my stuff into a truck and move!  If you’re new to this series of blog posts, I highly recommend you check out the summaries of the early stages of our trip, which were originally posted on Meridith’s former blog and later migrated to our current one.  Clickity-click for:  the take-off, Carlsbad Caverns National Park (days one and two), ABQ New Mexico, on the road, Zion National Park (day one and two), me getting us really lost, Arches National Park, a babal about invasive species, and Rocky Mountain National Park day one!   



Day 11
Rocky Mountain National Park
Total Miles Hiked: 8.9 (67.2 overall)
About 95% certain this is a portion of Bear Lake from above.

When last we left our Amazing Besties National Park Road Trip, we had just finished our first full day in Rocky Mountain National Park.  We had taken an awesome hike up Deer Mountain, seen 18 big horned sheep, and I had beaten Meridith in a friendly game of pool.  We didn’t let all this fun keep us up too late though.  We had big plans for the next day, July 20, 2012.  


Pretty sure this is Meridith “being a critter” in the montane ecosystem.
We got up early, as per the instructions of the friendly park ranger we spoke with on the previous day.  We were planning to hike the Flattop Mountain Trail, which peaked in altitude at 12,324 ft!  The ranger had warned us afternoon thunderstorms were common in the region, so we wanted to get an early start and avoid getting caught in the weather on an exposed mountain.  Plus, Bear Lake Road (the road to the trail head) would be closing after 9am, necessitating a shuttle trip if we didn’t get up and get going.  The many benefits of getting friendly with the park rangers!  I love having the inside scoop.


Wildflowers and feetz
We were rewarded for our early start with a sparsely populated Bear Lake area, which is one of the most popular spots in the park.  After a stop to apply sunscreen (easy to get sunburned at high altitude!) and fill up our hydration bladders, we found the Flattop Mountain trailhead and began our ascent.  The park ranger had suggested this trail based on our desire to get a bit of a physical challenge (8.9 miles roundtrip and almost 3000 feet of elevation gain) and see all three high altitude ecosystems the park had to offer. We are the nerdiest of nerds.  

We started off in the montane ecosystem, much like what we had hiked through the day before on Deer Mountain.  According to the park’s website, montane ecosystems occur between 5,600 and 9,500 feet.  We saw many of the characteristic pines of this ecosystem.  We were also treated to some lovely lupins (Lupinus), Indian piantbrush (Castilleja), as well as some other pretty wildflowers whose faces don’t have a name in my mind.  One of my favorite parts of climbing up is looking back down at the same landmark over and over again.  Watching Bear Lake get smaller and smaller as it peeked from between trees made the first mile or so go very quickly.


Subalpine Ecosystem, everything look so intense!
That is a huge cairn, which we though was hysterical.
As we moved up into the subalpine ecosystem, spanning the range from 9,000 to 11,000 ft in elevation, the vegetation began to change.  Short, gnarled subalpine spruce and Engelmann fir dominated the landscape, but a few pines persisted.  Most of the larger trees we spied had the tops snapped off, making them look a little naked.  We hypothesized (like you do) that snow was the likely culprit.  I remember being in Africa and thinking I could tell, just by the character of the plant life, that this was a hard place to live.  I felt the same way about the tough looking scrub trees along the trail.  Way to stick with it, guys!  At this point in the hike, the types of animals we saw also started to change.  We saw our first yellow-bellied marmot!  These guys are essentially just fatty squirrels.  It’s funny, because the noises we made upon catching our first glimpse were very similar to the noises he made while checking us out from his rock.  Appreciative squeaks all around!  
Amazing alpine tundra!
Mt. top naps for the win.
Finally, our hike brought us into a true alpine tundra ecosystem.  I think I might have been annoying Meridith a little bit with the phrase, “I totally have a crush on this ecosystem.”  I totally do!  It’s just so fascinating.  This ecosystem begins around 11,000 or 11,500 ft in elevation, past the point where trees can grow.  Due to the exposure, liquid water is a major limiting resource, meaning tundra is basically a type of desert ecosystem.  I was instantly squatting down, peaking at plants, and pointing out adaptations I thought were similar to those we had seen at Zion and Arches National Parks.  Suddenly, we heard the most precious of little sqees.  A pika!  This adorable alpine guinea pig pretty well made my day.  Due to my love affair with the tundra, it took me a little while to notice that Meridith had flagged down and boarded the Struggle Bus.  The impacts hiking at high altitude have on a person are, in my experience, not correlated at all with physical fitness.  In retrospect, Meridith likely had a touch of altitude sickness.  Pro tip for those prone to such things, a preemptive Advil or some such thing can help you make it!
Being the total trooper that she is, Meridith made it to the top of Flattop Mountain (and so did I)!  We both oohh-ed and awww-ed at the view for about 2.5 seconds before taking an epic mountain top nap.  Highly recommended.  When we awoke, we were both feeling grand.  We ate a spot of lunch, then poked around the mountain top, enjoying our accomplishment, before heading back down the way we had come. (Editor’s note: This is about the time I decided to aggressively drop my camera for the umpteenth time, dislodging some vital wiring innards, essentially rendering the back screen useless. However, it still managed to arrive alive at the end of our journey!) See Meridith’s previous post about the proper way to descend on a hike.
For example, on the way down, you might notice a huge field of wildflowers
you missed on the way up!
We were feeling really good about ourselves at this point, and super excited about the play day we had set-up with one of our friends from the previous night.  We shared food and chatted around the campfire well into the evening.  He convinced us to take Myers Briggs Personality test and, as fate would have it, Meridith and I have super compatible personality types.  The descriptions pretty much said, “You guys should be best friends and take lots of adventures together.”  Noted Myers Briggs.  Eventually, we had to break-up the party and head to bed.  The next day, we were hitting the road again, this time for Yellowstone National Park!
Obligatory NP Sign Pic

LIT to KY Pt. 2: Adventures in the Sunny South

What?  You’re writing a low impact travel post that begins with a plane ride?  Yes I am.  Please see Pt. 1 for a little more information on my thoughts and rationale regarding this issue.


Day One: In Transit
As is my general practice in life, I took the spring quarter down to the wire.  I had a paper due at 5:00 pm on Tuesday which I turned in, literally at 5:00 pm.  I have trouble letting things go.  I just like to mess with them till the last possible second… Then I had a lab meeting on Wednesday, and class on Thursday, and BBQ on Thursday, and a date night on Friday.  Things got busy and all of a sudden it was Saturday, and I needed to leave the house at 4 pm and I hadn’t packed, scooped the kitty litter, or anything!  Lucky for me, at this point I’m very good at packing and my boyfriend is very good at keeping up with the laundry. 
Is this real life?  An empty
middle seat?  Praise be.
I was able to quickly zip up my suitcase and my backpack (with minimal work stuff actually, which was nice), made sure to grab my reusable mug, my water bottle, and some airport snacks, and we were out the door.  We had just enough time to stop by the Co-op on our way out of town so I could grab some coffee and a few more snacks.  I’m sort of obsessed with our local foods co-op.  They have an amazing section of bulk foods and, as luck would have it, one of their awesome bulk trail mixes was on sale.  Score.  I’ve written before about the importance of bringing snacks with you when you travel.  When you are trying to have a small impact, being able to source the products you consume is very important.  It’s a lot easier to do this when you make your purchases from sources you know and trust than when you are rushed and hangry (hungry plus angry) at the airport.  Bonus points, when you plan ahead, you can make sure the snacks you choose come with minimal unnecessary packaging.  I put my trail mix in a little paper bag and my coffee in my to-go mug and we were on our way.
As I’ve said previously, I live between Sacramento and San Francisco, so I have the choice to fly out of either airport (plus Oakland!).  It’s true that Sacramento is a lot closer, but SFO is generally cheapest because it is the largest hub.  To minimize the driving time, both for convenience and so we aren’t burning a whole bunch of gas in a nearly empty car, D Lo and I generally drive one another to the nearest BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station and take public transit the rest of the way into the city.  Saves major gas when you miss most of that city stop-and-go traffic!  The BART ride was actually pretty eventful.  About 15 minutes before arriving at the station I checked my BART app. and saw that there were some pretty major delays on my line due to track maintenance.  The train I wanted to catch was leaving very soon and the next train would get me to the airport on time, but I wouldn’t have time to check my bag (which had a few hefty liquids in it), and that was before the delays…Great.  Now I REALLY needed to make this train.  Cue me running through the BART station.  But I made it and this train, plus delays, got me to the station at the same time the later train (the one I had been hoping to avoid taking) would have originally.  Phew.
  
My sister-in-law made me this most excellent flower crown
upon arrival.  Sorry for iPhone photos.
However, this meant I could no longer check my bag, at the last transfer point I filled two small travel containers, which I just happened to have with me, with coconut oil (for face wash) and contact solution.  I ditched the bottle of contact solution (sad face), but just couldn’t seem to bring myself to throw away that nice, glass, organic jar of coconut oil.  I boarded the SFO bound train with several other very nervous looking passengers.  Seems everyone had been delayed and was now pushing it.  I asked the young couple in front of me if they would have time to check their bags and if they wanted a half a jar of coconut oil.  “It’s organic.”  The girl looked like she was considering it, but the guy gave me a “are you nutty” face and said no thank you.  My little sister later informed me that this was extremely shady pre-airport behavior.  Good point.  Thus, I had to just toss the bottle of coconut oil and my toothpaste, rely on the kindness of strangers to get me to the front of the security line, and rush to my plane.  Cue me running through the airport.  Again, I just barely made it.  I guess a strange low impact tip would be make sure you have plenty of time so you don’t have to ditch a bunch of your stuff.  It’s lame on many levels.  So is having to run to catch any form of transportation. 
On a positive note, this was the first time I was ever able to check into a flight on my smart phone and avoid printing off a ticket.  Etickets for life.  This is the first plane ride EVER where I have totally avoided buying snacks.  I didn’t even get lured in by that post-nap sip of soda in a plastic cup that they offer you.  No sir.  I had my own healthy snacks and my water bottle (which I refilled at the layover).  It felt really good to not spend an obnoxious amount of money on stuff I didn’t even really want.  So good that I slept very soundly all the way through my red-eye flight to Nashville.

Days Two, Three, and Four:  Chilling on the Farm

My mom in her mid-twenties.  Backpacking around Lake Superior. 
My little sister and her boyfriend picked me up at 5:30 am at the Nashville airport, and we drove back to my parent’s farm.  There aren’t really any public transit options available to shorten this drive, unfortunately.  These were very chill days.  My sister, her boyfriend, and my sister-in-law all came down to the house and we just sort of hung out, drank coffee, and napped a little bit.  My little sister had to leave the house at 6 am on Monday morning to go and do some field work for her internship, which was a bit of a bummer, but she planned to be back in town by Thursday evening and back at the house by Friday morning.  My sister-in-law pulled out of the house on Monday mid-morning, leaving just the parental units and myself to hang out for the rest of that day and the next.  So relaxing!  It’s also so inspiring to be around my parents because they are both so thrifty and eco-friendly.  My mom and I schemed about potential science experiments to run in her 6th grade science classroom and eco-friendly summer projects.  It was great.  We also looked through some old slide from when they were young (a little bit younger than I am now).  It was so fun.  My favorites were the ones of them on a backpacking trip in Canada.  Can we talk about how my mom is apparently my twin?  I had no idea.

Day Five:  Boat Floating and Car Driving 
  
The Nolin River, KY

 Wednesday was a very good day for myself and the men in my family.  I grew up playing in the creek that marked the back side of my parent’s property.  I had a set of aquariums living on the front porch of our house for most of my childhood.  In these aquariums I kept tadpoles, crayfish, and many other creek captives.  I observed them, I studied them, and I feel in love with biology.  This fed into my love of rivers, streams, and all aquatic and marine habitats.  During this same period of my childhood, my cousins moved to a house right on the Nolin River in Kentucky.  I think I was about 12 years old when my cousin, D, started taking us on floats down the Nolin River to remove tires and trash.  My mom still has a picture on her fridge from the first “tire pull” when our two families, including the 5 kids, removed over 100 tires from the short stretch of river between the local church and the banks that transitioned into D’s backyard.  We jokingly call this “the cleanest stretch of river in the state,” and it might well be.  This last year when my father and D headed out on the annual low water float they broke the john boat trying to remove and old refrigerator.

On Wednesday morning, my dad and I jumped into the car and headed over to D’s house.  He had left us his truck keys with a canoe, paddles, and life jackets already loaded in the bed.  We drove just a little way down the road, and dropped our canoe into that familiar body of water.  The cleanest stretch of river in the state.  The float doesn’t take long, maybe 3 hours with light paddling, which really shows how dense the tiers and other trash once were.  My dad is a quiet guy, and it was such a gift to spend some time alone with him watching birds, scanning fallen logs for turtles, and shooting a few “rapids.”  It was a really relaxing and wonderful morning.  When I have experiences like that, it always strengthens my resolve tonot only protect nature but deeply and truly enjoy it.
Some snails inside a spent
freshwater mussel shell.
We finished our float and scampered on home because I needed to get on the move again.  My brother is currently in Morehead, KY with no way to get down and visit me.  Unfortunately, with no public transit, that meant that I needed to drive the 3 hours to see him.  Luckily, my sister-in-law is living at the halfway point.  She and I met up and had an amazing lunch at the Lexington Good Foods Co-op.  Their hot bar is full of amazing food!  Seriously, I wish I had taken a picture.  So good.  From there, we were able to carpool the rest of the way to Morehead.  The car trip was totally worth it to see my brother.  I miss him dearly, and it was great to be together.  Cue me getting home at 12:40 and falling straight into bed.
Day 6:  Talking Nerdy
On this day, I mostly chilled out at home.  My dad made a pot of his homemade marinara sauce (so tasty, and an easily plastic-free recipe!) and my mom modified her eggplant parmesan recipe to make it vegan for me.  They were really accommodating of my diet, which was very sweet.  After dinner, my cousin who is the closest to my age (we grew up living next door to one another, it ruled) came over to hang out and chat.  He is a recently graduated and seriously talented engineer and had received the awesome news that day that he had received a job!  I was so excited for him, even if he did have to slowly explain (twice) what it was he would be doing.  To my understanding, he is taking 2D drawing and turning them into virtual 3D models that can then be used for production.  Pretty cool no?
There is a turtle in this one, I swear!
At this point, my mom came into the kitchen to chat.  The content for her subject and grade had recently been revised and there was more emphasis on engineering concepts.  Lucky for her, she knows one.  The conversation naturally turned to science and science education.  My cousin expressed that he would like to return to school someday…maybe.  However, he felt that the more he learned about the world’s problems the harder it seemed to deal with them.  After all, you can never “un-know” something.  I took that moment to explain the basics of the science behind global warming (sensitive I know) and we talked about that for a bit.  I’m so happy that I have so many science minded family members.  It’s really cool.  It also gives me a really good forum to practice my scientific communication skills.  Sure, my cousin is a scientist, but he’s an engineer and I’m an ecologist.  We do really different things.  It’s good practice to explain things to people who have some training before trying to break it down for a complete layperson.  
  
Day 7:  Party! 
I went and got my sister at Mammoth Cave National Park, where her internship is based out of, after her field work was over.  We got back to the house and helped my mom clean up and prepare for the cook-out we were having that evening in honor of my little sister’s birthday!  Mostly we cleaned while my mom whipped up a mess of homemade food.  I think I get my love of home cooking from my mother, and I know I get all my tips for how to make my cooking as environmentally conscious as possible from her.  My sister and I also took this time to get a bunch of her stuff together for her upcoming hike along 600 miles of the Appalachian Trail!  I know.  I’m jealous too.  I’ve been told there might be a possible guest post or two in the works.  “Tales from the AT” perhaps?  
A mess of my cousins, my aunt and uncle, and my sister-in-law all came over.  It was a lot of fun and all the “kids” played board games well into the night.  I was so happy that everyone came to celebrate with us!  I was, honestly, not ready to leave the next day.
Day 8 and 9:  Lost in Transportation
View from the Amtrak.  Sorry for
iPhone photos.
I planned to get back to SFO on Saturday evening, just one week after I left.  Problem, D Lo ended up going down to SoCal for a wedding that day.  The BART ran to the Amtrak station that evening, but I would miss the last train.  No big deal, I’ll get someone to fetch me at the BART station…but all of my friends in Davis are ecologists and 99% of them are out of town for their field seasons and the ones who were around were otherwise engaged.  No big deal…I have friends in the City but they were all out of town.  No big deal…I’ve slept in airports before (sigh).  So, I spent Saturday morning chilling out with my family before leaving with my Mom and Dad for the Nashville airport.  Again, I wish there were a public transit solution, but there just isn’t.
 
View from the Amtrak.  Sorry for
iPhone photos.
I checked in to my flights on my phone and, once again, used etickets to get to my gate.  I didn’t make it all the way through the trip without buying food this time because I needed dinner.  Thanks bartender at the Dallas airport for knowing what a vegan was and hooking me up with a sweet margarita.  I rolled into SFO around 10 pm PST and settled into one of the more comfortable nights I’ve ever spent in an airport.  There was free WiFi and some legitimately comfortable seating.  I considered this an overall win.  I also watched two period romance films on Netflix.  I mean, what else was I supposed to do? 

I woke up the next morning and treated myself to a green juice and a soy latte from The Plant cafe in the SFO airport.  Legitimately delish, and just what I needed.  The juice did come in a plastic cup, but it was that biodegradable plant plastic, which is at least marginally better.  The latte went in my travel mug.  I took these treats and headed to the BART station that is attached to the airport.  I took that train to the Amtrak station in Richmond.  Unfortunately, the Amtrak app. (there is literally an app for everything) is a little bit of a liar and told me that a train was coming that never came.  The next one, however, did come and I hopped aboard, showed the conductor my eticket, and enjoyed the ride by looking at the marshes as we left the Bay and headed inland toward home.  I hopped off the train and took the 20 minute walk back to my apartment.  Nothing feels better after a night sleeping in an airport than your own bed.  For serious, it was amazing.         
Stopping to smell the flowers on my
walk home.
Last Word:  I know I wrote in part one about how conflicted I was about airplane travel, but I really won’t trade being able to see my family for anything in the world.  I’m just glad that I can make a conscious effort to make all these little choices that, I hope, will add up to big impacts one day.  This is installment number one of my summer travels.  Who knows were the next one will take us…
What do you think?  Do you think small changes to our behavior when we travel make a difference?  Do you like these sorts of travel/adventure posts?    

EcoNews Round-up: May 29, 2013

Hello, hello.  It’s time yet again for me to share some of the cool ecology (or conservation, or just cool science!) related news and media I’ve been taking in recently.  As it has been over a month from the last EcoNews segment I posted, this will cover some of my highlights from the past 8ish weeks.  Onward!

African Elephants.  Kenya, 2008.

I’ll start with something less obviously “science,” but still totally science related in my mind.  As you probably remember from my post about my morning routine, I bike to work/campus nearly every morning.  On this bike ride I generally listen to a bunch of different podcasts (only one headphone, and the one that isn’t near to traffic, plus I’m on a bike path 50% of the time…okay, it’s not super safe.  Guilty.).  One of my favorites is Stuff You Missed in History Class.  Obviously, this is a history focused podcast, but they often talk about science history or discuss other things which my brain instantly connects to science.  The latter was the case with their shows in early April about The Great Emu War and Australia’s Rabbit-proof Fence.  The Great Emu War (great may be a bit hyperbolic) is a classic case of human-wildlife conflict.  Humans plant wheat, emus eat wheat, humans want to shoot emus with machine guns.  I don’t mean to make light, the description of the occurrence made my little veggie heart tremble, but it instantly struck me how similar this situation was to other cases still happening today.  An example from my personal research experience is the impact of elephants on subsistence farmers in Kenya.  Elephants can trample an entire farm, which supports a family, and afterward there is a tendency to want to destroy the “problem elephant.”  From a western perspective, the idea of killing an individual member of an endangered species seems reactionary, but from the perspective of people who support their entire lives with small plots of land easily dispatched by the said individual, the choice is not so clear.  Understanding how to mitigate these conflicts is a key area of research in conservation biology.

The Australian Rabbit-proof Fence is interesting because it discusses the issues around managing invasive species.  I don’t recall if they use that specific term in the podcast, but Australian rabbits are a classic example in invasion ecology.  An interesting note, which they bring up in the podcast but do not expand upon, is the potential to introduce a virus to control rabbit populations.  This is another classic example in the scientific literature concerning biological control.  Biological control can be defined many ways, but the definition I currently like best can be found in Eilenberg et al. (2001):  “The use of living organisms to suppress the population of a specific pest organism, making it less abundant or less damaging than it would otherwise be.” And though this definition technically excludes viruses, I very much doubt the authors would dispute the fact that the use of viruses to control pest populations is, in fact, biological control.  The virus referenced in the podcast is one of a group of myxoma viruses, which have been used to control rabbit populations in Europe.  One one level, the argument for biological control is that it helps us avoid potentially more harmful control measures (like poisons or pesticides) and it may be naturally sustaining (such as a virus which has natural cycles within the population) making it more cost effective.  More cost effective, say, than continually up-keeping a fence to exclude rabbits.  However, biological control isn’t always perfect and introducing a biological control agent to control another introduced species can have a run-away effect.  These sorts of decisions are heavily researched  and the literature surrounding the study of biological control is very interesting.        



Another really cool podcast I heard earlier this month was from my favorite podcast of all:  Science Friday.  It was a discussion with Michael Pollan’s about his new book, Cooked:  A Natural History of Transformation.  In the interview, he discusses the ecosystem inside your guts.  I don’t know about you, but I love, love the idea of thinking of myself as an ecosystem where I am the manager and I have to care for the populations.  Oh wait, you didn’t realize I was that nerdy?  He also talks about fermented foods and how there is a process of ecological succession among the communities of bacteria growing in your sauerkraut or kombucha.  I found this section exceptionally fascinating and plan to ferment some stuff over the summer.  Science plus cooking, I love it.    

I tried to find a picture of Meridith, Colin, and I, but I’m
not sure I have one!  You’ll have to settle for Colin
and Meridith as biology babies (2007).
Last up in this segment, I’d like to plug two of my friends who recently got scientific papers published.  I’m at that age where some of my friends are having babies, and my friends are birthing research papers.  Some are doing both at the same time, overachievers!  Anyhow, my long time ecology friend Colin Kremer was first author on a cool study in the Journal of Theoretical Ecology entitled, Coexistence in a variable environment: Eco-evolutionary perspectives.  I love papers like this because they attempt to address questions that bridge fields in biology.  Specifically, how does ecology interact with evolution, and how will this impact the communities we observe.  Last, but not least, a recent paper by the all time ecology love of my life, Meridith Bartley was recently published in the journal Biomass and Bioenergy.  Her paper, Effects of salinity on growth and lipid accumulation of biofuel microalga Nannochloropsis salina and invading organisms, attempts to improve efficiency of production for the marine algae used in many algae biofuels operations.  Again, her study is unique because it takes an ecological perspective on the problem by incorporating competition and predation from invading organism.  Okay, end shameless plugging of my friends.  
 
Last Word:  I’m always finding that non-science focused things make me think of science.  That’s probably because I spend so much of my day thinking about science related issues, but it’s still fun to find connections.  No matter if you are biking to school, fixing your dinner, or making new friends, all roads can lead to science eventually.  I just love that.
 
What do you think?  Do you see connections between outside events and your field of study?  Where do you get your news?  Internet, print, podcast?  Do you have any cool science news to share?