Sigma Xi Research Showcase Page

Check out my Sigma Xi Student Research Showcase page: lnegoita.tumblr.com

It is exciting to have this opportunity for feedback on my research.

Here is my video that goes with the page:

Are you a botanist?

Read this article in the Huffington Post, and join the movement to reclaim the name!

1) Simply take a picture of yourself ("selfie") holding up a piece of paper where you make your declaration:
"I AM A BOTANIST! I study XXXXXXXX at XXXXXXXX."

2) Post your photo on your Facebook page, your Twitter and/or Instagram account. Tag it with #iamabotanist #reclaimthename and challenge 2-3 colleagues to do the same.

See the tweets below...

#iamabotanist Tweets

Maine Island Fieldwork Internship

Now accepting applications for June-August (2013)

Description
This is a fieldwork assistant position designed to give the participant experience with ecological fieldwork, plant identification, and the opportunity to explore the ecology and natural history of Maine Islands.

You will help me sample plants, their functional traits, soils, and seed dispersal on 15 Maine coast islands. Bulk of the fieldwork will include delineating plots and estimating the percent cover of plant species found in each plot. Plant identification will be a key component of this fieldwork. Proficiency (or willingness to gain proficiency) with using dichotomous keys for identifying vascular plants is essential. But, most importantly, you should be able to endure rigorous fieldwork conditions, boat travel, and potentially long, strenuous days. You must also be willing to follow a flexible schedule that depends mostly on ocean conditions (i.e. opportunities for safe boat travel).

I anticipate the experience will provide a vast opportunity to learn about the natural history of the Maine coast. I will actively encourage the use of a field journal for recording notes about your experiences and observations, and will also provide some required readings to expand on your understanding of some theoretical ecology, especially that pertaining to this project. The fieldwork will help you learn how to confidently identify at least 200 Maine plant species in situ, but I expect you to be interested in learning other aspects of the regional natural history on your own (birds, insects, plant ecology, etc.). Fieldwork will also teach you basic field ecology methods, leaf functional trait sampling, and soil sampling methods.


Required Skills
- Experience with using dichotomous keys for vascular plant identification.
- Fit, healthy, and able to carry and lug at least 50 lbs at a time
- Good, friendly personality, and be able to cheerfully endure harsh field conditions (heat, rain, thorns, long days, mosquitos, slippery rocks, etc.)
- Comfortable with boat travel
- Experience tent camping/spending lots of time outdoors
- Able to follow directions carefully and willing to take on certain responsibilities
- Finally, you must be passionate about natural history and ecology, and be excited to learn whatever you can. This is a rigorous field position and I will support you to expand on your observation and natural history skills.

Dates
June through August 2013 (Start and end dates to be determined)

Stipend
I may be able to supply a stipend for your time, but unfortunately I cannot promise this. My current plan is to pay $4,000 for the three months. I am still waiting on grants, so this is not finalized. Think of this as an unpaid internship with the possibility of a stipend. I will know for sure before you have to make the decision. Lodging will be covered, as well as some basic food staples.

Please email me your CV/resume, a cover letter, and contacts for at least two references by May 1st (sooner the better). lnegoita (at) syr.edu

Venomous Encounters

I was in the Carolinas most of the last two weeks, helping a fellow graduate student with his fieldwork. Our days consisted of sampling old field vegetation and collecting leaves to measure the functional traits of the most abundant plants. Among the excruciating population of mosquitos we hit the first day, we also encountered a couple of copperheads and a lovely black widow spider.

Graduate student Andrew Siefert at one of his plots.

Does this photo need a caption?

The copperhead snake in our campsite...

Note the red hourglass...

Black Widow with an egg sack in one of our field sites.

Field Notes for an Undergraduate of Ecology

I just finished reading Field Notes on Science and Nature edited by Michael R. Canfield. It is a wonderful compilation of articles written by various authors about field journaling. The field journal refers to the notebook used to record observations and research data. Traditionally, field journals were used by the great explores and naturalists of the world to record their findings and later make discoveries such as the theory of evolution by natural selection. More recently, ecology has begun to focus much more on the experimental approach, straying away from pure observation. The modern field journal has become the data sheet or Excel file. Reading this book was a great awakening to the need of returning to the dedicated use of a field journal.

But most of the book's authors were professionals--professors, researchers, consultants, etc. Although some of the authors used stories from their graduate school experiences, few if any mentioned journaling during their undergraduate tenure. I started thinking about this and realized: How can I benefit from the values of field journaling as a student in my life as an undergraduate? Now a graduate student, I can see the applicability of field journaling given the inherent nature of my thesis. But as an undergraduate, or even a high school student, how could have I benefited from journals? The following is a journal system that I suggest for the aspiring undergraduate ecologist. It consists of two formal journals and one "field" notebook.

The Notebook

• Use a small "field" notebook for your rough class notes. Ideally something handy and durable that you can access easily. Liken this notebook to your short term memory. It only has to be neat enough to help you transcribe and expand on your entries in the following journals. It would probably be a good habit to do this transcribing at the end of each day. The exact contents of this notebook will be more evident as you continue reading below, but essentially anything is fair game in this notebook.

Course Journal (the What)

• Use your Course Journal to transcribe your notes clearly, so that you can easily refer back to them, and in a way that makes rereading the material enjoyable. Use color, use mindmaps, use drawings, do whatever it takes. You can do external research for this section to fill in elements you didn't understand or missed in class. You can also use this journal to directly summarize your understanding of papers/articles you read for class assigments. This journal is both a way to reinforce what you've learned and a way to generate your own "textbook"--one written in your own words. This is a place where you can create your own field guides to help with your pursuit of natural history. While taking an ornithology class, for example, you might use field guides to generate a list of the common birds of your region.

Reflection Journal (the How and Why)

• The Reflection Journal is where you keep track of your educational experience. What are you learning? What do you understand? What don't you understand or is giving you a hard time? What do you want to pursue next? Having kept a journal similar to this, I was pleasantly surprised to find how useful it was. It helped me come to terms with and understand what I actually want to pursue in the natural sciences, as well as the best learning avenues to take. This journal is a way to reflect on yourself, giving a space to reevaluate where you are going with your education. It is a useful place to track your progress as you learn a new subject--very encouraging when the subject seems really hard. You can also journal the connections between what you are learning and your actual natural history observations. There is nothing that helps me learn more than being able to connect what I am learning directly to what I see in the natural world. Doing this helps me remember (with great satisfaction) why I am doing ecology in the first place. Although as your knowledge of natural history grows you will likely delve into journals dedicated strictly to objective observations of natural history, this reflection journal will still be a great place to bring together your understanding of the literature and your observations.

The Course and Reflection journals are similar to the two questions I describe in my article on the "Ultimate Human Ecology". The Course journal describes the What--what are you learning? The Relfection journal describes the How and Why--How are you learning, and why are you doing it? Coming to terms with the "why" has been one of the most important aspects of my undergraduate education. As soon as I knew the "why" I had something to shoot for and a solid foundation from which to push myself, helping me stay motivated when things weren't always so fun. The bottom line is that the this student journal system is designed with the intention to help you learn.

Of course, it would probably entail some extra work to sustain this journaling system, but perhaps it will pay off in the long term by helping you get more out of classes that interest you, and not having to study as much before exams. Perhaps a good compromise is to use this journal system on only the most applicable classes--the ones you are willing to put the extra effort in to get the most out of. And, of course the system is only a suggestion. I never in the past put this wholy into practice, but perhaps elements of it will inspire you. Take whatever you may from it, and remember to have fun.

So now, as a begining graduate student in plant ecology I hope to implement some of this journaling into my own daily routine. Getting into a routine is hard until you do it and then it's, well, just a routine. It also helps to have a friend you can commit with, supporting and encouraging each other to keep going. Good luck journaling!

Please feel free to comment on your experiences/ideas related to journaling as an undergraduate. I'd enjoy expanding this discussion with others.

Understanding Fibonacci in Nature

I have always wondered about the whole "Fibonacci spirals in nature" thing. Fibonacci numbers are the numbers generated when you add each previous two numbers to generate the next.

For example: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc. (1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5, 3+5=8, 8+5=13, 8+13=21) 

But two things were always unclear to me:

1.  How are spirals in nature related to Fibonacci numbers? What is a Fibonacci spiral?

2.  Why do things tend to grow in these Fibonacci spirals? There must be a reason right?

Well, I came across an excellent Youtube series that explains this, and really well at that!

See below. It is a three part series and each video is only abou 6 minutes long. Definitely worth seeing. Quite amazing and ingenious. Thanks to ViHart.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

A fern fiddlehead showing the Fibonacci spiral

The leaf pattern of a Solidago spp. (Goldenrod) to optimize light capture.

Recalling a winter trip…

With a fresh cover of clean snow, Jordan Chalfant, Matt Dickinson, and I set out on February 13th, 2012 to try to find tracks of the elusive bog lemmings of Mount Desert Island, Maine. We went to Sunken Heath bog as our first destination. Little did we know that this trip would take us through a medley of other animal and botanical signs. 

To reach Sunken Heath we had to first go through a red spruce and balsam fir forest. Inexplicably drawn by our curiosity to follow any animal tracks we found, we were forced into a slow, but deliberate walk. Most of the tracks in the forest were the bounds of mice and red squirrels--common in these coniferous habitats. Matt suddenly stopped, staring at some squirrel tracks as if there was something different to them. Indeed! These tracks were not the bound pattern of a red squirrel, but mostly a hop pattern common to flying squirrels! Out first special find of the day.

Flying squirrel

Further along we came to some eastern coyote tracks that altogether deviated us from the path towards the bog. This coyote then led to the intricate tunnels left by a species of shrew in search of insects. The track patterns of the shrew were actually visible within the tunnel! Finally, after another coyote and some mice, we made it to Sunken Heath bog. The botanical world opened its doors.

Shrew tunnel

Eastern coyote

I had been to bogs in other seasons and greatly appreciated their botanical diversity. But I never thought I'd find it out here in the winter. I realized that a common feature of bog plants is woodiness with evergreen leathery leaves (an adaptation to help them deal with the extreme growing conditions of bog habitats). This allowed me to identify most of the species I encountered--a botanist's greatest revival in the brown winter months! 

Picea mariana (Black spruce)

Sarracenia purpurea (Pitcher plant)

Oclemena nemoralis (Bog aster)

Alas, although we came across some other wonderful tracks, we found no bog lemming signs in Sunken Heath bog. Out next stop was to be Wonderland Bog in Acadia National Park. 

But.... we were halted once again. This time by a weasel! Of course, that wasn't enough. Following another coyote, we reached a set of impeccable bobcat tracks! The bobcat had crossed the coyote trail, stepping carefully right over the prints the coyote had left. We followed a bit, only to realize we were following the coyote. The bobcat had elusively left the trail! Being a bit hurried for time, we moved on towards our final bog destination.

Bobcat track

Finally at Wonderland Bog, we found what may have been some burrows in the snow left by bog lemmings. Unfortunately, their lack of clarity prevented any conclusive certainty about their presence. The bog lemmings continued as an elusive—yet useful—mystery for exploring the plants and animals of Mount Desert Island, Maine.

Possible bog lemming burrow...

Moose

Yesterday morning I found myself making a decision that I really had not been expecting. Which, I pondered, would be a more effective defensive weapon if a moose charged me – a large orange plastic shovel or a smaller metal sidewalk scraper? Needless to say, this was not quite how I had envisioned my morning of housesitting and jury duty going. When I let the dog out moments before, he disappeared into the darkness barking hysterically. I peered after him to discover that he and the neighbor’s dog (a fractious animal over which I can exert no control) were dancing just out of reach of a young moose that was standing in the driveway. Standing, incidentally, between me and the barn, where I needed to go to feed the horses, who were tense and wheezing with fright. The moose was agitated, turning to face the dogs, hair raised on its back, pacing the churned up snow near the barn door.  I managed to recall my dog and get him safely in the house. The neighbor’s dog continued to caper gleefully, ignoring my shouting completely, until the moose charged her, which sent her dashing towards the protection of the house, where I was able to grab her and shove her inside. The moose put on the brakes, slip-sliding on the icy driveway, before it lost its footing entirely and fell heavily on its hindquarters. It stood and looked at me for a long moment, then turned and began walking slowly back towards the barn. The barn to which I needed to go.

Bull moose in Chugach State Park, AK. photo credit wikimedia commons

Moose (Alces alces) are big. Very big. There’s just no denying that. The Alaskan sub-species, Alces alces gigas, with which I am most familiar, is the largest. They easily stand six feet tall at the shoulder, weigh well over a thousand pounds, and a large male’s rack can stretch six feet across. Their legs are long and powerful, their necks massive. The moose before me that morning was small, perhaps only five-and-half-feet at the shoulder, no more than a year old, and skinny. Nevertheless, it was easily many times my weight and strength. People usually use words like “majestic” to describe the moose, rather than “elegant” or “beautiful.” They are the largest and least lissome of the deer family. To me, however they are neither beautiful nor ugly but apposite. They fit in to their environment, both literally and figuratively, in way that just makes sense. Despite their large size, they are surprisingly good at blending in. Many a time I can remember peering into the woods off the back deck, trying to see what the dogs were seeing. Then – there! for an instant as it took a step – the large dark form of a moose would become clear. As soon as it stopped, however, you had to know just where to look to see the white legs, the hump of the shoulder, the swiveling ears. Their size and shape allows them to browse high up on trees, reach down to pond bottoms for aquatic plants, and fend off wolf attacks. And too they hold a proud place among the arrary of northern megafauna – grizzly, dall sheep, caribou, musk ox, king salmon –  big animals for big country.

While the moose in the driveway was inconvenient, it was not really all that surprising. South-central Alaska has had a year of deep snows –Anchorage has gotten around nine feet – and the four feet or so that has been consistently on the ground since December is enough to pose a serious challenge to the local moose. In an attempt to find shallower snow and better forage, the Matanuska-Susitna Valley moose population has moved en masse down to lower elevations and thus into closer proximity with people. A degree of this seasonal movement is typical, but this year the trend is extreme. They have become a more-than-common sight next to roads, in yards, and on the river flats. One made it three stories up an Anchorage hospital’s parking garage and nearly wandered into the foyer before being stopped by a security guard:  

photo credit Leslie Bagley, ADN

By halfway through the winter, the number of moose killed by trains and cars surpassed last year’s levels – 270 in an average year, with at least 400 already lost this year -- and many more are destined to starve unseen. The Alaska Moose Federation has secured approval and funding to attempt to lure moose away from roadways with feeding stations, as well as dart and relocate animals away from roads and traintracks out to more remote areas. This has come under criticism from some residents and biologists, who see this as a waste of money, a mixed message to the public about feeding wildlife, and potentially even harmful for the animals, as feeding moose is not as simple as it might seem.

While their summer diet consists of a wide variety of plant life, as befits an animal of their bulk, they survive the winter eating, essentially, wood (they primarily browse the buds and twigs of willow, birch, cottonwood, aspen, and other trees and shrubs). The microbiology of their rumens shifts seasonally in response to their diet, so by midwinter, the wood-digesting gut-fauna dominates alsmost exclusively. So even if they found more calorically-rich food, they would be unable to digest it – one reason why it is against Alaska state law to feed a moose. Moose have starved to death with innards stuffed full of hay, and I was worried that hay was what had attracted this moose to the barn area.

Moose-browsed shrubs and saplings showing evidence of repeated heavy browsing. photos by author

Combine all this – deep snow, high browsing pressure, and the energy needed to maintain a large warm body available only from frozen twigs, and you have moose that are on the edge, calorically and behaviorally. As the risk run by expending energy grows – one strenuous escape from a predator could spell death – “fight” starts to look a lot better than “flight.” Energy-stressed moose are more belligerent and aggressive, refusing to yield cleared or packed ground for deeper powder, and are more likely to charge nearby dogs, cars, and people. It was with this in mind that I surveyed the shovel and the sidewalk scraper. While the shovel might be more visually intimidating, its flimsy construction unnerved me – I decided that, if worse came to worse, a whack to the face from the sidwalk scraper might make the moose think twice – although last month one tiny 85 year old woman used a grain shovel to sucessfully beat off an enraged moose that was stomping her husband. Taking her courage as an example, I walked slowly towards the barn, hugging the snow berm for protection, talking calmly to the moose and holding the sidewalk scraper horizontally to look bigger. The moose continued to mosey (they seem to have two gears: incredibly fast, and mosey) on down past the barn and disappeared into the stunted brush behind it. Suddenly I could breathe again; grateful that this encounter had gone smoothly for moose and human alike. 

References

Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Moose Species Profile. http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=moose.main

Boots, Michelle. “State OKs group's plan to drug, relocate roadside moose.” Anchorage Daily News, February 29^th, 2012

Demer, Lisa. “85-year-old woman wields shovel to stop moose stomping.” Anchorage Daily News, January 23^rd, 2012

Joling, Dan. “Alaska approves moose relocation away from roads.” Anchorage Daily News, February 28^th, 2012

Klouda, Naomi. “No muffins – or hay – for moose.” Homer Tribune, February 3^rd, 2010.

Sinnott, Rick. “Feeding hungry moose is a fundraising bonanza.” Alaska Dispatch, February 29^th 2012.

Winter expedition to Great Duck Island, Maine

I recently returned from a winter expedition on January 22nd, crossing the south sea of Mount Desert Island to reach the under-explored winter lands of Great Duck Island. If I understood correctly, there have been very few trips exploring the winter world of the island in the last 40 years—and a lot has changed since then.

Great Duck Island

Great Duck Island (GDI) is an island about 90 hectares in size (~220 acres), about 9 km south of Mount Desert Island. It is just south of Little Duck Island (See the tab above for more info about LDI). The island is mostly owned by the Nature Conservancy. College of the Atlantic owns 12 acres, including the south tip of the island, where a lighthouse stands. In 1986 the lighthouse became automated, so there was no longer a need for permanent residents on the island. Now, most visits are made to the island in the summer season, often to study the nesting seabirds of the island.

Besides the reduced human presence on the island in the last 25 or so years, Bald eagles have been on the rise. There is anecdotal evidence that the increasing number of eagles—some of which may be nesting on GDI—is negatively affecting the nesting seabird populations of regional islands.

We departed Northeast Harbor, Mount Desert Island at 9:45AM. The air was cool, hovering between 5 and 10 Fahrenheit, but the sun was strong and the wind was calm. The team consisted of several students, and professors Matt Drennan, Scott Swann, John Anderson, and Toby Stephenson—captain of our faithful boat Indigo.

Leaving Mount Desert Island in the background...

On the 40 minute trip it took us to get near GDI, we already began to see some of the wonders of winter birds. Great Cormorants are few and far between in the summer months, but this winter trip made them seem quite common. Several other northern species exhibit the same pattern as their winter range extends southward. But we also saw many Common loons and Long-tailed ducks.

Great cormorants on Little Duck Island (Photo: Lindsey Nielsen)

Long-tailed ducks (Photo: Lindsey Nielsen)

Finally we found a quiet spot where Matt Drennan drove a small inflatable to a cobbley beach otherwise known as Blondie Bay on the west side of GDI. He made a few trips until everyone except Captain Toby was ashore. It was actually one of the calmest landings I’ve ever experienced on GDI, especially interesting given that winter tends to be the rougher season. 

We began our hike to the south end of the island by first stumbling across a set of mammal tracks in the thin snow. Epiphany followed question as we realized that the tracks were of course just one of the many European varying hares found on GDI—likely introduced in the early 20^th century. As we entered the forest we were greeted by the thin squeaks of Golden-crowned kinglets from the canopy and the trilling chimes of White-winged crossbills.

Along the way we also came across a fascinating trail of lopes and slides of none other than a River otter. Its trail took us to a relatively recent kill site where the otter and some scavenging crows had eaten some type of seabird.

River otter tracks and slide, next to hare tracks on the left

Otter track

Raven track?

European varying hare trail

Lighthouse and old generator shed at the south end of the island

Exploring with binocular eyes...

Finally, we got to the south end of the island where we explored the ocean with our binocular eyes in search for the wonderful winter seabirds. 

The following is a list of the birds we encountered on GDI, from land as well as from the boat circling around the island:

Black scoter (Wikipedia)

- Black scoter

- Common raven

- Surf scoters

- Red-breasted mergansers

- Harlequin Ducks

Common raven
(Photo: Matt Dickinson)

- Black-legged kittiwakes

- Purple sandpipers

- Common eider ducks

- Black guillemots

- Golden Crowned Kinglets

- Common murre

Purple sandpipers (Photo: Lindsey Nielsen)

- Herring Gulls

- American crows

- Great cormorant

- White-winged crossbills

- Black ducks

- male and female Marsh hawks

Black-legged kitiwake (Wikipedia)

- Northern gannet

- European starling

Northern gannet (Wikipedia)

Harlequin duck (Wikipedia)

When we were about to start hiking back to our beached inflatable, one of the students, Lucy, had gone missing. We found her soon afterwards, only to hear her recount the adventure of following a strange set of tracks right to a gray seal and her two, several-week-old pups. The mother seal immediately gave a defensive snarl, sending Lucy running right back to us. This was perhaps the first observation of gray seals breeding on Great Duck Island in a really long time.

Gray seals (Photo: Lindsey Nielsen)

Once back on the Indigo, around 1:30PM, we circled around the west and north sides of Little Duck Island to continue scanning for birds. In addition to many of the birds we saw on GDI, we also saw some Red-necked grebes and two Bald Eagles.

Scanning the west side of Little Duck Island

Finally, as we neared Mount Desert Island on our return, we spotted three Razorbills floating along in the water.

Overall, it was a most wonderful trip.

The Ecology of an Island

I recently finished an updated report of my project on the Flora of Little Duck Island, Maine: An Ecological Study. I am submitting this report to Acadia National Park and the National Audubon Society, so there may be some further edits in the near future.

Here it is if anyone wants to download it. The file is 13.8megs, so just keep that in mind if you have a slow download speed (Right-click and "save as" or just click to open in the browser). The link is from my College of the Atlantic advisor (Chris Petersen's) webpage.

Please send me any comments or questions about it. I would be interested to discuss.

Curiosity For Curiosity’s Sake…

I have long been curious to learn. My greatest passion is in trying to figure things out. Simply put, I love solving puzzles. Not so much crossword and jigsaw puzzles, although they provide a good analogy. One approach to learning is to understand the pieces so that you can understand the whole. The question is, is my passion for learning good for its own sake? Or is the value of learning only evident in the way that the knowledge is used? Did curiosity really kill the cat? Is there more to it?

I believe curiosity is crucial for our well-being. Let me explain. Curiosity and the need to learn has been with us for the vast majority of our existence. It has been a necessary “tool” for our survival. Think before there was anything like a Google search, or before writing. The only means of accumulating knowledge was by passing it via word of mouth or by learning it for ourselves. There was an obvious evolutionary advantage to learn where edible plants could be found, where the deer are, or where the predator is. Written history goes back only about 5,000 years, but that is a short time considering our approximately 50,000 year existence as humans in our modern form (conservative estimate). Thus my argument is that we are evolutionarily adapted to learning for ourselves and have only recently acclimated to an abundance of knowledge.

I bring this together with my own experiences to extrapolate that our mental, physical, and dare I say spiritual health would greatly benefit from stirring up those “curiosity” genes through experiential learning. Lower down I describe a few activities that I have done with great success.

I found that tapping into this awareness of the world around me has made me a much happier person. No, I haven’t made any huge discoveries to benefit humanity (yet :-) ), but I have discovered that a red fox lives near my house. To me, seeing the fox made me really content in that moment, but also deeply grateful with a fulfilled heart—as if I had just taken a good dose of vitamins for the soul. To those that have never seen an animal in the wild (besides common squirrels, chipmunks, etc.) it is an experience that I can’t explain in words.

Our recent acclimation to knowledge-at-our-fingertips (literally… think Google) has a few side effects. One of them is what Richard Louv coined “nature-deficit disorder.” The symptoms of this disorder include behavioral and physical problems as described in the simple article Parents: 10 Reasons Kids Need Fresh Air by Kevin Coyle. But this is not limited to children. Look at yourself and look at the people around you. So many of us are just walking zombies. We go through a blind whirl each day, doing one thing only so that we can get to the next. Going to work only so that we can go on vacation. Living so that we may one day be able to die happy. But why not be happy and live fully now?

Learning about the wilderness through my own observation and exploration has been a key to helping me feel fully alive and present. I am not a hermit in some cabin miles from “society.” I am in front of my computer, building electrical circuits (yes indeed), and reading about the great inventions of Nikola Tesla. Technology is awesome, but we shouldn’t forget how we humans have lived for the vast majority of our existence. I realized that those vitamins I described above are actually essential for our well-being.

Here are some things you can do:

Learn the basics about your knowledge of place—where you live. Keep in mind that answers to these questions used to be common knowledge even for children. It’s like asking a city kid what the McDonalds "M" means. These are just some questions to get you started, but if you want to see a more comprehensive set, see Jon Young’s Tourist Test, part of his Kamana Naturalist Training Program. As you try some of what I suggest below, use resources such as field guides and the internet to help you out along the way. Because the internet (and even books) can have faulty information, it is imperative to use multiple guides and to talk to knowledgeable people for confirming what you learn—especially if it involves edible or medicinal plants.

• First it’s always good to form a basic awareness of the natural hazards where you live. Poison Ivy? Stinging insects? Disease carrying ticks? Venomous snakes? What are the most poisonous plants in your area? How would you identify these? This is not meant to scare you away from the woods. Once you are aware of the common hazards, you can quickly learn how to avoid them so that you can enjoy the wilderness without worrying. It’s kind of like saying “what’s the worst that can happen?” to help you realize that there isn’t as much to worry about as you might have thought. My questions here are definitely not exhaustive though.
• What can you use to help with some of these hazards? For example, what local plants help with bee stings or poison ivy rashes? How do you prevent yourself from getting a tick disease?
• What three local plant species are easy to identify, abundant, and healthy to include in your diet? Only ever ingest something wild when you are 150% sure you know what it is. There are several edible species that have poisonous look-alikes, so be SURE you are aware of these hazards. There are way fewer poisonous species than edible ones (at least in New England), but it only takes one to get you pretty sick. I only make it sound really scary so that you don't do something silly and then blame me for it. Just use common sense and a lot of resources. You'll be fine.
• What do the tracks of the five most common mammal species in your area look like?
• What are the songs of the ten most common bird species in your area?
• Track some mysteries: Find an animal trail and follow it. Follow the growth of a seedling. Where did the seed come from? What did the land around your house look like 20 years ago? 100? 200? (see Tom Wessel’s Reading the Forested Landscape).

Go to a sit-spot. Find a place not to far from your house, where you can sit quietly and observe nature. If you live in a city, go to a rooftop, or in a park. Try to find a place that is away from other people, but if you can’t, then try not to interact with anyone. Just sit quietly and observe. Find a place not too far from home so that it is easier to go regularly. Although it is good to stick with one spot, find a new place when you are away from home. I’ve found that after quieting your mind and body, the natural flow resumes in about 15 minutes (obviously depending on where you are and how quite you can be). This is how I saw the red fox, and how many natural mysteries have opened up. Going for at least 30 minutes every day for the last year and a half has been by far one of the best ways I have connected to my curiosity for the natural world. Try out the 30 day sit-spot challenge. Here is another link.

Here is a video that nicely summarizes the sit-spot experience.

Leave all your worries at home because while you are at your sitspot nothing else really matters. My sitspot has helped realize that I am just a spec in the history of the universe, giving me a little humor about life.

For curiosity’s sake, and for your well-being, go outside and learn a bit about the natural world where you live. Not too long ago your species had a first hand reliance on it. Tap into your genes. Live fully and stop being a zombie of a person. You’ve got one life, why not live it up?

GIS and LDI

The last two weeks have been really busy with school starting plus all the extracurricular botanical fun I've been having. One of my classes is on GIS--Geographic Information System--using ArcGIS software. For those unfamiliar with GIS, Wikipedia has a good site describing the subject. Essentially it is a system that allows someone to create dynamic maps in which every shape, point, or line has tables of data associated with it. This allows one to view data in a spatial way--something essential for understanding ecological processes. It has opened up a new world for me in this way. I knew a bit about GIS before taking this class thanks to my exposure to it in high school, but I never fully grasped the potential that it offers.

For a Little Duck Island update:
I am currently in the stages of uploading my GPS--Global Positioning System--data from Little Duck Island and beginning to process it. I am also working on computerizing the data from the beat-up Rite-in-the-Rain notebooks. Finally I am almost ready to send out my soil samples for analysis. More on this soon.

Finally, here are some pics from the summer: (Click on them to see them bigger)

Waves on Little Duck Island

Great Duck Island to my left

My wonderful field assistant/imaginary friend Matt Dickinson

 

Collecting Fragaria virginiana!

We filled ourselves on these in June

Working on a plot on the south end of the island (note Great Duck in the distance)

Our camp sweet camp

Plant presses provided a nice reading table in our room

One of out last nights on the island (note Mount Desert Island on the horizon)