Georgia marshes

My current research centers on climate change impacts to tidal wetlands such as salt marshes in the Pacific Northwest. I also worked in these ecosystems as a graduate student in San Diego. So, for years I have become familiar with the scientific literature on the organisms and ecology of coastal wetlands. Though I have only conducted research on the west coast, much of the literature about the plants and algae of tidal wetlands, and the ecology of these ecosystems, has come from the east and Gulf coasts of the US. So, many of the species and research sites have familiar names, but until this month I had never been in an Atlantic marsh.

Last weekend I attended the Benthic Ecology Meeting in Savannah, Georgia. There were scientific talks on fishes, coral reefs, oyster beds, and of course, salt marshes. One of the highlights of the meeting was a short underwater film festival called “Beneath the Waves”, an effort now in its fourth year. We viewed a series of short films about marine conservation, marine ecosystems and human relationships with the environment. Some of the films were produced by graduate students. Overall, the subset of films I saw at the conference were of very high quality and I highly recommend any chance to see them.



Spartina marsh with wrack.

The conference events absorbed most of my three day trip to Georgia, but after the final session of talks I snuck away for two hours down the Savannah River towards Tybee Island to see what I could of Georgia’s marshes.

The tidal wetlands of the Atlantic coast are extensive, so it was not long before I ran into waterways and wetlands. I stopped for a while at Ft. Pulaski National Monument and walked along a trail that ran parallel to the river. It wasn’t a particularly impressive marsh, but it was my first chance to see an east coast tidal wetland. There was the iconic Spartina alterniflora, a grass species that tends to form monocultures in low marsh. From my experience with the scientific literature, it is probably the most well-studied salt marsh plant in the world.

I also saw salt grass, Distichlis spicata (we have this species on the west coast as well), a species of Juncus, pickleweed, and some shrubs at the margins of the marsh. The notorious Littorina was also common. It is a dime-sized snail that has been the cause of some of the extensive marsh die-offs in Atlantic marshes. Research by Brian Silliman suggests that a simple trophic cascade can lead to marsh die-off: reductions in blue crab numbers (due to human harvest) results in an increase in the herbivorous snails and a decline in marsh plants.




Spartina alterniflora shoots with a few
 Littorina snails at the base of the plants.

 Overall the east coast salt marshes do not seem to be particularly species rich. Spartina steals most of the show. We seem to have more species and more complex assemblages in the Pacific Northwest (e.g., Jefferson 1975). However, ecological interactions among species and their environment seem to be much better understood in the Atlantic marshes due a rich tradition field experimentation, and perhaps, because those less-diverse communities are more tractable ecologically.

Atlantic salt marsh ecology has contributed to important insights into the factors that limit species distributions. For instance, salt-tolerant species (“halophytes”) tend to be excluded from fresher environments because of poor competitive ability with other species, not because they cannot tolerate fresher conditions (Crain et al. 2004). Salt-intolerant plants, on the other hand, cannot handle the level of environmental stress present in more saline marshes. Moreover, the spatial distribution of some plant species can be extended by the presence of other species because the latter essentially create more benign environmental conditions; Hacker and Bertness (1995) showed that the rush Juncus ameliorated soil salinity stress for the shrub Iva thereby allowing it to persist in lower tidal environments than might otherwise be favorable. Plant assemblages in other geographic regions – with different sets of species and different climates – may be structured differently, but the Atlantic marsh research has established useful groundwork for continued advances in tidal wetland ecology.

References

Crain et al. 2004 Ecology 85:2539
Hacker and Bertness. 1995. Ecology 76:2165
Jefferson 1975. Oregon State Univ PhD dissertation.

Incredible plants: Calochortus

Calochortus luteus from Santa Cruz Island, CA, 2012.

One of my favorite groups of flowers is the genus Calochortus in the lily family (Liliaceae).  Calochortus is of Greek derivation and means “beautiful grass” (Baldwin et al. 2012). Lilies, like grasses, are monocots, and many species in this genus have narrow leaves that can be mistaken at first glance for their grass cousins. 

There are about 70 species of Calochortus globally, distributed in central and North America (Baldwin et al 2012). In the Oregon flora, 18 species are recognized (Cook and Sundberg 2012) and a whopping 45 occur in California (Baldwin et al. 2012) – more than half of all global diversity!



Calochortus ?amabilis near Lake
Berryessa, northern CA, 2009.

The flowers are generally very showy. Perusing through the images for different species in the CalFlora database, for instance, shows a remarkable diversity of flower shape, color, and decoration. The inside surface of the petals are often hairy (as can be easily seen on one of the photographs below) (Baldwin et al. 2012). As would be expected with a plant in the lily family, flower parts are in threes: there are 3 petals, 6 stamens and 1 style that divides into 3 stigmas ready to receive pollen (Baldwin et al. 2012).


Among the attractive species in the genus are the globe lilies. The flowers of these plants are pendant and somewhat resemble a delicate Japanese paper lantern. An example is C. albus in the California flora.







Another beautiful example of Calochortus is C. nuttallii, the state flower of Utah. It is a desert plant occurring throughout the intermountain west at elevations of 5 to 8 thousand feet (Patraw 1977). Flower color varies from whitish to blue or purple hues (Patraw 1977). The plants that I observed on a trip to the desert of eastern Utah two years ago were whitish. The underground bulbs of this species are edible and were consumed by Native Americans (Patraw 1977).



Calochortus nuttallii, Dinosaur National Monument, UT.

References

- Baldwin, B.G. 2012. The Jepson Manual. Vascular Plants of California. UC Press.
- Cook, T. and S. Sundberg (eds). 2012. Checklist of Oregon Liliaceae. Oregon Flora Project
- Patraw, P.M. 1977. Flowers of the Southwest Mesas. Southwest Parks and Monuments Association, Globe,
  AZ.

A classroom at the edge of the Sea of Cortez

One of the educational highlights of my life occurred during my senior year (late 1998) as an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz. I enrolled in a wonderful quarter-long intensive course in marine ecology. The plan was to spend the first 5 weeks in Santa Cruz and the last five in the upper Gulf of California in northern Mexico. By this point in my education, I had been able to take a number of excellent courses in marine sciences – invertebrate zoology, marine botany – and I was ready to apply to graduate school. I didn’t know initially if I’d get into the class (an interview was required), but I had taken scientific diving the previous academic year so that I would be able to dive as part of the experience if I made it into the course.

I was reminded of this trip this part fall as I attended the annual Western Society of Naturalists meeting in Seaside, California. Per tradition, a naturalist of the year award is given at the meeting to a prominent ecologist or naturalist. This past year, it was given to Peter Raimondi and his long-time colleague at Santa Cruz, Mark Carr. Pete was one of the instructors for our class to the Gulf. In fact, our group of 20 or so eager undergraduates was the first cohort of the marine ecology field course that has since become an important part of the marine ecology curriculum on the Santa Cruz campus. From Pete’s remarks at the meeting, I learned that the inspiration for the course came from an earlier Santa Cruz course taught by the naturalist Ken Norris. In fact, Dr. Norris’s work led to the creation of the UC Natural Reserve System, a collection of research reserves throughout the state that sample the diversity of California’s ecosystems.

A unique aspect of the marine ecology field course – and a logistically challenging one to be sure – was the opportunity to dive in the subtropical waters of the Gulf of California. I logged about 9 dives during our stay in Mexico. The warmer diving in northern Mexico was a welcome change from the cold waters around Monterey where I had previously done all of my diving.



CEDO in Puerto Penasco, Sonora, MX.

Once we arrived in Mexico, we were required to participate in group research projects to get our feet wet in marine research, so to speak. My main project was conducted with a fellow student Derek Smith. Together we investigated whether shading impacted the abundance of zooxanthellae in a colonial anthozoan, Palythoa ignota. Zooxanthellae are symbiotic dinoflagellates that provide food for coral polyps. The idea was hatched at our first stop in Mexico, the Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans (CEDO) in Puerto Peñasco. If memory serves me correctly, we had had a hard time deciding on a project to conduct, but got a burst of inspiration (or some helpful prodding from course instructors) shortly before we were scheduled to leave for our next site farther south. With time running short, we had to quickly assemble some field gear and get out to the rocky intertidal to deploy the experiment.

The plan for the experiment was simple: we would construct cages with mesh coverings and cement these to the rocky substrate over colonies of Palythoa to reduce the amount of ambient light reaching the anthozoans. Palythoa isn’t a high intertidal species, so we needed a low tide to access the site and it happened that our window of opportunity occurred in the dark. With lamps and some assistance from other students, we went about the messy business of removing organisms from the rocks in order to secure our cages to the benthos. The experiment was set and we’d be back to Puerto Peñasco towards the end of our stay in Mexico to collect the data.


Left: A small colony of Palythoa polyps. Right: Our experimental manipulation
 of light level at the subtidal site. The cage in the middle is the classic cage control.

About a week later we found ourselves at Guyamas along the central coast of the Sea of Cortez.  Here, Palythoa only grew subtidally. We selected a second site to conduct a repeat experiment that was accessible only after a decent boat ride to a place removed from the city. We again placed our cages into colonies of Palythoa. Though our sites were admittedly very shallow, at least one of us needed to dive to make the clearings on the substrate, cement the cages to the rock, and later sample the animal tissue to count zooxanthellae cells.

We stayed in Guyamas for a week to ten days, and sampled the cnidarian tissues before leaving to count the density of zooxanthellae. Derek committed the needed manpower, doing all of the microscope work. As it turns out, we were fortunate to have conducted this repeat experiment. Once we returned to Puerto Peñasco for the second time, regrettably many of our cages in the intertidal had been lost. There were not enough surviving cages to really test our shading effects on cell counts.

My experiences in the outdoors classroom of Mexico were notable in several ways. To begin with, my work with Palythoa was the first manipulative experiment I had ever conducted. Manipulative experiments are the bread and butter of experimental ecology, the most conclusive way to infer causal mechanisms about ecological processes. During the course I was also exposed to new habitats and new organisms in northern Mexico. I saw my first mangroves, for instance. I also had a chance to conduct science in teams. The course was a wonderful opportunity to make some great friends. (Oh, and did I mention that real Mexican tortillas are amazing!?)

The value of field research for biologists can’t be overstated. To get it early in one’s career and in large doses is a blessing. While science inevitably involves background research in libraries, time pouring over data and statistics, and digestion of theory (and I enjoy each of these in respectable quantities), none of these other activities can compensate for observation and experimentation in the field. Natural history is not just a quaint discipline of the 1800s, it is the foundation of meaningful ecology. It is integral to the generation of hypotheses and the interpretation of the relevance of experimental results. It also goes beyond the role of science as a human endeavor– it connects us to our immeasurably rich natural heritage.


An urchin - one of my better underwater shots in Mexico.

Sunset at Punta Ingacio at Bahia Kino along the Gulf coast.

Incredible plants: the sea palm

The sea palm, a rocky intertidal kelp found along western North American shores is one of the most distinctive seaweeds in the world. In shape it is remarkably similar to terrestrial palm trees; it has a knobby holdfast for firm attachment to the rocks, an elastic stipe for flexibility, and a tuft of drooping rugose blades at the top. The species name is Postelsia palmaeformis and it was first described by western science in 1852 based on collections made during a Russian expedition to western North America in 1839 (Abbott and Hollenberg 1976).

 

Individual sea palm (left) and grove (middle) at Carmel, Monterey Co, CA. Close-up of the holdfast on a plant at Gleason Beach, Sonoma County, CA. (right).

Postelsia is distributed on rocky shores from central California to British Columbia. It occurs at about the middle intertidal zone, so only a moderately low tide is necessary to see it exposed. However, it is not among the safer seaweeds to hunt for along the coast since it grows on highly-wave exposed shores where it is beaten by the surf. Research by Paul Dayton and Robert Paine in Washington State has shown that this wave energy is necessary for persistence of this annual species in the rocky intertidal (Dayton 1973, Paine 1988). Sufficient wave action removes carpets of sessile mussels, giving the sea-palm bare space to colonize. Or, in some cases, juvenile palms settle on mussels or algae and eventually cause both species to get removed by waves from the rock and open more space – a sort of suicide for the good of the species (Dayton 1973). Without the assistance of physical disturbance, mussels would dominate the rocks leaving no space for Postelsia.



A grove of Postelsia at Glass Beach in Mendocino County, CA takes an incoming wave.



Newly recruited sporophytes, Gleason
Beach, Sonoma Co., CA.

Sea-palms occur in gregarious patches because their spores typically only disperse short distances (Dayton 1973). Perhaps during rising tides, spores drip from the hanging fronds of the plant onto adjacent rocks and settle rapidly (Paine 1988). There they germinate into a microscopic stage of the kelp life cycle known as the gametophyte. Sperm from male gametophytes fertilize eggs attached to female gametophytes, and there start a new generation of adult plants (the sporophytes).



Sampling some "sea crunchies"
(dried sea palm blades) made by a
company in northern California.

Like some other seaweeds, Postelsia is edible. Seaweeds tend to be rich in minerals like iodine, but they may also have high levels of more toxic metals, so they should probably be eaten only in moderation.










References
Abbott, I.A. and G.J. Hollenberg. 1976. Marine Algae of California. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
Dayton, P.K. 1973. Dispersion, dispersal, and persistence of the annual intertidal alga, Postelsia palmaeformis Ruprecht. Ecology 54:433-438.
Paine, R.T. 1988. Habitat suitability and local population persistence of the sea palm Postelsia palmaeformis. Ecology 69:1787-1794.

Shasta!

I went to northern California this week for a retreat of sorts and didn’t plan to have a nature adventure. However, by northern California the sun had burned away the dreariness of the Northwest and there was a beautiful crisp blue winter sky … and Mt Shasta! This majestic mountain, full of bright white snow loomed in a cloudless sky. I’ve passed Mt Shasta many times and long been impressed at it’s stature – a mountain over 14,000 feet and the second tallest peak in California, only a bit behind Mt. Whitney. It is almost the southern-most of the Cascades, the volcanic range of the western US.

I briefly explored the juniper-covered slopes on the northern side of the mountain, including Pluto’s Cave, a wide-mouthed, dank depression set in the volcanic landscape. The junipers were not really shrubs, but more like full fledged trees. They dominate an interesting landscape in this part of northern California, dry habitat that is a little western finger of the Great Basin (Baldwin et al. 2012). I didn’t take a close look at the trees, but based on their height and the bluish berry-like cones I observed on one tree, at least some may have been Juniperus occidentalis, one of 5 species of junipers in California (Baldwin et al. 2012). As I continued south in the late afternoon, the valley darkened but Shasta kept glowing, the pure white of the mountain turning to a golden pink.

Reference:
Baldwin et al. 201.2 The Jepson Manual. Vascular Plants of California. University of California Press.

Incredible plants: Sequoia sempervirens

The giant redwood of the western US is among the largest organisms on Earth. It is one of fascinating group of conifers and is the tallest tree on earth. Aside from their impressive size, these trees form the foundation of one of the most interesting, productive, and beautiful ecosystems on earth.

Headwaters Forest Reserve, Humboldt County, CA.

Redwoods are members of the Cupressaceae, a family of conifers (usually cone-bearing, but not flower-producing, seed plants) that includes cypresses and the Giant Sequioa of the Sierra Nevada. Fossil distributions show that the ancestors of redwoods used to occur throughout much of the northern hemisphere (Chaney 1990). Today, redwoods are distributed from central California north to the very southwest corner of Oregon. These trees thus occupy a relict distribution, one that is just a fraction of its former empire. All redwood populations are found relatively close to the coast where they thrive in coastal fog (Eckenwalder 2009).

Sequoia sempervirens has a life span of about 2000 thousand years (Eckenwalder 2009), making it one of earth’s oldest organisms in addition to one of its largest. Although plants produce copious amounts of cones (and thus presumably millions of seeds per individual), new trees can also spread vegetatively from the bases of existing trees (e.g., from “burls”). This process in fact, can lead to the circular growth patterns of the trees. Over time, the central older parent tree dies but leaves a ring of younger descendants growing in a ring.

Redwoods reach their full glory in Humboldt County where extensive groves line stream basins and the slopes of the mountains along the coast. They can be found in nearly monotypic (single species) stands, but co-exist with other trees such red-trunked madrone, white-trunked alder, tan oak, big-leaf maple and Douglas fir (Jepson 1984). Tall Trees Grove in Redwood National Park in northern Humboldt County has some of the tallest individual trees known in the world. The trees are immense indeed, but from the perspective of the forest floor, they are so massive that would be hard to discern any difference between the record-breaking individuals and their almost equally tall neighbors.

The southern most populations of redwoods are in Big Sur, the rugged stretch of coastline between San Luis Obispo and Monterey. The forests are fairly extensive around the Big Sur Valley and then just occur in isolated in steep valleys right along the coast farther south.

Redwood is a popular lumber tree. It has soft, but beautifully grained and pleasantly aromatic wood. Previously there was intensive logging of redwood trees to provide lumber for the burgeoning growth of cities such as San Francisco. Unfortunately, a large percentage of original forest has been harvested, leaving only a relatively small percentage of remaining old growth forest today. Much of that old growth is preserved in state or federal park lands (Eckenwalder 2009). With a bit of observation there is an unmistakable difference between the structure of old growth forest and recovering secondary forests. The former is like an open pavilion with huge columns of ancient trees. Recovering forests are darker and more dense, the younger trees vying to not be the ones that will be crowded out as the forest matures.

References

Chaney, R.W. 1990. Redwoods of the Past. Save-the-Redwoods League, San Francisco, 8 pp.
Eckenwalder, J.E. 2009. Conifers of the World. Timber Press, Portland, 720 pp.
Jepson, W.L. 1984. Trees, Shrubs and Flowers of the Redwood Region. Save-the-Redwoods League, San Francisco, 16 pp.

Lichens: You scratch my back, I'll feed your hyphae

Letharia columbiana from California.

Winter in the Pacific Northwest is the season for lichens. Deciduous trees have lost their foliage, revealing a colorful “understory” of a diverse lichen flora that clings to the branches and trunks of trees. For these organisms, resources for growth seem to be abundant at this time of year: there is no shortage of moisture from rain and snow, and despite shorter days and abundant cloud cover, the absence of leaves probably means there is a fair amount of light that penetrates tree canopies.

Lichens are composite organisms. The bulk of the tissue consists of the body of a fungal host (the “mycobiont”). Fungi are composed of chains of cells known as hyphae. The other half of the lichen partnership is a photosynthetic alga or cyanobacterium (the “phycobiont” or “photobiont”). The cells of the photosynthetic partner are embedded within the body of the fungus. The fungus is responsible for the structure (shape) of the lichen body. About 90% of lichens are host to green algae, including the genera Trebouxia and Trentepohlia (Purvis 2000). The rest have cyanobacterial partners (or on rare occasions, both green algae and cyanobacteria). Cyanobacteria are oxygen-producing photosynthetic bacteria. Worldwide, there are about 14,000 species of lichens (Brodo et al. 2001).



In this fruticose lichen, it appears that small greenish areas where the photobiont may be present can be seen through the fungal tissues on the main axis of this specimen.

Lichens represent a classic example of a symbiosis: two organisms that live in close association, often in inter-dependency. In ecology, symbiosis is a broad term that encompasses a range of relationships between two or more partners – everything from parasitism (one partner benefits at the expense of another) to mutualism (both partners are positively affected by the association). One view of the lichen symbiosis is that it is a mutualism. For instance, a potential benefit to the algal partner by living with its fungal host may be amelioration of desiccation stress. Just as the fungal partner could allow the alga to thrive in very dry places (e.g., the surface of desert rocks) by providing a home for growth, the alga might allow the fungus to live in environments with less organic matter (again, think barren rocks) than would otherwise be tolerable because it provides food (Purvis 2000). Sugars produced by photosynthesis in the photobiont are incorporated into the fungal tissue (Smith et al. 1969). By making dry places hospitable for the alga or carbon-poor places hospitable for the fungus, the lichen symbioses is an interesting example of one organism expanding the realized niche space of another (Purvis 2000). 

However, the lichen lifestyle may not always be beneficial for the algae. Photobionts like the cyanobacterium Nostoc can make it just fine outside of the lichen association. Brodo et al. (2001) note that the lichen symbiosis actually represents a range of associations from ones in which the algal partner may not be appreciably harmed by the fungus to ones that might be better characterized as a prison for the phycobiont. In fact, as early as 1869, the Swiss botanist Schwendener suggested that lichen fungi may be parasitic on their fungal hosts (Purvis 2000).

I still have much to learn about lichen biology, but here are a few interesting points about the lichen symbiosis that I picked up scanning some research:

- Lichen symbioses have evolved multiple times during the course of fungal evolution (Gargas et al. 1995). So, picking up a photosynthetic partner seems to be an advantageous evolutionary strategy. Most lichen associations are formed with ascomycete fungi, but a few basidiomycetes (mushroom-forming fungi) form lichens as well (Lawrey et al. 2009).

- Lichen symbioses are sometimes more of an extended family gathering than merely a two member partnership. Some fungi have both green algae and cyanobacteria as symbionts, sometimes living in separate places within the fungal tissue, sometimes living in closer proximity (Brodo et al. 2001, Henskens et al. 2012). Moreover, diverse bacteria and even other endophytic fungi can be associated with the lichen microcosm (Arnold et al. 2009, Grube et al. 2009, Bates et al. 2011, Hodkinson et al. 2012). “Hey you, move over! It is getting crowded in here!”

- The presence of one partner may influence the physiology of the other. In a study of the lichen Cladonia, the lichen association caused up-regulation of genes involved in photoprotection and antioxidation pathways in the alga and fungus respectively (Kranner et al. 2005).

- In lichens where the algal partner as been identified down to the species level (only a small percentage thus far), individual fungal species generally only associate with a specific algal species. The alga, on the other hand, shows less fidelity – one species may appear in many fungal hosts (Brodo et al. 2001, Yahr et al. 2004).

- Reproduction of lichens is perhaps a little more complex than in other species because two organisms are involved (Brodo et al. 2001). One way that maintenance of the lichen association from generation to generation is achieved is by vertical “transmission”. In vertical transmission, the propagules of the mycobiont and phycobiont can be produced vegetatively (so parents and daughters are the same genetically) and they disperse together to new living quarters (DalGrande et al. 2012). However, a paper by Wornik and Grube (2010) suggests that young lichen fungi can pick up algae anew from the environment, even if they originally dispersed with a photobiont to begin with. 

In summary, these points emphasize just how complex and diverse the lichen symbiosis can be. There is tremendous variation in the expression of the symbiosis and in the identity and arrangement of the partners involved. I’d bet there is a lot of fascinating biology and ecological insight yet to be gained from studying lichens. If species numbers, geographic distribution and lifestyle diversity are valid measures of evolutionary “success”, then the lichen association has been successful indeed!

References
Arnold et al. 2009. Systematic Biology 58:283.
Bates et al. 2011 Applied and Environmental Microbiology 77:1309.
Brodo et al. 2001. Lichens of North America. Yale University Press.
DalGrande et al. 2012. Molecular Ecology 21:3159.
Gargas et al. 1995. Science 268:1492.
Grube et al. 2009. ISMEJ 3:1105.
Henskens et al. 2012 Annals of Botany 110:555.
Hodkinson et al. 2012. Environmental Microbiology 14:147.
Lawrey et al. 2009. Mycological Research 113:1154.
Kranner et al. 2005 Proc Natl Acad Sci USA
Purvis, W. 2000. Lichens. Smithsonian Institution Press.
Smith et al. 1969. Biological Reviews 44:17.
Wornik and Grube. 2010. Micobial Ecology 59:150.
Yahr et al. 2004. Molecular Ecology 13:3367.

Two crustose lichens. In the bottom photograph, the large disk-like structures are apothecia, sites where fungal spores are produced.

 

Willamette wildernesses

I visited two new Oregon wilderness areas this month, both situated on the western slopes of the Cascades. The sites were similar in terrain and flora, but conditions were markedly different. My visit to Menagerie on 8 October was at the tail end of a 3 month span of almost completely dry weather. Just a few days later the rain returned to the northwest. By 20 October at Opal Creek I was hiking in rain and hail.

Menagerie

The Menagerie wilderness lies just north of US route 20 in the Willamette National Forest. The trail from Trout Creek and US20 to Rooster Rock is almost a continuous ascent, terminating with a bit of switchback at the top. The Rooster Rock peak approaches 3600’ elevation, not terribly high, but it is about the highest point within decent radius. Two of the three peaks of Sisters were visible to the ESE and there was snow still present there. The lower part of this trail was vegetated by (apparently unlogged) Douglas fir forest with many big leaf maples and an understory of sword ferns, salal, other maples and Oregon grape. Western hemlock appeared to become more common as I gained elevation, as did rhododendrons. Towards the summit of Rooster Rock madrones appeared (impressively tall examples of this species) and the understory vegetation became less dense. In the fairly rocky soil at the top of this hill there were manzanita, and sloping to the north, cedars. Nothing seems to be in bloom, but some leaves are changing colors – yellow rhododendron leaves and red splashes of Oregon grape and poison oak and maples.

Vine maple, Acer circinatum.

Rhododendron.



A stately madrone.

Opal Creek

Much of the vegetation here is like the Menagerie – Douglas fir, western hemlock, lots of salal, maples – and at higher elevation, manzanita, rhododendrons and deer grass. Many of the trees on the south face of the mountain are shorter and in high densities, though there is no obvious sign of logging here. Maybe this is evidence of an intense fire some decades ago. I started my hike late in the day so I was not able to make it quite to the top of the Henline Mountain trail. The impressive gorge of the Little N Santiam River runs east to west and would be in plain view if the gray cloud had not overtaken in the later afternoon. I reached the “snowline” on my hike, though there was only a relatively light dusting on the trees and exposed rocks.

(Clouds creeping up the valley. Movie from just outside the wilderness.)

 

New snow.

Sisters

The three snow-capped peaks of Sisters, each rising to over 10,000 ft, sit right in the middle of the Oregon Cascades. To the north are Mts. Washington and Jefferson. The Sisters peaks are home to many of the glaciers found in the state of Oregon (1). The wilderness that surrounds the three peaks was created in 1964 and is part of the Willamette and Deschutes National Forests (1). At 439 square miles, it is the second largest wilderness in Oregon (2).




South, Middle and North Sisters from the south. Photo by Lyn Topinka, USGS, summer 1985.

28 July 2012. I entered the wilderness from the Lava Camp Lake trailhead, just east of McKenzie Pass and stopped at South Mattieu Lake along the Pacific Crest Scenic Trail (PCT). Here there was essentially a ridge (Scott Pass) at about 6000 ft with the mountains dropping to the west and into the plateau of central Oregon to the east. It was a warm day, but in the evening there were now gusts of wind that started to chill me. This lake was tiny, perhaps only an acre or two in size. I took the PCT south to the western side of Yapoah Crater. The crater was a steeply-sloped and nearly barren hill of volcanic rubble. There were lava fields present throughout the northern part of the wilderness – grey in some places, rust colored in others. Firs, mountain hemlock, and pines comprised the forest at lower elevations but up near the base of Yapoah Crater (elev ~6250 ft), the trees were mostly mountain hemlock with some interspersed pines.

There were quite a few ghost trees at higher elevations in the wilderness – dead mountain hemlocks (or other species) that add an element of history to the landscape. These trees, sometimes silver with the sun low on the horizon, still stood tall but had variously broken-off limbs. Piece by piece they will decay and lend greater depth to the forest’s history. Plant life here is determined by the availability of soil. There were vast fields of barren volcanic rock inhospitable for woody species. Even then, where there was soil, the trees were small. A few herbaceous plants were in bloom – lupines and a common blue trumpet-shaped flower that hangs on in the smallest patches of soil amid the rubble. The north peak of sisters came into view at various times along the trail. A decent percentage of its slopes were still covered in snow. Mts Jefferson and Washington were easily visible to the north. There were a few tiny meadows or drying pond basins there. At one opening in the forest, dragonflies danced about in abundance. Perhaps foraging in the warm air, they would not settle for even the slightest moment so that I could get a decent photograph.




Damselfly near North Mattieu Lake.




Lupines.

11 August 2012. I entered the wilderness as I did two weeks ago, but pushed further south along the PCT than before. I arrived at a wonderfully beautiful alpine meadow where the Scott Trail meets the PCT. A few channels cut through this flower-filled basin much like shallow tidal channels in an estuary. There was just a trickle of flowing water in a creek, probably sourced mostly by continuing snow melt. The meadow was sprinkled with bright pinkish-red paint brushes (Castilleja), bluish-purple lupines (Lupinus) and yellow buttercups (Ranunculus). Small sedges, mosses and rushes contributed to the low-lying carpet of vegetation in the valley. There were also extremely dwarf shrubs that appeared to be willows – such a stark contrast to the tree habit these plants have elsewhere! Even though this was a meadow for all practical purposes, I did not notice any grasses. Interestingly, in their place, other plant families have filled in the dense, but very low-lying vegetation. It would be interesting to study the effects of the annual snowfall on the plants in this ecosystem: Are most of the species annuals? How long is their growing season? Can individual plants survive many months under thick snow cover or in frozen ground?

Continuing south along the PCT, I reached the Opie Dilldock Pass area and stopped on a barren ridge of sharp cinders. At ~6800 feet elevation, I had reached a zone of snow patches. The air was very warm and the remaining snow was rapidly melting. I was now near treeline though in some places the trees extended higher than my current elevation. From this vantage point, there was a wide vista of central Oregon, obscured only by a hazy sky and the even higher peaks present to the east and south.



A 180 degree panorama of an alpine meadow at about 6300 ft elevation. North Sisters (L) is to the south.

The Cascades are a relatively young mountain range having formed starting about 7 million years ago (3). Subduction of the small Juan de Fuca plate under the North American Plate in the Pacific Northwest provides the friction that generates magma production and builds the volcanoes (4). The mountains lie in a gently curving chain from southern British Columbia to northern California. Mt. Shasta and Lassen Peak are the southernmost of the Cascades in California. Geologically, the region is very active, with many of the major mountains having erupted in the last several thousand years (5). The two northern peaks of sisters are considered dormant, but South Sister erupted as recently as 2000 years ago (1). The Cascade Volcano Observatory of the US Geologic Survey monitors volcanic activity in the region.



~270 degree panorama from Opie Dilldock Pass.

North Mattieu Lake from the PCT.

Cone of mountain hemlock, Tsuga mertensiana.



A feeding moth.

North Sisters with Castilleja in the foreground.

A small stream cut through the overlying snow to form elegant shapes.

Spring blooms

Over the last month, I made two trips to Finley National Wildlife Monument in the southern Willamette Valley and two to the Cascades in central Oregon. It is a beautiful spring in the Northwest!

The refuge at Finley is a patch of protected lowland in the most urbanized region of Oregon, the Willamette Valley. A variety of habitats exist at the refuge: hardwood forest, grassland, oak savannah and freshwater wetlands. Like many federally-managed lands, some wildness persists in the refuge, but there are also unmistakable signs of human influence – non-indigenous species, buildings, roads, and bridges. And yet, these small patches of lowland habitat are sorely needed. Across the country there is so little lowland that isn’t burdened heavily by the long shadow of human land use practices. Worldwide, much of our coastal plains and broad low-lying valleys and plains have been devoured by agriculture and urbanization.


Findley was full of flowers: Iris, Claytonia, apple blossoms, Ranunculus, sedges, Camassia, Fritillaria. Here are some specimens below.

Towards the western edge of the refuge, there is a small hill at the base of which is a population of the bright perennial Castilleja levisecta, commonly known as the golden paintbrush. Natural populations of this species no longer exist in Oregon (its native range only spans the Willamette Valley to southern Vancouver Island), but some populations have been reintroduced to western Oregon. The Institute for Applied Ecology, a non-profit group based in Corvallis, Oregon, has been working with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and community volunteers to plant and monitor the species. Castilleja is a species-rich genus with which I am only a little familiar (Castilleja ambigua grows in the coastal wetlands of Oregon and I remember encountering reddish ‘paintbrushes’ a number of times in the chaparral of California).

Currently, some snow remains in the Cascades, at least above about 4000 ft. Spring blooms aren’t as abundant, but in my drives and hikes this month I came across blooming dogwood trees, Trillium ovatum, and other flowers. On one short excursion yesterday, I hiked around a pair of waterfalls along the McKenzie River near Clear Lake in the Willamette National Forest. The falls and rapids were roaring with snowmelt. I found two small populations of a beautiful orchid, Calypso bulbosa, growing under cedars on a sloping bank near the river. These plants have just a single basal leaf and a flower stalk not typically more than a few inches above the soil.

Lastly, enjoy this video of Sahalie Falls:

Reference:
Turner, M. and P. Gustafson. 2006. Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest. Timber Press.

Western pearls

The Cascades and Sierras are like a string of pearls lying from north to south along the western edge of the United States: Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, Crater Lake, Mt. Shasta, Tahoe, Yosemite, Sequoia. Over the last few years I have come to love these beautiful mountains. The white peaks of the Cascades are volcanic in origin and still active: the violent eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 and the bubbling sulfurous mudpots found in Lassen National Park attest to this. Many of these mountains have a beautiful conical shape, like the revered symmetry of Mt. Fuji in Japan.

Mt. Lassen in northern California is the southernmost major peak of the Cascades. But topographically at least, the mountains continue to the south with the Sierra Nevada range. The Sierras tell a different geologic story than the Cascades. Some 250 million years ago, the collision of the Pacific and North American plates melted rock that formed under the ocean in plumes (1). These structures fused. Then about 80 mya, this massive chunk of rock pushed up through the ocean floor and carried the marine sediments that had been deposited on top. Asymmetrical uplift left the eastern side of the Sierras at a higher elevation, with a more gradual decline to the west. Subsequent erosion removed much of the marine sediment, and recent glacial activity carved elegant designs into the landscape such as the world-famous Yosemite Valley.

John Muir, the poet laureate of the Sierras, termed these magnificent mountains “the range of light”. In evangelical exuberance, which Muir used without hesitation in his description of wilderness, he described a view of Yosemite in the heart of the Sierras:

“It is easier to feel than to realize, or in any way explain, Yosemite grandeur. The magnitudes of the rocks and trees and streams are so delicately harmonized they are mostly hidden. Sheer precipices three thousand feet high are fringed with tall trees growing close like grass on the brow of a lowland hill …. Waterfalls, five hundred to one or two thousand feet high, are so subordinated to the mighty cliffs over which they pour that they seem like wisps of smoke, gentle as floating clouds, though their voices fill the valley and make the rocks tremble. … The mountains, too, along the eastern sky, and the domes in front of them, and the succession of smooth rounded waves between, swelling higher, higher, with dark woods in their hollows, serene in massive exuberant bulk and beauty, tend yet more to hide the grandeur of the Yosemite temple and make it appear as a subdued subordinate feature of the vast harmonious landscape. Thus every attempt to appreciate any one feature is beaten down by the overwhelming influence of all the others.” (2).

Just before the turn of the new year this winter, we took an adventure north to south down the eastern side of these magnificent mountains. We crossed the Cascades east of Eugene and once over the crest of the range, traveled from that point forward in high country on our trip to southern California. Passing through the Cascade Range in central Oregon, I was amazed once again by the dramatic shift in vegetation on either side of the divide. Dense coniferous forests with lush green understories dominate the western slopes of the Cascades, but the forests quickly change to drier, shorter and more open canopies vegetated by pines to the east. The change in forest type is, of course, driven by differences in precipitation on the eastern and western slopes. Storm clouds moving inland from the Pacific run into the mountains and dump most of their captive water before reaching the high country.

On this trip, it snowed briefly in southern Oregon near Chemult, but the skies lightened as we moved further south towards the Oregon/California border. In Modoc County (NE California), we entered the Great Basin floristic province. Here the vegetation became desert scrub peppered with juniper trees, the largest plants on the landscape. Small patches of snow remained on the ground. Our first significant stop was Lava Beds National Monument. The short winter day was drawing to a close but we explored two of the lava caves. They were cold wide shafts filled with rubble of very bland grey and pale colors; the caves relatively gradually descended downward into the earth. We saw no bats or other wildlife in the caves, but located some small ice sculptures adhering to the rocks below. The little sculptures were shaped like hemispherical ice cream scoops, having accumulated when water dripped from the cave ceiling above and apparently froze quickly as it flowed down the mound.

Visitors in a cave at Lava Beds National Monument

The next day, further south, the highway took us near Susanville and into Nevada for a time before crossing backing into California. We arranged for a stay in the small town of Bridgeport back on the California side of the border.

On day three we learned from a highway sign that several of the roads that traverse the Sierras that are typically closed to traffic during the snowy winter months were still open at this late season. This exciting news led to a quick decision to make a detour into the eastern end of Yosemite National Park. Access to Yosemite high country by car at this time of year was a real treat since National Park records indicate that Tioga Pass had not been open this late in the winter for at least the last 31 years! (3) Already at about 7000 ft elevation in the Mono Lake area, we made it up the pass to nearly 10000 ft towing our small rented trailer. Tioga Pass is a lightly vegetated gorge of granite and snow with strong winds that move down the canyon. On the less sun-exposed places to the south and deep in the canyon, ice froze in place to form suspended white and turquoise waterfalls.

Tioga Pass

At the top of the canyon, we encountered our first alpine lake (Ellery Lake), locked frozen into the mountains at 9538 ft. Further west into the park, we explored Lembert Dome, Tuolumne Meadows and Tenaya Lake. Near Lembert Dome, we took a hike through coniferous forest to Dog Lake. Like the other alpine lakes, this one too was frozen. We walked and shoe skated over the whitish-grey ice.

Dog Lake

In the afternoon we left Yosemite, heading back down Tioga Pass onto the east side of the Sierras in time for a sunset that painted clouds and mountainsides various colors. On day four we moved further south into the Owens Valley and started to encounter classic southern California desert habitat. Tufts of dried tumbleweeds were interspersed semi-regularly on sands and rubble on the grey landscape. Perhaps their phobia for neighbors was created by intense competition underground for the sparse water available in the desert. Here the landscape was open. Expansive smooth valleys were rimmed with tall mountains. The majestic granitic Sierras, light with snow cover rose, abruptly to the west from the valley floor. 

The Sierras from Owens Valley (Mt. Whitney is in there somewhere...)

The last day of our journey took us to Death Valley National Park and further south to the metropolitan expanse of southern California. Coming up towards the park, we saw Joshua tree sentinels on the landscape. We did not proceed deep into the park, but did drive through the Panamint Valley, an utterly barren swath of land set between the Argus Mountains to the west and the Panamint Range to the east. Though not hot on that late December day, one could easily imagine the searing heat of the landscape during the death days of summer.

Notes:

1. A concise history of Sierra geology.

2. Muir, J. 1911. My First Summer in the Sierra.

3. The road was finally closed on 17 Jan 2012. See the NPS data here.