Deception Pass

This post is the final of 3 about my trip in early July to the Olympic Peninsula and Whidbey Island.

Heading out of Bowman Bay in Deception Pass State Park.

Luckily our trip to Washington coincided with some decent morning low tides. Since we had a new kayak with us, it was a great chance to do some “tidepooling" – not from land, but from the ocean's point of view. I launched the kayak at Bowman Bay in Deception Pass Stake Park and paddled on the north side of the bay towards Rosario Head. It was the same route that I took with my wife and oldest son a few years ago when we paid for a local kayaking tour. 


Map of Bowman Bay and Roasario Head. The red asterisk
marks the approximate location of the Cymathere population I found.





I explored the bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) forests and a few of the rocky outcrops and islets that are so common in Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands. The exposed intertidal rocks were covered in large barnacles, and patches of cabbage kelp (Saccharina sessilis) and other seaweeds. I even saw a sea otter saunter down the from the exposed rocks of the intertidal and slip into the water. I've had no idea that otters made excursions onto land, but perhaps this animal was in search of tasty bivalves.

An otter notwithstanding, my scientific inclinations usually cause me to pay most attention to the plants. There was one particularly exciting find along a section of rugged coastline north of Rosario Head: a small population of several individuals of the kelp Cymathere triplicata. These long strapped shaped kelps were growing in shallow subtidal water right near the short surf zone. I hovered in place for some time trying to get some pictures of the Cymathere blades swirling hear the surface of the water.

Cymathere triplicata.

Cymathere is somewhat of a novelty for me because it does not occur in California or Oregon. It is distributed from Washington to Alaska (Druehl 2000). It is a relatively easy kelp to identify because of the presence of three ribs that run longitudinally down the thick blades. The north Pacific is the center of kelp diversity in the world, and this species is a special Washington treat.

The day had a little adrenaline too. At one point while observing the Cymathere specimens, I got a little too close to the surf zone and started to get pushed into rocks. Later in the day I took the kayak out a second time out of Bowman Bay and proceeded south into Deception Pass. The large wakes from the boats were a concern, but an even larger problem was that I began to be swept into the strong tidal currents that move tremendous volumes of water into the Pass and south towards Seattle. I realized what was occurring pretty quickly and turned around to make my way out of the pass, but found that I was essentially making no ground whatsoever despite paddling with all of my effort. I figured that the currents would be weaker closer to shore and found that I was able to make some progress on my return closer to the rocky shoreline. I wasn't in any particular danger, but if I had not been successful in turning around, I would have had to land at a beach somewhere else in the park and created a lot of work for myself to get the kayak back to the car.

The Washington Islands are a magical place and I have had the fortune to explore, kayak, collect seaweeds and conduct intertidal research among them.

References

Druehl, L.D. 2000. Pacific Seaweeds. Harbour Publishing, British Columbia.


Bull kelp forest in Bowman Bay.



  

The Elwha

This post continues the narrative of my trip in early July to the Olympic Peninsula and Whidbey Island.

Our second night on the Olympic peninsula we camped at Sol Duc inside the national park. The following day we had adventures at a few other places in the park: a short hike to Sol Duc falls, kayaking on Lake Crescent, and a drive along part of the Elwha River.



The Elwha River with a heavy sediment load.

Sol Duc falls.

The Elwha is notable because it is currently undergoing large-scale watershed restoration with the removal of two dams. Most of the dam removal has already occurred at this point in time, and the dramatic changes to the watershed are evidenced by the milky grey water that is churning down the valley. Apparently this project is the largest dam removal in the United States (1). Restoration of the watershed is expected to increase populations of salmonids (which were highly impacted by dam construction and loss of habitat (1,2). As the restoration of the watershed proceeds, some interesting things to look for include  the evolution of water clarity as sediment works its way towards the ocean, whether that sediment will quickly create new estuarine marsh habitat at the Elwha delta and whether salmon runs will recover to pre-dam conditions.


The National Park Service hosts a blog and photogallery of dam removal.

References:
1. http://www.nps.gov/olym/naturescience/upload/Elwha-River-Restoration-Brochure-2013_Final.pdf
2. http://www.americanrivers.org/initiatives/dams/projects/elwha-river-background.html

Tiger lilies (Lilium columbianum) along the Sol Duc River.

Mt. Skokomish wilderness

The Hamma Hama River with the Mt. Skokomish
wilderness in the distance.

After a few years living in the Pacific Northwest, I finally made it up to the Olympic peninsula in Washington state for a short vacation with the family earlier this month. Olympic National Park is the main attraction on the peninsula, but there are several wilderness areas immediately adjacent to the park. We had several days of outdoor adventures in Washington that I will highlight in the next couple of posts.

Our first night on the peninsula we camped at the Hamma Hamma campsite in the Olympic National Forest on the SE side of the mountain range. The Hamma Hamma River tumbles out of Mt. Skokomish wilderness to flow into Hood Canal. I woke up about 5:30 AM to the sound of all sorts of singing birds competing with the sound of water rushing down the river. After breakfast and packing up camp, we continued up the valley to the end of the road at the Mildred Lakes trailhead. We hiked several miles into the wilderness on a steep trail that was only poorly marked in several sections. Most of the trail navigated through dense coniferous forest. Because the kids were with me and we had no real navigation guides, we turned back when following the trail became pretty difficult. Unfortunately, I think the point at which we turned back was only a short distance from the intended destination so we missed the lakes this time around.

Adiantum aleuticum.

Along the trail, there were all sorts of coastal temperate forest species present, virtually all of them familiar to me from my explorations in Oregon. Trees included douglas fir, western hemlock, cedars, vine maples and alder. Other plant species I recognized included:
- sword fern (Polystichum) and bracken fern (Pteridium)
- deer fern (Blechnum spicant)
- five finger fern (Adiantum aleuticum)
- wild ginger (Asarum caudatum)
- thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus)
- salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis)
- red columbine (Aquilegia formosa)
- cow’s parsnip (Heracleum maximum)
- false Solomon’s seal (Maianthemum racemosum)
- salal (Gaultheria shallon)
- Castilleja, Trillium, and Clintonia uniflora
- bunchberry (Cornus unalaschkensis)



Wild ginger (Asarum caudatum). Note the single purple flower
below the leaves. The flowers aren't always very obvious
from a hiker's vantage point, so be sure to look under the leaves!

One of the most ecologically-interesting phenomena I encountered was a huge clearing in the forest that appeared after perhaps a mile and a half into the trail. The clearing was several hundred meters in width and ran down the hillside, with an abrupt border of erect conifers. Clearly, this disturbance was a historic avalanche of some sort, perhaps caused by snow or a rock slide. The clearing was full of old woody debris from trees that were victims to the incident and vegetated by shrubby and herbaceous plants such as Heracleum maximum and small trees. Given the degree of re-vegetation at the time of my visit, I guess that the landslide could have occurred some 5-15 years ago.



Avalanche site, with intact coniferous forest to the left.

The role of sudden large-scale disturbances on ecosystem structure is a fascinating topic in ecology. Examples of these types of disturbances include hurricanes in coral reef ecosystems and avalanches or volcanic eruptions in montane forests. Their temporal nature is fascinating – the exact timing and location of these impacts are unpredictable, but the fact that they are bound to happen sooner or later is rather predictable. Large-scale, low frequency disturbances introduce an interesting historic component to why any particular ecosystem is structured the way it is at any given point in time. Once such a disturbance occurs, it resets the successional clock in an ecosystem. An avalanche in a forest may wipe out dominant late-successional tree species and thereby initiate a sequence of colonization that starts with pioneering species that successfully colonize the disturbed habitat.

Such disturbances are also difficult to study in real-time, because they occur on ecological time scales that are long relative to our own lifetimes. In the Pacific Northwest, for example, volcanic eruptions or massive subduction earthquakes may occur only once every few decades or centuries, but they have dramatic impacts on ecosystems. How cool it would be to have something like a time-lapse movie to view hundreds of years of ecological history at any given place!

Flowers of the Iron Mountain Area

There is a great hike in the vicinity of Iron Mountain in the Willamette National Forest. I first visited last year about this time with a group of hikers from the Native Plant Society of Oregon. I repeated part of that hike yesterday. The trail begins near US20 (at roughly 4000 ft elevation) and passes through a variety of plant associations, including coniferous forest and rocky meadows. Delphinium, Calochortus subalpinus, Castilleja and other species created abundant color in the open meadows. There were also blooms in the forest understory including Clintonia uniflora, Maianthemum stellatum and Maianthemum racemosum.

Another interesting botanical feature on this hike is a population of Alaska cedar (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis), a more northerly species that appears to occupy only relatively small areas in Oregon and northern California (Jensen and Ross 2005: Trees to Know in Oregon). A few photos below:



Left: Clintonia uniflora (Liliaceae). Right: Castilleja sp. (Scrophulariaceae).



Left: Maianthemum stellatum (Liliaceae). Right: Achlys triphylla (Berberidaceae).



Left: Aquilegia formosa (Ranunculaceae). Right: Ipomopsis aggregata (Polemoniaceae).



Left: Trifolium longipes (Fabaceae). Right: Phlox sp. (Polemoniaceae).

Diamond Peak Wilderness

Diamond Peak, at 8744 ft, crowns the western half of the Diamond Peak Wilderness in the Willamette and Deschutes National Forests in central Oregon (1). The wilderness was created in 1964 (from the smaller Diamond Peak Wild Area established 13 years earlier) and contains over 52,000 acres (2,3).

Diamond Peak from Oregon state highway 58.

Rhododendron bud.

This year’s precipitation and snowpack in Oregon currently is generally below median conditions (4). So, despite being early in the season I was able to hike with the family for a ways into the eastern side of the wilderness at about 5000 ft elevation without too much concern about losing the trail due to heavy snow cover. The forest consisted of a mix of pines (at least two species were present), firs, Douglas firs and hemlocks. Manzanita were common and there were also a few patches of rhododendron.

Interestingly, in this part of the wilderness both Oregon species of hemlock co-occurred, sometimes growing adjacent to each other. Mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana) tends to be a higher elevation species, while western hemlock (T. heterophylla) tends to occur in the wetter climates of western Oregon, and at lower elevations (5). The two species can be distinguished both by their cones (longer in T. mertensiana) and by the color and organization of the needles on branches. Western hemlock needles tend to be an evergreen color arranged somewhat in a plane on the branches, while mountain hemlock needles are more bluish-grey and protrude radially from the
branches.

Foliage of both hemlock species can be seen (western hemlock in left and center, mountain hemlock at lower right). 

Distribution of western and mountain hemlock in the western US and SW Canada. Both species extend
north along the British Columbia coast to SE Alaska. Maps by USGS based on data from Little (1971).

With a mix of vegetation typically occurring in drier (pines and manzanitas) and more moist (Douglas firs, western hemlock, and rhododendron) environments, the wilderness appears to encompass a transitional area floristically. Snow prevented us from making it to any of the small lakes in the wilderness, but I am interested in exploring the western and central areas to find some mountain lakes. If they resemble the lakes I have seen in the Three Sisters Wilderness to the north and the Sky Lakes Wilderness to the south, they should be beautiful!


References:
(1) USGS topographic map, Diamond Peak, OR 1:24000 quadrangle.
(2) http://www.wilderness.net/NWPS/wildView?wid=157
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Peak_Wilderness
(4) USDA, NRCS, SNOTEL data at http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov
(5) Jensen EC & Ross CR. 2005. Trees to Know in Oregon. Oregon State University Extension Service.

Manzanita in bloom.

Spring blooms II

Some flowers today from Finley National Wildlife Refuge in the Willamette Valley:

Iris were common on an eastern-facing hillside at the Refuge. There was variation in
 plant color from deep purple to the lighter colors depicted here.

Camassia quamash.

Sidalcea sp. This plant is in the Malvaceae, a family that includes Hibiscus. A quick
 trick to identify plants in this family: look for the fused stamens.

Castilleja levisecta. There is a re-introduced population of this rare plant at the Refuge.
I first learned of this small population last year. Many plants were in bloom today.
I love the brilliant yellows emerging from the darker purplish leaves. 

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.