Day 3: A Day in the Marsh

Today, we spent our day at the Lulu Lake preserve, where we worked with Craig Annen's crew from Integrated Restoration. Before we started, Craig told us about the wetlands, and why restoration is important. We began by discussing the concept of ecosystem services, which is a branch of science that places a monetary value on an ecosystem. According to ecosystem services, wetlands have a high value because they are used as a hurricane buffer, water filtration, a wildlife habitat, and to recharge the ground water in Wisconsin. It is estimated that the world saves $80 trillion because of wetland filtration!!! It is important to monitor and maintain wetlands because they need diversity in order for them to work well, like a car with all its parts. Craig and his crew have been running an experiment for 3 years to find the most effective way of removing the invasive the narrow leaf cattail, without destroying the native broad leaf cattails. Two years ago, the participants of the LEAF program worked with Craig in the wetlands. As the students went through and cut down the invasive species, Craig and his crew selectively applied herbicide to the cut stalks. Over the past two years, it has been determined that this process reduced the population of the narrow leaf cattail by 93%. 

Today, the crew- Craig, Amanda, Dave, and Shawn- monitored the marsh with our help, by using quadrants to take a stem density count in the marsh. The first half of the day, we monitored the pretreated part of the marsh.

 

 In the process, we learned about the different species that were present, which were the lake sedge, the tussock sedge, the 3 varieties of bed straw, the native cattail, and the grass leaf goldenrod, just to name a few. 

After lunch, we went back into the field and split into 2 groups to do the stem density count in the untreated part of the marsh. We noticed that there is less biodiversity in this part of the marsh.

After we finished, we cleaned off our shoes by the lake. On our way back to the office, we pulled invasive species we saw as we drove. 

After a long day of work, we are now preparing our dinner of Asian beef with snow peas, corn, and kale chips!