Pine rocklands are an Environmentally Endangered Land found only in south Florida and parts of the Caribbean. They are characterized by frequent mild fires, but with such a densely populated area like Miami-Dade County, these fires need to be prescribed and controlled to protect humans.
Our Master’s program included a weekend trip to design 2-day fieldwork projects near the Benediktenwand at the Tuetzinger Huette.
As a GeoCorps America Mosaics in Science recipient, I was on the Assessment, Inventory & Monitoring (AIM) Team for the US Bureau of Land Management in San Luis Valley, CO. Soil structure and vegetation cover/types were monitored to predict erosion risk on public lands.
Doing an initial land survey before setting up transects as part of AIM Vegetation Monitoring protocols.
Do grass and forbseeds sourced from different regions of Germany perform differently under conditions of water stress?
The treatment block under water stress.
The treatment block receiving additional water
Liverworts are non-vascular plants, grouped together with mosses and hornworts as "bryophytes". Non-vascular plants have no true vascular tissues, known as xylem and phloem, for the transport of water and nutrients/sugar between roots and leaves. Xylem transports water from the roots to the rest of the plant and also provides structural support. Phloem transports glucose from the leaves to the rest of the plant. Without knowing it, you may have done an "experiment" at home using xylem. If you place a celery stick in a glass of water with food coloring, after a few hours the xylem of the celery becomes colored as it transports the water from the glass to the leaves.
Installing rain shelters in a calcareous grassland experiment. Plots are being compared for species diversity and richness after some treatments endure water stress during peak growing periods.
Another shot of the beautiful calcareous grassland field site just outside of Freising.
At a Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy event to demonstrate how to monitor water quality using aquatic invertebrate diversity and geomorphology cues.