Grants Showcase
Little Project on the Prairie
Monitoring Flora and Fauna of a Southwest Minnesota Prairie
Story by Jane Roberts
Quick. List three characteristics of a prairie and briefly explain the ecological significance of maintaining prairie communities in Minnesota and elsewhere. Can you do it? Prior to Elizabeth Desy's Ecology class at Southwest Minnesota State University, a large number of Ecology students, all of whom were Biology or Environmental Science majors, could neither identify the native plant community in which they lived nor could they identify even one plant species typical of the prairie. Only about 13% of students were able to list two or three species.
But maybe that's because the prairie is disappearing. Indeed, very little can be found of the tallgrass prairie that blanketed millions of acres of America's heartland just a century and a half ago. However, thanks to two intensely hands-on, field-based, experiential laboratories made possible in part by a Learning by Doing grant and funding from the Bush Foundation, students increased their understanding of prairies dramatically. One of these labs involved a restored (young) prairie on the Southwest Minnesota State campus and the other was a mature prairie maintained by the Scientific Natural Areas division of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
The project, called Monitoring Flora and Fauna of a Southwest Minnesota Prairie: A Collaboration of Academic and Non-Academic Units was a shared effort between Desy and Charles Kost, director of the Geographic Information Systems Center at SMSU, and staff members at the DNR. Although seemingly dissimilar in terms of approach-academic and non-academic-these three separate units and the students who worked with them shared a common goal: keeping a careful eye on the plants and animals of a Minnesota prairie.
Seed Money, Four Acres, and a Reconstructed Ecosystem
The prairie, one of North America's great ecosystems, is a landscape dominated by herbaceous plants, especially grasses; trees are either widely scattered on the landscape or entirely absent. Once a vast ocean of grass, the prairie used to spread itself in a stunning spectrum of color across 1.5 million square kilometers of the Great Plains (that's seven times the size of Minnesota), stretching from the Gulf of Mexico north into Canada. However, less than 1% of native prairie remains today.
Fortunately, some people are trying to preserve and restore this native habitat, such as Desy, who with help from a Department of Natural Resources Conservation Partner's Grant, started the prairie restoration project during the summer of 1998. Restoration refers to the purposeful assembly of plant and animal communities in order to reconstruct a stable ecosystem that is compositionally and functionally similar to that which originally existed and has been heralded as an important tool to remedy the tremendous impact that humans have had on natural ecosystems. Desy's DNR grant was literally "seed money" which she used to purchase prairie seeds. The results of these seeds can be found in the four-acre restored prairie that is located in the southwest corner of the Southwest Minnesota State University Wildlife Area in Marshall, Minnesota.
The Wildlife Area is a 22-acre site that, in addition to the prairie, also features a pond, marsh, woods, and wildlife at the northwest corner of the campus. An elevated observation platform allows you to view the activities of wildlife.
In an effort to educate students as well as monitor the restored prairie and work in conjunction with the DNR, Desy has added an experiential laboratory portion to her Ecology course in which students learn essential skills for environmental scientists: hypothesis formation, proper sampling technique, data collection protocol, and data analysis. In the lab portion of her class, students use these higher-order thinking silks to survey the flora and fauna of a prairie in Southwest Minnesota. The prairie sites targeted by the DNR for the project include the Prairie Coteau in Pipestone county and Lundblad prairie in Murray County, both which are about 30 miles from SMSU, and Glynn Prairie in Lyon County, which is about 12 miles from the campus.
The Power of Observation
According to Desy, her class is one of only two field experiences for most biology and environmental science majors, thus allowing students a rare opportunity to explore their fields in a non-simulated, real-world environment. "What the students discover, of course, is that when you go out to the field, things are more difficult. You can't control a lot of things the way you can in a lab. Take identifying plants, for example. When the plants have their flowers, it's pretty easy, but when they're not blooming, it's a lot harder," she says.
According to Desy, this is where students have to test their observation skills-something she emphasizes considerably. "When they are in the field and they see something they don't recognize, I tell them it is important not to simply say, 'I don't know what that is.' You can't just gloss over it because you'll miss things. They learn that they have to be patient, that it's not just a matter of walking out to the field. I tell them that if they are going to be researchers, they need to be very careful and pay attention to detail. In this class, they discover that their work requires very intense observation skills," she says.
Another skill Desy strongly emphasizes is writing skills. "They don't like that," she says. Nonetheless, a significant part of the class entails writing reports. "I tell them that as they get in their careers, one of the greatest assets they can have is effective writing and speaking skills. They discover that in the process of writing about what they've observed, they gain valuable critical thinking skills. As they present information, they have to analyze it-what does it mean; why is that species common and the others weren't?" These skills, she tells her students, will make them much more employable.
Of the seven labs experiments students conducted, they had to write reports on four of them. "They discovered that the more writing they did, the more comfortable they were with it and the better they got," said Desy.
Global Positioning: Not Just for the Department of Defense Anymore
Two cutting-edge technologies, Geographic Information System (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) were integrated into this project. The Global Positioning System is a worldwide radio-navigation system formed from a constellation of 24 satellites and their ground stations. Originally created by the U.S. Department of Defense, GPS uses these "man-made stars" as reference points to calculate positions accurate to within a centimeter. Hand-held GPS units used in the class were accurate within a meter.
GIS, which works in conjunction with GPS, is a computer system capable of assembling, storing, manipulating, and displaying geographically referenced information. The results of the information take the form of maps, statistical summaries, and derived data sets that can be used in other tasks such as modeling or hypothesis testing.
In the course of the lab, students demonstrated a basic understanding of GPS and how to use a GPS unit. For example, one lab required students to identify the movement patterns of voles, a common field mouse, in the prairie by recording geographic points associated with the voles' movement using a GPS unit. According to Desy, tracking the voles using a powder tracking technique was the overall favorite activity of the students. They began by live-trapping the mice (catching them in a trap in which the animals are not hurt) and then covering the animals in a fluorescent dye. The students called it "shake and bake," because the process involves placing the animal in a bag filled with the fluorescent powder and shaking it up to completely cover the animal in pink, green, or orange dye before letting the animals go. Then, under the cover of darkness, the students returned using an ultraviolet light to follow the trails of powder the animals left as they scurried through the grass. "You don't want to do this in the light because your presence will influence their movement patterns," she said. According to Desy, this powder technique is a common practice used by biologists in the field today because collar transmitters are very expensive.
The field data were brought back to the lab where students downloaded the hand-held data for use with GIS software. With direction from Kost, the students were able to use the GIS tools to analyze the data and determine home range for the voles. Every student successfully completed a home range analysis.
Students also used GPS to find previously-marked permanent sampling sites at Glynn Prairie and the restored prairie at SMSU. At these sites, students performed data collection. Two more labs were designated for subsequent data analysis. Collected data was recorded in spreadsheets for use with GIS software. With direction from Kost, the students determined and mapped the frequency and density of selected plant species.
Using a GIS program and with assistance by Kost, students also explored the relationship between the abundance of small mammals and vegetation. These data will be used in future Ecology classes for comparing the differences between prairies of different ages as well as analyzing how prairies change over time.
What Kind of Flower is That?
To help Ecology students identify the plants they and others can expect to encounter during a walk through the prairie or during data collection, GIS Director, Kost developed a Prairie Plant guide on a Web site at that shows photographs of various species and a detailed description of each. Some of those plants include the Dotted Blazing Star, the Butterfly Weed, the Compass Plant, Indian Grass, and the Gray-headed Cone Flower.
Other vital reference materials for Desy's students included plant specimens collected and prepared during the summer by student workers who were planning to enroll in Ecology the next semester. This experience gave them a head-start on their class and also enabled them to serve as lab assistants in the fall. Thus, they not only learned new skills but also had the opportunity to teach these skills to their peers
Collaboration: Working with the DNR
This project promoted collaboration not only between academic units at Southwest Minnesota State but also between SWSU and the Minnesota DNR. The data collected as a result of this project are potentially valuable to the DNR in determining priorities and management practices for their Scientific and Natural Areas. Typically, the DNR lacks personnel to conduct regular surveys of their SNAs, thus partnerships similar to the one established for this project are very valuable. These collaborations also give students a sense of ownership of their learning by demonstrating the value of their efforts in maintaining the ecological integrity of a region
Setting the Prairie on Fire
Prairie fires used to occur every one to five years and provided many benefits; similarly, this project sent a spark across the curriculum, lighting interest among faculty in other programs at Southwest Minnesota State. Specifically, an Agronomy faculty member expressed interest in having his students collect soil data from the prairie surveys in the project. This professor teaches a concurrent course in Soil Morphology and Genesis and wants his students to conduct a soil analysis study and make those data available to Desy's Ecology course. Her students would then provide vegetation data to his class. This interaction would allow students to learn how soil type determines vegetation.
Desy believes that students' opportunities to engage in an information exchange between the ecology and agronomy courses will allow them to become actively engaged in "real world" problem-solving and experience the benefits derived from such collaborative effo
Additionally, Desy made a presentation on prairies to science teachers at the Minnesota Science Teachers Association Spring 2002 conference. All 31 teachers in attendance expressed enthusiasm for her Learning by Doing project and four are planning to start a prairie project at their school as a result of her presentation. Currently, six teachers in a nearby junior high and high school want to get involved with the project. They plan on having the students come to the prairie and collect seeds. The Ecology students will work with the high school students to help them identify seeds and vegetation.
National Implications
Data collected during the year will be entered in a central database managed by the DNR for use by all environmental and ecological professionals both statewide and nationwide. Desy finds this is particularly exciting because Minnesota is the first state to attempt such a large-scale collection of data on Scientific Natural Areas and to establish a clearinghouse for this information.
As this project continues, students in future Ecology courses will incorporate data from past Ecology classes into their analysis, thereby experiencing first-hand how a community changed or remains the same over time
Desy remains in contact with the Department of Natural Resources to ensure that data she and her class collect are consistent with their on-going needs and expectations.
Related Links:
Prairie Plant Directory | SMSU Wildlife Area | Southwest Minnesota State University
