what Was, what Is, and what Will Be

This is Old World climbing fern.  It is an invasive exotic plant, and this is what it does best.

Those trees on the left are what trees are supposed to look like, all tree shaped and growing normally.  Those trees on the right… wait, what’s that you say?  You can’t see the trees?  Oh yeah.  That’s because they are covered in strings upon strings of fern that are intently keen on smothering anything and everything on their way towards the light.

Lygodium microphyllum.  The life cycle of Lygodium is really neat.  It’s not from around here (hence the “exotic” part), and is really, really good at spreading (thus, “invasive”).  As a fern, it follows the typical “really likes wet areas” theme, and is complete with the cute little sorus collections on the underside of the fertile leaves that produce thousands upon thousands of spores.  Per leaf.  These spores, and the climbing nature of this particular fern, are what make it so prolific.  You can see the little dots in some of these pictures.  Those are the collections of things that contain the thousands of spores, not the spores themselves.

Seeds?  Seeds?!  They don’t need no stinking seeds.  Want to reproduce?  Just throw a bunch of spores out to the wind, hope some land in a nice damp bayhead (and a lot of them do), then just jump through a few fancy growth stages, and continue your growth back up towards the light.  Not all of the leaves have these structures.  You can see the two leaf types in the pictures below, some are vegetative, but some are just waiting to release their children.  That means that when you pull at the vines to cut them, some times the spores get tossed to the breeze.

As this cycle of spore to vine is actually pretty quick, the plants unlucky enough to be the climbees, as opposed to the climbers, may not even have had time enough to die before being completely enveloped in fern.  Armed with herbicide, clippers, and soon a machete (to better grapple with the ever present blackberry bushes),  I have been tasked to go around and attempt to free these trees and kill as much climbing fern as possible to prevent further spread.  Our goal is to cut any vine that is taller than waist high, and herbicide everything below.

It’s a giant pain in the ass.  I really want a dragon.  It would be sooooo much faster.

Well, more like “Giants Invade  Really Big Spider’s Natural Habitat”.  I mean, even if you were a big burly guy with a lot of hairy arms, I bet you would want to defend your home by walking outside and looking as tough as possible too.

That’s what this Wolf Spider was doing when ventured out of its burrow for us curious scientists.  It didn’t want any trouble, just to protect its home.  With its crazy crazy face.   So many eyes!!!

Dear friends and family all around the world –

I’ve posted pictures and random snippets of stories during this, what was my first month and a half at the Archbold Biological Station in Venus, Florida, on this blog and on other social media. But what, you may ask, actually goes on here? Where is “here”? And what’s this “Archbold Biological Station” all about, anyway?

Well, I’ll tell you. Or, as per usual, I’ll show you.

Right, so… Florida?

Yep.  I’ve swapped America’s Dairy Land for the Sunshine State.  This is the Venus, located in the middle of orange grove and cattle country Central Florida.  The Archbold Biological Station itself consists of roughly 9,000 acres of scrub and ranch land with a colorful history involving great and powerful oil tycoons, intrepid world adventurers, and finally us humble scientists.  The Station has a great mix of people from all over the US and the world, with a diverse range of interests, skill sets and backgrounds, all coming together to study the habitats unique to this patch of Florida.

So that’s where I am, but what makes Archbold special?

The Lake Wales Ridge, on which the Station sits, forms a  backbone of “higher” elevation running north to south down the middle of the peninsula.  In the long ago past when ocean levels were higher, this ridge was  the only part of the state that was above sea level.  Consequently, islands of isolated habitats were formed that maintained their uniqueness once the oceans receded to their current levels.  These rare natural areas are home to plants and animals found in very few, or no other, places on Earth.

The main labs at Archbold (Bird, Plant, Herp / Restoration Ecology, and Bug, to keep things simple) each study different, but overlapping, aspects of the Lake Wales Ridge.  As a terrible oversimplification, here’s what people work on.

Florida Scrub Jays –

Plants and habitats (there’s a lot of different projects in the Plant lab…) –

Gopher Tortoises –

Indigo Snakes –

Fire Management –

Invasive Species –

Seasonal Ponds –

Restored Wetlands –

Grazing –

Arthropods –

And much, much more.

So, that skipped a lot (such as, what’s my place in all this?)… which is OK!  There’s tons more information about Archbold at this website – http://www.archbold-station.org/ – and I’ll be writing more about each of these projects as I continue always to learn from others.  That’s all for now, as it’s Saturday, and verging on my nap time.  Holy crap I love not being in school.