A Stupid $200 Needle in a Marshy Haystack

I’d like to start this blog off with a tale of the biggest fail moment in my PhD – the time I lost the key to the field vehicle in the wetlands of the Great Salt Lake (GSL).  I lost this key early in my PhD project at the point where I was being disappointed frequently by the realistic-ness of my plans, but this failure in particular has haunted me for the last three years.  There are some important lessons I learned from this experience that I’ll share up front, in case the details of my failure are too painful or tedious. 

1.  Field days are for field work only, don’t schedule anything else. 

2.  Don’t take anything into the wetlands that can’t be covered in mud. 

3.  Bring water with you into the field. 

4.  Appreciate your people. 

I wish I could begin this tale with “everything started out according to plan…” but that would be a lie.  The goal of my PhD project is to better understand the impact of impoundment and water management on wetland structure and function.  To answer this I selected 50 wetlands from the eastern shore of GSL to monitor for four years.  When I formulated my research question and the plan to survey 50 sites every summer I was feeling ambitious and excited to start field work.  By June 15, 2012 I had come to regret all my life decisions that had led me to Ogden Bay WMA. 

The wetlands I selected were chosen from maps put together in the late 1980s that might never have included reasonable wetland boundaries, some of the wetlands weren’t wetlands anymore, and the land owners only sometimes responded to emails or letters.  I had decided to use piezometers – wells with a data logger inside that automatically records the water depth all year long – installed at a subset of sites to monitor the hydrology at my sites and thought it was a pretty slick plan.  I had worked with piezometers before but had never actually put one together, which presented even more trouble primarily because I refused to ask simple questions like “How do you put a lid on these things.”  After much unnecessary suffering I was finally ready to install my piezometers –  I’d gotten access to my sites, the piezometers were assembled and I had a wonderful technician to help me out. 

Lesson 1 – Field days are for field work only

On June 14^th we’d successfully installed three piezometers, so it was reasonable to think we could get four installed on the 15^th.  But first I needed to have a meeting with a funder to ensure that I was fully distracted.  I didn’t get to the lab until 12:00, so we didn’t head out until the afternoon for the 55 mile journey.  The hour long drive to the parking for site OBU03 didn’t do much to calm my nerves and I basically jumped out of the car, thinking if we packed up in a hurry it might make up for the hour long meeting I’d scheduled.  I did the usual turn around in circles trying to make sure I had everything before heading off on the half mile hike from the parking lot to our site (auger √, well √, sand √, datasheet √, camera √, water , key ?….).  I like to think that without the hours lost to the meeting before field work and the ambitious schedule I’d put together for the day perhaps I’d have suggested one of the two of us bring water.  I did notice the other car in the parking area behind the locked gate we’d just passed through and decided our key was one of the things we should take with us because our car just might get stolen by the one other person back there.  But there was no time to put the key some place safe, there was a piezometer to install, so I started our hike with the key in my pocket. 

Lesson 2 - Don’t take anything into the wetlands that can’t be covered in mud

The hike across the wetlands to site OBU03 was pretty delightful.  There was a field of foxtail barely we stopped to admire, playas with nice short pickleweed, a wall of Phragmites to avoid hiking through, and an easy path through the lush salt grass.  The piezometer was installed with minimal trouble, there were a lot of iron redox concentrations in the very sticky clay (“real sticky icky icky” according to subsequent field crews) that contrasted nicely with the wire grass around the site, but nothing else noteworthy. 

As we stood to leave I noticed there was no key in my front pocket.  “It must be in the backpack,” I told myself, but there was some doubt in my mind.  The hike back to the car was slightly less carefree because the wind had started really blowing and I wasn’t entirely sure I’d actually find the car key in my backpack.  Just as we reached the car and I figured out the key definitely wasn’t in my backpack our coworker called about meeting up and I had to admit for the first time that I had lost the key to the car somewhere in the half mile of wetlands between the car and the piezometer.  We now had the choice of either giving up and sitting to have a cry or looking for a 2-inch by 1-inch electronic key lost somewhere over the course of a 20-minute hike.  We tried our hardest to re-create our original path through the foxtail barey, angling across the playa at a 293º angle, along the salt grass next to the Phragmites, finally into the site through the gap in Phragmites*.  When we got to the site we spent at least 10 minutes patting down the wire grass (I know now why it’s called wire grass).  I was sure if I pushed my fingers through the grass one more time near the spot I was sitting I’d find the key, but with each poke the disappointment killed 0.07% of my soul.  I couldn’t let a significant chunk of my soul die this far ahead of actually trying to write my dissertation so we gave up on the site but continued looking on the hike back to the car, sure we’d find it.  We bent down to poke the ground every place I might have tripped on a root or plants might have touched my legs or anywhere that looked a little darker than the surrounding vegetation, all the while my soul died more as my panic really started to rise.  How were we going to get out of there?  Would we die first? 

Lesson 3 – Take water with you into the field. 

We got back to the car two hours after we originally left only to gaze through the window at our water locked there in the car beyond our reach.  Dehydrated and distraught, I had to call for a rescue, which involved three separate phone calls and pleas for help yelled over the howling wind.  First I called our co-worker who runs the Wildlife Management Area to beg for water.  Next I called my advisor to admit the loss of the key and ask for a rescue with the spare key in her office.  That just wouldn’t work, given her schedule and how far out of the way this place was.  Before we disconnected Dave suggested she point the electronic key at her cell phone and press “Unlock” while I pointed my phone at the car, it’s an idea we’d all heard and it seemed worth a shot.  It doesn’t work, the jerk that started that myth is a jerk.  Finally I called my boyfriend on the chance he could leave work, get the spare key from my advisor and then drive to Out-Of-the-Way, Utah to rescue me.  He could and did, but having to ask so many people for help represented a real low point in my studies.  As we waited for our coworker with the water I had lots of time to think about just how dumb it was to put the key in my pocket.  I knew you shouldn’t take things that can’t get muddy into the wetlands, that includes things that will hide easily in the mud.  I ranted a little bit about how lame the pockets on women’s pants are, even the work pants (super lame), but this was entirely preventable and I was the one who could have prevented it. 

Lesson 4 – Appreciate your people. 

Despite my serious screw up there are some hero’s in this story.  First is our phenomenal technician who was willing to literally carry around the 50 lbs of sand required to install a piezometer without complaint and dealt with inevitable mishaps with a positive attitude.  To this day, when I run into troubles in the field I think “What would Dave do?” and the answer is never that he would sit down and cry.  Second, our co-worker who brought the most amazing water either of us would ever taste, a two-liter bottle of ice with a smack of leftover root beer.  Mmmm, it’s never gotten better than that water on that windy day.  Finally, my boyfriend who was willing to interrupt his work day for a three-hour drive to come save me.  Having to ask for a rescue is unpleasant but it provides an opportunity to recognize the people who help me out physically and emotionally in this silly scientific process. 

I suppose this is all just a way to reiterate the General Rule of Field Work (otherwise known as Murphy’s Law): what can go wrong will go wrong, deal with it. 

*You may be wondering why there is so much detail here, it’s because I re-create that walk three times every year, still looking for the key. 2015 may be the year I find that silly thing.  

The Great PhD Adventure

**Reposted from my personal blog.  

The other day one of my friends told me she doesn't know what I do.  My sister has told me the same thing before.  I even have a wetland manager I interact with who doesn't know what I do.  Sometimes I don't know either.  It's hard to remember sometimes that everyone I meet doesn't know or care about Great Salt Lake wetland ecology as much as I do.  As the conversation with my friend continued, we discussed Radiolab, and how great they are at bringing science to the masses.  I'm a big believer in making science relatable and in helping people understand what I do and why they should care, but that's hard work.  Everything about graduate school and academia drives you to focus on gaining acceptance from faculty members by catering to their area of expertise and to woo funding agencies by closely following their jargon-laden calls for proposals.  All of that aside, I can't think of a way to make my research Radiolab-cool, but I don't have any impending deadlines and thought I'd take a shot at making my research understandable here on the blog.

The official title of my project is "Determining the impact of impoundment and water management on Great Salt Lake wetland condition."  Blarg.  Long titles can be descriptive, but they're also mind numbing.  To show you why you might care about my project I'll deconstruct the title to talk about four things: 1) wetlands are amazing, 2) Great Salt Lake wetlands are extra amazing, 3) impounded wetlands are intriguing, and 4) wetland condition is a way to answer my pressing questions.

1) Wetlands are amazing.  Wetlands are soggy places.  Some are wet and soggy all year long and some are only muddy for part of the year, but they're all wet long enough to be different from terrestrial environments like forests and deserts, but not flooded deep enough to be considered aquatic environments like a lake, river, or ocean.  Wetlands are the swamps, marshes, bogs, and quagmires you've all hopefully wandered into at some point.  Wetlands are considered ecotones, they're transitional ecosystems between terrestrial and aquatic environments and share qualities of both.  In the larger scheme of things, they look like this:

Upland, wetland, and aquatic ecosystems.  The black line represents the soil surface, the blue line represents the water surface.  

There are three basic features of wetlands that make them unique and awesome: water, wetland plants, and hydric soils.  Water is what makes it all happen; water tends to be shallow in wetlands (less than 30 cm or 1 foot) and slow moving (like in ponds).  All plants need water, but having too much water or water that flucutates a lot is stressful to plants because it makes attaining oxygen difficult.  Only the toughest, coolest plants grow in wetlands, they're called hydrophytes or water-loving plants and have special adaptations that allow them to survive in wetlands.

• Pickleweed (Salicornia rubra) - my favorite - can live in water and very salty places by storing water and salt in its tissues.  Its other common name is swampfire because it changes from green to red during the fall.  Pickleweed can also be used to salt or preserve foods.  

• Alkali bulrush (Schoenoplectus maritimus) thrives in wetlands with fluctuating water levels because it can reproduce by seeds on dry ground and through rhizomes that create another stem of bulrush that is still connected to the original plant under flooded conditions.  In this way, alkali bulrush can form large, single species stands.    

• Hardstem bulrush (Schoenoplectus acutus) can grow in deeply flooded wetlands because its stems are full of air pockets call aerenchyma that allow the stem to stay erect until it grows up through the water surface.  These aerenchyma can then send oxygen from the parts of the plants above the water to the submerged parts.  

Lack of oxygen due to flooding also makes wetland soils different.  Without oxygen bacterial decomposers work slower and organic matter tends to accumulate as muck (which is exactly like it sounds) or peat.  The bacteria that survive in wetland soils often have to use an element other oxygen to complete cell processes that generate energy.  Nitrogen, manganese, iron, and sulfur are converted to different chemical forms by bacteria in flooded soils and that causes changes in color (in the case of manganese and iron) and smell (in the case of sulfur); these are the characteristics of hydric soils.

Wetland soils are the best!

If that isn't enough to convince you wetlands are cool, they're also great places to spot birds!  Ducks, wading birds, colonial nesting birds, small birds, big birds, colorful birds, brown birds....  They come from all around (literally, because these birds are migratory) to eat, nest, and rest in the wetlands.  This is especially true around the Great Salt Lake.

Birds!

2) Great Salt Lake wetlands are extra amazing.  Water is everything in wetlands.  Well, water is really everything everywhere, a post for another time.  Water is rare in the deserts of the western United States so wetlands are also rare, generally only comprising 1% of the total landscape.  But around the Great Salt Lake (GSL) there are more than 400,000 acres of wetlands, primarily at the river deltas.  When most people think of the GSL they see barren salt flats and water too salty for anything but brine shrimp, but that's only part of the story.

The saltiest part of the Great Salt Lake

Three major rivers supply GSL: the Bear, Weber and Jordan.  The rivers begin high in the Uintah and Wasatch mountains and descend 6,000 feet before reaching the pancake flat expanses of the GSL, where there is less than a foot of elevation fall per mile of distance.  In fact, while the GSL covers around 1,700 square miles (more during wet years and much less during droughts) its deepest point is only 30 feet.  When rivers meet these flat spaces they spread out into meandering deltas that often support expansive wetlands.

Great Salt Lake wetlands

The wetlands of the GSL have the freshest water closest to the rivers and the wetlands get saltier as they get closer to the main body of the GSL or farther upslope from the rivers.  The salinity of the water, as well as how deep and how long the water stays around, determine which plants grow in wetlands.  Where water is deepest and most permanent and fresh you get open water wetlands full of submerged aquatic vegetation (or SAV) commonly referred to as pond weeds, which grow completely under the water.  Ducks love this stuff because they can eat the seeds and roots, which are full of nutritious stuff.

Sago pondweed above and below

Where water is shallower, usually less than 1 foot, you find emergent marshes; these are the wetlands I study.  They're called emergent because the plants here grow up through (or emerge from) the water.  Cattails, bulrushes, sedges, and grasses are all types of emergent plants.  Water regimes, the patterns of flooding and drying within the wetland, can be very different in emergent wetlands, so emergent plants have the coolest adaptations to life in the water.  Birds love to nest in emergent wetlands, where they can find the materials to build and hide their nests.

Duck nests in emergent wetlands

The saltiest wetlands that are flooded least often are called playas.  Some playas are so salty the soil surface glitters with a crust of salt.  Playa soils might only be muddy during the peak of spring runoff or after a big storm, but when they're wet they're an amazing place to be.  Playa wetlands are composed strictly of salt loving plants called halophytes.  Shorebirds often nest on playas and larger groups of birds visit after rain storms bring out big blooms of bugs to eat.

That's a wetland full of surprises right there.  While it looks solid, you couldn't drive a truck across it without getting stuck

The water in the rivers that supply GSL is primarily from snowpack, every year there is a pulse of high runoff as mountain snow melts, the rest of the year there is much less water available.  A series of reservoirs have been built on the rivers to capture all of this snowmelt water during the spring and then release it into canals and pipelines when people need it most (like during the irrigation season for crops).  These rivers support the vast majority of Utah's 3 million people who live on the Wasatch Front, and extracting all the water they need from the rivers has caused significant changes to the deltas at the very end of the rivers, generally leaving less water for wetlands when it is needed most during the summer.

Wetland drought is real, my friends.  

3) Impounded wetlands are intriguing.  GSL wetlands were receiving less water than they needed more than 100 years ago and that started causing trouble for migratory birds, who couldn't find enough food and nesting habitat some years and often died because of diseases in the places they were congregating.  One solution to maintaining wet wetlands with little water was to impound wetlands. People who managed wetlands, primarily people who enjoyed hunting, built large dikes around the wetlands that would capture water when it was plentiful during spring runoff and hold the water in as summertime drought came.  This turned out to be a pretty good idea and was widely adopted around the GSL, just look

All those ponds with straight boundaries are impounded wetlands, natural wetlands don't have straight borders.

Once you've created an impounded wetland you can manage it like a shallow reservoir to accomplish many habitat goals.  If a manager wants lots of open water wetlands full of SAV they might keep the water three feet deep for the whole year.  Another manager might want lots of emergent wetlands to support nesting birds so they would keep the water at a shallower level and draw the water level down below the soil surface during the summer.  Wetland managers with impounded wetlands can also manipulate the salinity level in their wetlands by bringing in more or less freshwater.

Two large impoundments one mile apart - the left flooded deeply, the right drawn down during late summer

Really, there are many different management possibilities in impounded wetlands.  With almost 200,000 acres of impounded wetlands around GSL and a large group of managers who may or may not talk to each other about what they do and the results they see from their management, it's difficult to know exactly what the best strategy for managing water in an impounded wetland is.  When I was a research technician at USU (read: helper monkey) I spent a lot of time in these big impoundments wondering if the wetlands outside the dikes were different.  I also wondered about the impact of the different management strategies I was seeing, some people chose to keep their wetlands flooded all the time, other people didn't have enough water available to keep their wetlands flooded at all that year.  I wondered how managers were making decisions about what to do with their water and how they measured the impact of those decisions....  I had a lot of questions about these impounded wetlands so I decided to do three years of field work in GSL wetlands and then write a four chapter dissertation on the whole thing.

Un-impounded wetlands

4) Wetland condition is a way to answer my pressing questions.  
 (Yeah, there's a song about condition, but it doesn't sound like they're talking about wetlands.)
Once I committed to a PhD project trying to figure out this whole impounded wetland business I had to figure out a way to measure the impact of impoundment and condition assessments seemed to be the way to go.   My condition assessment is based on the vegetation within each wetland, which I will survey for at least three years.  Based on a survey of the plant community, I hope to be able to say how much a site deviates from a natural state and how stressed a wetland is based on the plant traits mentioned in section 1. In this way, I can judge each wetland (and I'm surveying 50 of them) as excellent, good, eh, and poor.  For example, a wetland in excellent condition would be composed only of awesome, native species (no weeds here) and have a water regime that looks normal (not too deep, not too dry).  A poor condition wetland might have lots of weeds and spend too much of the year too dry to support cooler wetland plants.

From left to right: Excellent, Good, Eh, Poor

I have to do this for at least three years because I don't know what the most natural state is, or whether it changes during a flood year or drought year.  I also didn't start with a good idea of what the water regime looked like and would like to track that for a few years to make sure I get it right.  Every summer I go out to 50 sites scattered from Corinne to Saltair and look at what plant species are there and how much of the wetland they cover.  I also dug soil pits to see how the soil might be different and I've installed piezometers to measure water level.  Piezometers are wells I made that are stuck in each wetland as deep as three feet.  In each piezometer I put a pressure transducer that measures the weight of the water in the well every hour, it then calculates that weight as a water depth.  They're dang snazzy and show exactly how water levels change according to seasonal changes or management actions.  Just look at the graphs I can put together with them.

Examples of wetland water regimes put together based on my piezometer data.

With all of this plant, soil, and hydrology data I hope to not only say what condition GSL wetlands are in, but also what the impact of impounding and managing water is on wetland condition.  And to get at all those questions about what managers are doing with their water I'm going to conduct interviews with them.  I'm pretty sure that these wetland manager's heads are full of all sorts of interesting and important observations about the wetlands they manage and I want to hear it all.

I've only got preliminary results so far, but I can see that impounded wetlands are different from un-impounded wetlands because they are usually flooded for a longer part of the year.  Because the water level is higher in the impoundments there are more wetland plants.  In wetlands where the water level gets really low (more than 2 feet below the soil surface) I've found more species of plants you would usually find in drier places (I call them weeds, because I don't think they belong in my wetlands).

Nodding beggarstick, a plant not often found in impounded wetlands.  

Now that you've read through all of this, I need a favor from you.  Will you please do your snow dances or say your prayers about snow or send out your good snow ju-ju into the universe to help us toward a good water year in Utah?  Please?  Without a good winter this year I will have to do four years of field research, rather than three, because I need to see what GSL wetlands look like in a flood year, or at least a normal year.  Since I started my project we've had two pretty severe drought years.  I NEED MORE SNOW!  Another year of field work wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would definitely delay attainment of my doctorate, and I want it ASAP.

So there you have it, why I would study GSL wetlands and how I intend to determine the impact of impoundment.  And my desperate plea for snow.