The Cajun Prairie: a place worth caring about

The Cajun Prairie is a miraculous and fabled place.  Though only "remnants" remain of the original coastal grasslands of Louisiana (of what once was a vast wild acreage), there are a few plots that have been restored by a small group of dedicated and mighty stewards. They had a meeting recently last weekend August 11, 2012 and I made a point go meet the people and see their work. The list of attendees was a veritable Who's Who of Louisiana botany and plant conservation.

I couldn't possibly aspire to tell the whole story of this landscape tonight. And a book has been written and published recently that does that all too well.

Get a copy!

But I found this USGS/USFWS document which you can download for free: "Paradise Lost?" that tells some of the story and contains lists and pictures of different plants and animals found there. Oddly, I found it while searching the net for an ID on a wildflower. Who would ever find these jewels of information floating around on the net? They seem to me like messages in a bottle, adrift in a large and indiscriminate sea.

The following is a kind of photo essay on the prairie. I will try to write more on the prairie after I finish Dr. Vidrine's book and have some time to absorb the immensity of the history (and tragedy and comeback) of Louisiana's first meadows.

Eryngium yuccifolia "Rattlesnake Master"

Solidago sp. "Goldenrod"

Silphium laciniatum "Compass Plant" and Gaura lindheimeri "Lindheimer's Beeblosom"

Helianthus mollis "Ashy Sunflower"

Liatris spp. "Blazing Star"

Rhexia sp. "Meadowbeauty"

Hydrolea ovata "Blue Waterleaf"

Agraulis vanillae "Gulf Fritillary"

Hibiscus sp. "Native Hibiscus"

Passiflora incarnata "Purple Passionflower"

Centrosema virginianum "Butterfly Pea"

Malcom Vidrine, the author of Cajun Prairie, a man who has spent much of his life working to restore Louisiana prairie, invited me to his house.

Needless to say, the man loves prairies. He has turned most of his yard into one and propagates milkweed species to plant around his house for the monarchs and other butterflies.

Asclepias spp. - Many varieties of milkweed

Asclepisa tuberosa "Butterfly Weed"

Bidens sp. "Tickseed"

He made a point to show us the wild ancestor of cultivated corn, Eastern Gamagrass.

Tripsacum dactyloides "Eastern Gamagrass"

Monarda punctata "Horsebalm" and Chamaecrista fasciculata "Partridge Pea"

On my way out of town I noticed a National Park Service building: Prairie Acadian Cultural Center. Strange, I thought. I'm used to seeing these kind of interpretive centers in natural areas. The National Parks does a good job telling the story of people through the lens of the land and I've been a big fan of their interpretive programs for some time. I watched a wonderful presentation  by a very expressive man on how to make authentic cracklins. Afterwards I searched the museum for prairie remnants. There was a little bit of it mixed throughout, but no contiguous blocks of information on the natural communities. Certainly, I am not blaming anyone for this. The center was amazingly curated and stuck to its cultural purposes. But how wonderful would it be to marry the two, wholeheartedly? To visualize the deep connection the Cajuns must have had with the land, living so close to it? To see the land as they saw it, flower by flower?

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O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain...

The Louisiana Naturalist Network: a vision

The need for a sense of community is important, yet sometimes taken for granted. Groups formed under localized, circumstancial conditions always run the risk of extinction when not replenished with a diversity of ideas and members. Alas, human communities, like their wild counterparts, are subject to the same threats of fragmentation, isolation and genetic degradation.

Aldo Leopold's land ethic " enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals; or collectively: the land." In that sense, I feel that a naturalist community can, by seeking place-based knowledge, actively pursue the land ethic. Through direct interaction and learning about natural communities, we are granted that singular sense familiarity and belonging that is the hallmark of the naturalist experience, what E.O Wilson calls the "naturalist's trance." But what does a human community look like?

As in a healthy forest, I like to think a healthy community has a distinct structure and composition. The analogy can be applied elsewhere, but a regional naturalist community, I think, is significantly "forest-like."

Consider their diversity first: there are birders, wildflower watchers, log flippers and snake wranglers, entomologists,  mycologists, geologists, paddlers and waders, lovers of streams and lakes, cloud gazers and star gazers, edible/useful plant gatherers, herbalists,   edible/useful plant gatherers, ethnobotanists, hunters/sportsmen and more. There are also many generalists that seem to get into everything. Considering the above list, the naturalist community as a whole is a large and powerful force to be reckoned with. They are spread across the state and working in a variety of capacities, some of them as professional biologists, others as computer programmers, with a compulsion for the The naturalist diversity is unique in that it parallels the diversity of the natural communities.

But there is structure to consider. In the forest there are old and triumphant trees. These have stood the test of time and witnessed the many changes over the years: storms, droughts, floods. I see these grandfather trees in the likes of legendary Charles Allen, Malcom Vidrine and Kelby Ouchley (to name a few). They loom tall and hold many stories of the past and present. Canopy trees protect the forest floor from the harsh heat and dessication and provide the seeds that are the bounty of diverse lifeforms. They also provide genetic information that is the germ of the future. Yet a community cannot thrive with the giants alone. There is an understory: maturing trees to take the place of the elders when the canopy opens up once more. Then there are the young recruits near the forest floor, thin and meager in the dappled light of all that waves above them.

Me, I am a sapling at best and a generalist among many experts in the conservation movement of Louisiana.

But as an ecology-minded person, I take great interest in the structure and diversity of our Louisiana community. The experience and generosity of the "grandfather trees" through the years has given us great books and restored natural areas. I am anxious to identify all of them, thank them and celebrate their life's work. But I also take great interest in recruitment of the young. The future of the forest lies in the seeds that germinate and thrive. Ecologists today know that a forest ecosystem is at its best when it sustains the largest variety of age classes and species. So I wonder today: What is our forest made of? How deep, how wide do these roots go?

After much thought, I've decided to create an informal group known as the Louisiana Naturalist Network (LNN) to see if I can't get at the heart of these questions and more. I've begun with a new facebook group that I hope can collect the many faces of this burgeoning community, the young and the old alike.

Louisiana Naturalist Network

The idea is to help people with a variety of nature interests find and recognize each other and share information. Ideally, the group could organize outings and collectively support conservation initiatives--a sort of carrot mob for biodiversity. Yet I would be happy if this group only succeeded in matching one person with one new resource they did not know previously existed. I do think, however, that there is potential for much more and I look forward to seeing what becomes of this simple idea.

When the Louisiana Master Naturalist Program comes into full swing and is ready to give its first classes, I hope naturalists around the state will already know about LMNP and be ready to take advantage of their training. This program, if it succeeds, has the potential to unlock a powerful force in Louisiana because it opens the doors of conservation and place-based education to the average citizen, who may or may not care to ever have a degree in the biological sciences. We need alternative routes to outdoor learning and conservation. We need alternative routes to meeting each other.

Please share your thoughts on this essay below. Where do you work? What is your passion?

Insect Day at the Arboretum

Insect Day at the Arboretum was on July 14th, 2012:

This kind of thing really deserves everyone's attention, because it is one of very few family-oriented biodiversity events in Louisiana. Insects are very charismatic, photogenic and accessible animals when it comes to education. They happen to also be the most abundant and diverse group of animals on earth. There are more than 750,000 insect species described, but new ones are discovered all the time. Some scientists estimate there are at least 1.5 million more species to be discovered.

The event took place at the magnificent Louisiana State Arboretum, a beautiful piece of land with mature Beech-Magnolia forests and Cypress-Tupelo Swamps. The place is a botanical wonderland with a very interesting history. I went on a field trip with The Naturalist Club at LSU in 2010 and immediately fell in love with the place. They have regular interpretive programming and extensive trails that connect with Chicot State Park.

Here Linda Auld aka The Bug Lady shows off her backyard residents: live caterpillars munching on their host plants.

Here one had emerged just a few hours before I arrived. A Gulf Fritillary whose host plant is the beautiful Purple Passion Flower.

Agraulis vanillae "Gulf Fritillary"

Left to Right: Gulf Fritillary munching on Passion Flower and Black Swallowtail on fennel.

Here are the Barney brother's behind the table, two of the head organizers.

I met Michael Barney while volunteering for an amazing group of people at the Bayou Vermilion District's Bayou Operations in Lafayette (please check them out!). He invited me to a special event they have for all their entomology friends every year, called Bugstock. There I met his brother, Steve Barney and many other amazing characters as we hunted the woods and meadows for robberflies, swamp darner dragonflies and spiny micrathena spiders.  I have been a little buggy every since. 

Andrew Barron, a primitive skills enthusiast, happens to be part of the bug gang and so tags along at many of their events, adding lagniappe in the form of basket making, flint knapping, fire starting and ethnobotany.

  Here, Andrew starts a fire with a few pieces of wood, some tender and his hands in under two minutes.

He used very specific types of wood for each part of this bow and drill method, which I found really interesting. 

Later I went for a hike and found this newly emerged Luna Moth, a true giant.

After noticing a katydid, I couldn't help but point it out to a kid and her father who were hiking the trails.

Microcentrum sp. "Anglewing Katydid"

I told them the story of the katydid males forming choruses at night, in two separate groups, each with their own synchronized stridulations. The cumulative affect of both the choruses gives us the staggered, repetitive three-syllable ka-ty-did, recognized in the group's namesake, the Common True Katydid. (Click here to listen) You can hear them at night throughout the south, even in older neighborhood's of  large cities in Louisiana. There are, however, several different kinds of katydids, each with its own unique sound. The one above is some kind of Anglewing.

One of my favorite finds on this hike was a uniquely bright orange spider.

I later found out that this was a kind of ant mimic spider in the family Corinnidae that lacks a common name. 

Castianeira amoena

This spider apparently mimics what is commonly called the Velvet Ant or Cow Killer (Dasymutilla occidentalis) which is actually not an ant but a wasp that mimics an ant. So it is a multi-tiered mimicry: spider-wasp-ant mimic! Ant mimics do not make webs like the typical spiders do, but hunt on the ground in the leaf litter, seeking refuge in specially built silken retreats. Some find protection among ants, others prey on them, some both. This spider may not look like an ant to you, but there is a lot more to ant mimicry than mere appearance. Ant mimics also behave like ants and hold up their front legs like antennae or have dark coloration on tips of their front legs that make their limbs appear not to touch the ground, like antennae.(Click here for more science on ant mimicry or "myrmecomorphy")

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Back at the nature center there were many things to see, including collections from LSU's Museum of Natural History, showing a small sample of the thousands of species of insects native to Louisiana.

 The Barney brothers had some beautiful live specimens, all of them Louisiana natives and collected recently.

Aphonopelma hentzi Texas Brown Tarantula

 Some others that I wish I had taken pictures of that really surprised me were native Striped Bark Scorpions and the Giant Red-headed Centipedes.

In the early evening we watch a documentary about beekeeping and the colony collapse syndrome. It was a quirky but informative film: Queen of the Sun, sponsored by LSU at Eunice's Continuing Education. A sweet old Cajun beekeeper was there to share his story and passion for local honey. It was really inspiring to see a man of his age with such a young fighting attitude against the status quo. Everyone was in love with honey and wanted to get their own colony. Needless to say, the man sold out of the few jars of honey he brought and I eat delicious Peanut Butter and Honey sandwiches almost everyday for lunch!

After dark, light sheets were put out to look for nocturnal creatures.

We found a number of exciting things, but most unusual were the animals of the order Neuroptera. Many of these are fairly common, but mostly likely misunderstood for their striking similarity to other groups of insects. Many neuropterans are good examples of convergent evolution, where two species evolve similar characteristics despite descending from separate lineages. Take this guy for example:

Ululodes sp. "Owlfly"

You may be thinking to yourself, that is a dragonfly! But look closer. Dragonflies do not have those long antennae, nor the fuzzy faces.  

 

Owlflies are nocturnal too, unlike dragonflies. The are probably more commonly known for their pugnacious larvae, some of which are called antlions, because they make funnels in sand and fine dry soil to form pit fall traps for trapping ants. Click here to watch videos of antlions making their tunnels and learn more. Here is a picture of an antlion I saw on a trip to the Indiana Dunes in 2011:

The next guy you might think was a preying mantis but they are not in the order of mantids (Mantodea) at all but once again Neuroptera.

Leptomantispa pulchella "Brown Mantidfly"

Michael Ferro, the coauthor of Dragonflies and Damselflies of Louisiana was there to tell us all about them.

  

Mike served as a nice encyclopedic reference and share the interesting life history of the Brown Mantidfly with us. The larvae begin their lives hitchhiking on spiders and feeding on their blood ("hemolymph" as its called in arthropods). Here they wait and transform, shedding exoskeletons and maturing, until the spider lays eggs, which they eat fresh, before undergoing further transformation to adulthood. (See this paper for more science.)

Zeugomantispa minuta "Green Mantisfly"

This ravenous Green Mantisfly also has a fondness for spiders but the larvae dwell inside the spider egg case as a parasitoid of the burgeoning colony. The species of spider tends to be very specific so it is interesting to think of the complicated life cycles these creatures live.

The entomologists there had many things to say about the smaller insects too, but much of that has drifted out of memory. We found this guy, a beautiful longhorn beetle. There was a group of kids there collecting these larger beetles for their "beetle tank", a place where the apparently try to keep these animal alive in a beetle city.

The collected Ox Beetles, Stag Beetles and Predaceous Diving Beetles too. It was nice to see the kids out having a good time and interacting with real scientists. It was nice to see the scientists struggling also to explain complicated things in simple ways. Seeing those kinds of bridges form was very satisfying and tells me that this event is a real success.