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The Bog Haunter

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The Bog Haunter TTHHEE BBOOGG HHAAUUNNTTEERR the newsletter of the Friends of the Cedarburg Bog Volume 4, Number 3 Summer, 2009 IN THE STRING BOG’S WATER How do they cope? Life in the “poor fen, the Cedarburg Bog is not The center of the Cedarburg Bog Cedarburg Bog isn’t for sissies. The mineral-rich. wetland is occupied by a string bog, leaves of bog plants may have fewer also called a “patterned bog” or a pores (stomata), limiting water loss. Its pH, overall, is neutral (around 7) “ribbed fen.” It is characterized by Leaves may be small and thick, or to slightly alkaline. Within the string alternating low, wet swales, packed they may have waxy coverings, bog, the mounds of sphagnum moss with sedges and wildflowers, and undersides that are coated with are acidic, as are the decaying cedar raised strings - slightly dryer ridges hairs, or edges that are curled under and tamarack needles on the raised of peat that support stunted to ensure that when water is strings; but overall the “hard” tamarack and white cedar. With absorbed by their roots, it is not groundwater seeping in keeps the each step you take toward the center easily lost through the leaves. wetland from turning acidic. Most of the Bog, the plants you pass are Similar adaptations are found in days, the word “current” would be an increasingly challenged by their desert plants. exaggeration. environment. The string bog is home to a variety Springs contribute only a small For plants, the paradoxes of life in of carnivorous plants. Purple pitcher amount of the water held in the Bog, the string bog are two. First, they plants, round-leaved and the very but their water is high in minerals, grow in peat, the semi-decayed rare linear-leaved sundews, and five and its influence on the water remains of hundreds of generations species of bladderworts grow here. chemistry is huge. Precipitation is of bog plants (the Bog started filling These “meat-eaters” supplement the slightly acid, and the pH of the Bog with dead plants as the glaciers nutrients they can get from soil and water will be mildly acidic after a big retreated), but recycled nutrients are water with minerals from the tiny rainfall or snowmelt, but the not readily available. Second, invertebrates they digest. buffering effect of spring water will although they grow “with their feet return the pH to neutral within a few in the water,” these plants have weeks. difficulty absorbing it. Plants in and around the Bog The common factor is oxygen, or the produce an exuberance of potential lack of it. Oxygen levels in the offspring. Seeds abound - airborne, waterlogged peat are low-to-non- hitchhiking on the coats of coyotes, existent. The primary mechanisms carried in the guts of birds. Each for mixing air into water, currents fall, Blue jays gather acorns and and the action of wind over the beech nuts from the beech woods surface, don’t work when the water True bogs get their water only from and fly east over the bog to cache is kept still by the sponge-like peat. precipitation and run-off from them – somewhere. Many bacteria and the invertebrates surrounding lands. They have no that are responsible for the outlet, so they have no current. Since most seeds carry a starter breakdown of organic matter need Often mineral-poor, the slow supply of food for their embryos, oxygen. Low oxygen levels result in decomposition of plants in their they may have enough energy to a pokey rate of decomposition. stalled waters produces acidic root and grow in the Bog for a while. conditions. One professor calls these “hopefuls” Root hairs, like those slender “hairs” that survive for a few years in the on the side of a carrot, are the only The Cedarburg Bog is a “fen” not a wrong habitat “the living dead.” The part of the root that absorbs water bog because in addition to rain and true bog specialists will persist in the and minerals. As oxygen decreases, snow, it gets some groundwater challenging conditions of the string fewer root hairs are produced, which, seeping in from springs, and an bog because they can. in turn, restricts water uptake. Out outlet stream in its southwest corner of necessity, the roots of most bog provides drainage. The definition of FOCB STEWARDS plants are shallow – restricted to the fens often specifies that sedges and Want to help? Please contact oxygenated layer of the peat. other non-woody plants are the [email protected] or call 262-675- dominant vegetation, and that the 6844 to find out what projects are in The same deficiency limits the kinds water contains magnesium and the works and how you can help the and the locations of aquatic animals calcium compounds. Classified as a Friends with stewardship and other that occur here. projects. IF YOU (RE)BUILD IT….. barrels installed in the ‘80s, so at assistance. The Guard choppers It has taken 11 years, $25,000 worth just $8 apiece we decided to replace returned in May 2008 to remove of materials, a pair of Black Hawk them all,” Reinartz said. By the end the last of the old railroad ties helicopters and as many as 2,000 of 2002, the project reached all the and other boardwalk materials hours of volunteer labor, but the way to the second island. It would from the East Island. rebuilding of the Cedarburg Bog resume five years later in the fall of boardwalk has been completed. 2007 with work on the last section **The volunteers who donated “The last of the loop is completed, so east of East Island. 1,500 to 2,000 hours of free I guess we can finally say we are labor. They were drawn from the done,” said Jim Reinartz, director of ranks of the Friends, the Field the University of Wisconsin- Station volunteer list, the Milwaukee Field Station located at Riveredge Habitat Healers and the 2,500-acre mosaic of wetlands the Sierra Club. and shallow lakes. “We still have a few teaching platforms to add over Looking back on the more than the course of the summer, but that’s decade-long project, Reinartz says all that’s left.” he remains happy with the decision to do all the work “in-house.” “Going The Cedarburg Bog is one of the through such a sensitive area, we largest and most diverse wetlands in There were several critical parts to wanted to be the contractor so we southern Wisconsin. At its heart lies the project’s success: could be very fussy about our the southernmost string bog in North impact. We could recognize and America. This type of patterned **The Friends of the Cedarburg protect a particularly valuable little vegetation typically is found in the Bog handled the fundraising for hummock that a teacher has used to large peat lands of northern Canada. the project. “The total cost for show some rare plant or a But without the three-quarter-mile materials was $25,000, but only microcosm of the bog world.” long boardwalk and trail that span a 10% of that was state-funded,” series of wetlands, connect the bog’s Reinartz said. “We didn’t have to Boardwalk by the Numbers upland rim to two islands, and then ask the taxpayers. Instead it Volunteer hours for construction: loops through the center of a state was the generous donations of 1,500 to 2,000 natural area, scientists and the the people who use and Number of deck screws: public would have little access. The appreciate the bog.” 15,000 bog is home to more than 35 higher Number of bolts: plant species and 19 species of **Leading the way were some 1,100 breeding birds that reach or are near 85 friends and family of the late Weight of material airlifted into bog: the southern extent of their range in Don Bezella who donated to a 19,000 pounds Wisconsin. memorial fund commemorating Estimated life of new boardwalk: Don and his love for the bog. On 30-40 years The new boardwalk is actually the September 14, 2008, a bog’s third. The first one was built in dedication was held at the -- By Carl Schwartz 1970, using railroad ties and steel Friends’ annual meeting to erect drums to keep the planks afloat atop a special sign a half-mile out in PHRAGMITES - COMMON REED the bog’s watery mat of peat. Over the bog. The Friends also We’ve all seen them growing in the years, field station staff and secured a Bezadny Grant from roadside ditches, clumps of grass, volunteers replaced every plank and the state Natural Resources head-high and taller, topped by barrel – switching to plastic barrels Foundation. feathery, reddish seed heads. in the mid 1980s. Despite the showy seeds, they **The friends were able to colonize by sending out dense, But as the heavier-than-water old arrange for 21 Army National interlocking suckers that can extend railroad ties continued to sink away Guard personnel and two Black up to 50 feet in a year, and the when they broke through the mat, a Hawk helicopters from the 1st impenetrable stands they produce decision was made in 1998 to Battalion, 147th Aviation Unit out crowd out native plants. Phragmites literally start over and re-engineer of Madison (along with four or Common Reed (Phragmites australis the boardwalk. members of the West Bend or P. communis) is a cosmopolitan Guard unit’s 832nd Medical plant found in North America, Asia, “We really did not have an Company) to lift in 56 12-foot- Europe.
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