Inventory and Assessment Plan for Stewardship and Monitoring at Hitchcock Nature Center Gerould Wilhelm Conservation Design Forum And Laura Rericha Conservation Research Institute September 2012 1 Inventory and Assessment Plan for Stewardship and Monitoring Hitchcock Nature Center 27792 Ski Hill Loop Honey Creek, Iowa 51542 Cover Photo: Penstemon grandiflorus on Badger Ridge 2 Hitchcock Nature Center Honey Creek, Iowa 3 Table of Contents Introduction …………………………………………………………………... 5 The Cultural Connection …………………………………………………... 7 Soil and Water …………………………………………………………………... 7 Stewardship and Pedagogy ………………………………………………….. 10 Inventory and Assessment ………………………………………………….. 11 Vascular Plants ………………………………………………………………….. 13 Timbered Remnants ………………………………………………………….. 16 Prairie Remnants ………………………………………………………….. 17 Undifferentiated Timber ………………………………………………….. 18 Lichens ………………………………………………………………………….. 19 Insects ………………………………………………………………………….. 20 Stewardship Plan ………………………………………………………….. 25 Stewardship Goals and Strategies ……………………………………….…. 25 Application of Fire ………………………………………………………….. 27 Thicket Clearing ………………………………………………………….. 29 Grazing Implementation ………………………………………………….. 30 Monitoring Protocol ………………………………………………………….. 33 Vascular Plants ………………………………………………………………….. 34 Thickets ………………………………………………………………….. 36 Non-native Species ………………………………………………………….. 36 Insects ………………………………………………………………………….. 38 Timing of Burns and Weed Control ………………………………….. 39 Cryptogamic Crust ………………………………………………………….. 40 Hydrology ………………………………………………………………….. 40 The Land Steward ………………………………………………………….. 43 Literature Cited ………………………………………………………….. 46 4 List of Tables: Table 1. Principal Vegetation Types ………………………………………….. 15 Table 2. Sorensen Coefficients of Similarity ………………………………….. 15 Table 3. Plants Conservative to Woodlands ………………………………….. 16 Table 4. Plants Conservative to Prairies ………………………………………….. 17 Table 5. Major Plant Communities ………………………………………….. 18 Table 6. Undifferentiated Timber ………………………………………….. 19 Table 7. Comparison of Floristic Metrics at Two Prairie Remnants ………….. 35 Table 8. Comparison of Degraded Prairies with Nearby Prairie Remnant ….. 35 Table 9. Relative Ubiquity of Invasive Species. ………………………………….. 37 Appendices: Appendix A. Inventory and Assessment of Vascular Plants and Lichens Appendix B. Inventory and Assessment of Insects Appendix C. Floristic Quality Metrics Appendix D. Maps Appendix E. General Land Survey Notes Appendix F. Sustaining our Natural Heritage, By Douglas M. Ladd 5 Gaura coccinea 6 Introduction The principal and irreplaceable natural assets of Hitchcock Nature Center at Honey Creek, Iowa, include the aboriginal landscapes of timber and prairie that are unique and characteristic of the Loess Hills of Iowa. It is evident from the work of Novacek, Roosa, and Pusateri (1985) that not only are the plants and animals of the Loess Hills singular to any biota elsewhere in the world, the vegetation of Hitchcock Nature Center is unique even within and among the remnants of Iowa. As an example, the tree diversity of Pottawattamie County is only 72% similar to that of Woodbury County. Clearly, it is the manifest goal and responsibility for the land custodians of the globally significant natural features of the 1270-acre Hitchcock Nature Center to steward the land such that the aboriginal landscapes and their biodiversity be rehabilitated to sustain from generation to generation. These remnant landscapes developed throughout the Holocene, their flora and fauna derived from a continent-wide, unbroken fabric of Eastern North American biodiversity. From the approximately 5,000 or so species of vascular plants native to the Midwest, we have recorded about 360 that, in unique combination, have coalesced into the communities now evident at Hitchcock Nature Center. The remnant landscapes of Hitchcock Nature Center preserve a rich array of insects and birds as well, just as singularly disposed. This irreplaceable treasure trove of biodiversity, however, is not a museum where the objects sit as identifiable individuals in relative perpetuity in glass cases or on pedestals, mere abstract artifacts of a world that we could take or leave in accordance with the fads or technologies of the day. Rather, it is a beautiful living warp and weft of ecological complexity in which the plants and animals thrive only when their time-honored circumstances are in a familiar harmony. The extent to which the infinitely complex weave of the earth upon which we depend becomes tattered is the extent to which the fabric of our own existence is frayed. The Cultural Connection The land now known as Iowa, was described by Meriwether Lewis from his vantage point along the Missouri River as some of the more beautiful he had ever beheld. It was not, however, an empty, quiescent backdrop of scenic wonder placed here to ease the eye. It was a lived-in landscape, populated not only by plants and animals but also by the human beings who were native here and had been living here throughout the Holocene. These native people owed their existence to resources that were maintained and stewarded within walking distance---in accordance with choices made by them for their survival. All of their medicines, foods, building materials, energy sources, dyes, fabrics, and spiritual inspiration were provided by the local plants and animals. To have mismanaged the land even for a year or so would have led to severe deprivation or worse, both physically and psychologically. 7 People of our culture today derive their resources from remote districts and from lands and people about whom we know little and perhaps could care less. We tend to see our landscape only as something that has little value beyond that governed by contemporary pecuniary interests. Consequently, it can be difficult for us to appreciate the complex interdependencies that native peoples had with their landscape, whose cultural development and sustainability were fundamentally and inextricably interwoven with that of the aboriginal flora and fauna of the Loess Hills. In the contemporary era, we exhibit a disconnection with the natural world, our awareness of our dependency on it accordingly less apparent to us---too easy to disregard and replace with the manufactured prostheses of our own presumed creative genius. The original peoples were connected inextricably to the land as it related to their own survival. One example of the relationship the native people had with the land included the annual application of landscape-scale fire. We learn the following from Paul Wilhelm, Duke of Wurttemberg, in his Travels in North America, 1822-1824: For a distance of three or four miles our way from the Platte to the larger village of the Otos led continuously through the prairie. From the first village to the second one finds neither a creek nor any other watering place. On all sides the Indians had set the prairie afire, such fires running over vast stretches with unbelievable speed, causing dense smoke to darken the sky. Especially pretty were the valleys of tall grass on the Platte, where surging flames advanced amid extraordinary crackling. Since the prairie fire surged all around the great village of the Otos, we were obliged to ride through the fire in the manner of the Indians. This cannot be called a dangerous undertaking, for the burning region is usually not very wide, and one rides against the wind to cross the flames. Mine, a gentle horse accustomed to this kind of thing, galloped through the fire without suffering the least damage. The Indians know how to fire the prairie with great skill and how to take advantage of a favorable wind. Despite the fact that all around the village the grass was burned, the cornfields nearby were unharmed. The character of the native landscape is tied to the quality and substance of the relationship it had with native peoples. In nature, plants and animals are adapted to a very specific physiographic and geographic habitat. Throughout the Holocene, their habitats changed with changing times, but changed with rates at which mountains rise and fall and the fingernails grow. Beginning in the 1840’s, habitat and cultural changes in the Honey Creek area began suddenly and proceeded at a rate never before experienced by a Holocene-aged, specialized landscape. Roads were established. Prairies were subjected either to intensive grazing or were turned over to grow annual crops. Landscape-scale fires either stopped or became irregular, as fragmented as the aboriginal biodiversity itself. Native peoples were forcibly disengaged from the land and their language and culture nearly or quite obliterated, the Way of the relationship with the land all but forgotten and the land itself forsaken. The effects of this transition were described in “Journalism of Northwest Iowa:” 8 People who have only seen our country during the past ten or fifteen years can scarcely imagine the indescribable beauty of the prairies before they were settled. Grass, both on the uplands and in the sloughs, grew rank and luxuriant as it is never seen in these days. Then what myriads of prairie flowers we had in those days! They began to come in early spring and they kept coming all the season through until the frosts of autumn destroyed the last and most beautiful of all, the aster and the golden rod. The prevailing colors were white, purple, and yellow, though some of the phloxes, presented different tints of red. But now a single acre of prairie, as it was seen in those days of primeval luxuriance, is seldom found.