http://sfrc.ufl.edu/cfeor Osceola National Forest Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Management Submitted by: Denise Rains, Public Affairs Officer, National Forests in Florida Beginning in 2003, the Osceola National Forest (ONF) formed a partnership with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) to aggressively manage for red-cockaded woodpeckers (RCW). The FWC provided, at no cost to the forest, a wildlife technician to help monitor the Osceola’s RCW population and implement habitat management activities. These activities included installing artificial cavities and conducting mechanical fuel reduction within RCW clusters to facilitate the use of prescribed fire to maintain suitable habitat. Since that time, the partnership is responsible for a dramatic RCW population increase of 33 % from 77 active clusters in 2003 to 115 active clusters in 2008. This population increase qualified the ONF as a new donor site. Given this, the National Forests in Florida, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the FWC approached the Department of Defense’s Southeast Regional Partnership for Planning and Sustainability (SERPPAS) and requested their support to fund a translocation biologist on the ONF to conduct the necessary monitoring and translocation of RCWs to recipient sites. This required the production of a lengthy proposal, the endorsement of all the partners, and a clear explanation and rationale for why Department of Defense should fund this project. Female Red-cockaded Woodpecker. The proposal resulted in the project being funded in the winter of Photo by Jim Hanula, Research Entomologist Insects, Diseases and Invasive Plants, USDA Forest 2007 and, in the fall of 2008, 10 pairs of RCWs from the ONF were Service Southern Research Station provided to the recipient sites, Goethe State Forest, Bull Creek/Triple N Ranch and Ocala National Forest along with the 20 pairs from the Apalachicola National Forest. The ONF is getting 100% population monitoring of it’s RCW population at no cost. In 2008 almost half of the RCWs going to recipient sites in the southeast region coop will come from the National Forests in Florida. For more information on the Osceola NF visit www.fs.fed.us/r8/florida/ or contact Denise Rains at [email protected] , visit the SERPPAS web site www.serppas.org or read the SERPPAS Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Translocation Project First Year Final Project Report, May 2008. CFEOR Updates 2 Announcements A Change in CFEOR Leadership The CFEOR Steering Committee has approved the following changes to the CFEOR Leadership. The goals of these changes are to: (1) have a single person as permanent director, as opposed to several co-directors who rotate as director, and (2) to add two new co-directors (Kobziar and Staudhammer, below) to increase the breadth and reach of CFEOR. Note that their specialties are in parentheses to highlight the breadth. Taylor Stein has been with CFEOR since its inception and will now become its Director. Nancy Peterson will remain as Executive Director. 1. Director, Taylor Stein (social sciences, recreation) 2. Co-Director, Holly Ober (wildlife, understory habitat) 3. Co-Director, Doug Carter (economics, policy) 4. Co-Director, Leda Kobziar, (fire, ecology) 5. Co-Director, Christie Staudhammer (mensuration, biometrics, modeling) 6. Executive Director, Nancy Peterson Please visit the administration page of our website. “Thanks again to all the leaders, staff and members of CFEOR for making this an especially timely collaborative effort that addresses statewide needs by doing more than any of us could do alone.” ~ Tim White, SFRC Director CFEOR Sponsored Workshop: Uneven-aged Management and the Proportional-B Method for Implementing Selection Silviculture Date: 10:00am-5:00pm, June 25, 2009 Location: Conference Room at Tate’s Hell State Forest Office, Carrabelle, Fl Presented by: Dale G. Brockway, Southern Research Station, USDA Forest Service and Edward F. Loewenstein, School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University. For more information and to register please visit our website. Follow-up on the CFEOR Sponsored Workshop on Biomass Harvesting Thank you to all who participated in our Biomass harvesting workshop, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Please visit our website to see photos and for announcements of follow up activities and events. CFEOR Updates 3 Announcing the Florida Automated Weather Network Newsletter The Florida Automated Weather Network (FAWN) has begun a quarterly newsletter. It will cover updates to management tools, field site maintenance, the website (including user statistics), and upcoming plans/events. If you are interested in receiving it, please point your browser to: http://www.lists.ufl.edu/cgi- bin/wa?SUBED1=fawn-l&A=1 and register. Recent Research Findings Evidence of Geologic Phosphorus from Goundwater Seepage to Newnans Lake, Florida Long, Lauren (MS Thesis, University of Florida, 2009) This is a preliminary abstract and is a component of a CFEOR Supported Project currently funded by the St. Johns River Water Management District. For more information email Dr. Matthew Cohen at [email protected]. Eutrophication due to phosphorus inputs is a critical problem in the Newnans Lake basin located east of Gainesville, Florida. The watershed is underlain by the Hawthorn Formation, but the interaction between the phosphatic clays of the Hawthorn and the surface water is largely unknown. Our objective in this study was to investigate the spatial pattern of P loading into the lake, and to discern anthropogenic vs. geologic P sources. Despite recent support of the hypothesis that geologic P is dominant, there are large and unexplained deficits in lake water and P budgets. All of the measurements were taken during a regionally significant drought (2006-2007), and we hypothesized that intermediate aquifer seepage into the lake accounts for the lake water deficit during base flow conditions, and that the flow is strongly SRP enriched. We began by creating water and P budgets for the lake to identify significant inputs and outputs using archival data from the SJRWMD for the period of 1998-2008. We then measured groundwater seepage in 14 wells around the perimeter of the lake and determined the magnitude and timing of water flow and P loading, and whether the source of the P was geologic in origin using natural tracers such as F. We also ran transects on Hatchet Creek and Little Hatchet Creek, the two tributaries of Newnans Lake, and determined whether the P present in the creeks was geologic in origin and if groundwater seepage was occurring. Our results showed a cumulative water deficit of 1.48X10^8 m^3 and a cumulative P deficit of 33,281.3 kg. The well study showed a cumulative inflow of water of 140,375 m^3 from October 2007-December 2008, which accounted for 0.3% of inflows during that time period. We therefore concluded groundwater seepage from the perimeter of the lake is not a significant source of water, which also means that it is not contributing large quantities of P into the lake. Other possible sources of the deficit include: runoff from ungauged portions of the watershed, groundwater seepage from the bottom of the lake, and internal P loading. The results of our transect study showed a significant positive relationship between F and P indicating the presence of geologic P. We also found longitudinal increases in P and water flow in Hatchet Creek without the inflow of tributaries indicating groundwater seepage, but we did not find this to be the case in Little CFEOR Updates 4 Hatchet Creek. The importance of geologic P presents management challenges given the recent development of pollutant load reduction goals in preparation for TMDL implementation. Understanding the ways in which human activities accelerate geologic P loading, and managing in lake processes (e.g. internal loading or groundwater seepage) become potentially more important management objectives than identifying and controlling relatively minor direct anthropogenic sources. Upcoming Events Natural Areas Training Academy: Plant Communities of Florida May 19-21. Disney Wilderness Preserve, Kissimmee and Crystal River Preserve State Park. Click here for more information or contact Linda [email protected]. Landowner Workshop: Marketing Your Forest Products May 28, 2009, 6:30 PM -8:30 ET, Hamilton County Extension Office, 1143 US Hwy 41 NW, Jasper, FL 32052. The target audience for this workshop is new and established forest landowners, and the general public. Click here for more information or contact Greg Staten at (386) 792-1269, [email protected] or Allen Tyree at (386) 792-1276, [email protected] to register. 11th North American Agroforestry Conference: Agroforestry Comes of Age: Putting Science into Practice May 31 - June 3, 2009, Columbia, Missouri. Registration extended UMCA website www.centerforagroforestry.org Invasive Plant Management Workshop June 3, 2009 9:00 am - 3:00 pm at English Creek Preserve in Hillsborough County. Contact Carrie Kotal, (863) 519-8677 ext. 128, [email protected] Forest Products Society 63rd International Convention June 21-23, 2009, Doubletree Hotel Boise-Riverside Boise, Idaho, USA. website www.forestprod.org Society of Wood Science and Technology International Convention June 24, 2009, Laurel Room at the Doubletree Hotel Boise-Riverside, Boise Idaho Topic: The Role of Wood in our Green Future Contact [email protected] Website www.forestprod.org Third National Conference on Ecosystem Restoration - The Spirit of Cooperation July 20 – 24, 2009,