Page 24 - May/June 2022 Outdoor Oklahoma
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Fast-forward to 2022. After years of lending a helping hand to monarchs
through the NRCS’s Monarch Butterfly Habitat Development Project, Berg and
five other enrolled landowners are now lending a hand to scientists researching
monarchs and their habitats.
“I’ve been putting in all of these different practices. I've burned, changed the
grazing routine, and planted a native seed mix. I want to know if it’s working. And
I want to know which practices I should
JENA DONNELL/ODWC keep doing to make the most impact
for monarchs and other pollinators.”
To answer those questions, the
NRCS has partnered with Oklahoma
State University to monitor the proj-
ect’s conservation outcomes.
Researchers Emily Geest and David
Berman, both Ph.D. candidates in
OSU’s Department of Integrative
Biology, were recently tasked with
conducting milkweed and blooming
plant surveys on each of the study’s
cooperating properties.
“We’re looking at how different
management practices affect the
growth and density of milkweed and
other flowering plants,” Geest said.
Emily Geest and David Berman record species they observe during a survey of Colin Berg’s
property in Osage County. milkweed stems are growing here; if they’re vegetative, flowering, or in the seed
“We’ll be documenting how many
JENA DONNELL/ODWC pod stage; and what other plants are blooming within our transects.”
While surveying, Geest and Berman stretch a tape measure up to 100 meters
from a series of randomly chosen points across the properties, and then uses a
1-square-meter quadrat made from
PVC pipe to assess the plant commu-
nity on each side of the tape measure EMILY GEEST/CC-BY INATURALIST
every five meters along the transect.
The monitoring portion of the
project began in summer 2021, and
the researchers were excited by the
diversity they encountered.
“I really enjoy looking across a
grassland and seeing the diversi-
ty in plant communities and land-
scapes. But when we start looking
David Berman records species found in a at a fine scale — within 1 square
square-meter area during a survey of Berg’s
property in Osage County. meter of that grassland — we get
to see so many different species of
plants and insects living their life,”
Dun skipper on green milkweed during a survey
Berman said. of Berg’s property.
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