By David Cappaert, Willamette Valley Pollinator Technician June 2019 Pollination is an essential part of the mating scheme for plants. A simple example is in the case of apples: honeybees visit flowers which then produce apples. It is more complex (and interesting) in the case of native prairie plants. Our Prairie Pollinator project is a […]
Category Archives: IAE
Who wins when a frog meets a bombardier beetle? And other Bioblitz discoveries
By Deborah Clark, IAE Board of Directors June 2019 Before I tell the story of the frog and the bombardier beetle, I want to share my mini-adventure at the 2019 Corvallis BioBlitz. What is a BioBlitz, you might ask? It is a celebration of biodiversity — a fun, family-friendly challenge to find and record as […]
Meet the 2019 Conservation Research Interns!
by Miranda Geller May 2019 IAE 2019 Conservation Research Program Interns Eva, Erica, Cia, Rose and Crew Lead Miranda started on a typical gloomy spring day in Oregon, and have since been settling in and learning about what the season will bring for them. Eva, Cia, and Miranda will be traveling all over Oregon—from the […]
Exploring pollinator conservation as an essential skill
by Michel Wiman April 2019 We at IAE feel that science education and the opportunity to steward our planet’s natural resources should be available to all. Recently, I was invited to give a workshop for the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Program out of Linn-Benton Community College in Albany, Oregon. The goal of the program […]
Flight of the Fender’s Blue
By Carolyn Menke January 2019 Fender’s blue butterfly (Icaricia icarioides fenderi) was listed as an endangered species primarily because of its extreme rarity due to upland and wet prairie habitat loss and fragmentation. Sites with the butterfly across its range in the Willamette Valley, Oregon, have been monitored on a mostly annual basis for almost […]
A Project for Collaboration and Community
IAE is thrilled to be a part of a coalition of environmental organizations launching The Confluence, a shared space office center the be constructed in Corvallis. The groups have been collaborating since 2014 on the project. A feasibility study was conducted to assess the shared space center concept in our community, identify potential sites, conduct a […]
Gaining good ground at OSU Vegetable Farm
By Emily Wittkop, November 2018 IAE currently manages 66 restoration sites in Oregon and partners with agencies such as the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for plug and seed production. In order to produce seed for restoration, IAE has expanded our farm program to the Oregon State University […]
Migratory bird habitats connect Oregon and Mexico in ‘Classrooms Across Borders’
Michel Wiman, October 2018, with special thanks and photos courtesy of Tara Davis, Willamette River-Rio Laja Twinning Project; Heath Keirstead of the Benton Soil and Water Conservation District; and Kathleen Westly of Marys River Watershed Council. Why are one-third of all migratory bird species worldwide in decline? Most research points to habitat loss as the […]
Seasons of Herbert Farm Natural Area
By Anna Ramthun September 2018 The Herbert Farm Natural Area is undeniably special. Located just south of Corvallis, the area was an important gathering and foraging spot for local Native American tribes, and is still regarded as an important cultural area by the modern Confederated Tribes of the Grande Ronde. The Institute for Applied Ecology […]
Restoring Pioneer Butte, one stick at a time
By Andrew Esterson September 2018 Wow, what a day and what a great volunteer crew we had to help with the Institute for Applied Ecology’s (IAE) Pioneer Butte restoration project! First and foremost, thank you to all of the Oregon State University students that volunteered for IAE’s Pioneer Butte project with the Center for Civic […]
Tramplers, Stumblers and Rollers: Observations from our first 2 weeks as interns
By Samantha Hooper and Mary McKean May 1, 2018 The first two weeks of Conservation Research field work were an immersion in the spectacularly interconnected landscape of Oregon’s native and exotic plant life. We joined Andrew from IAE’s Habitat Restoration team at the West Eugene Wetlands for our first field day, where we mulched a […]
Students Love to Dig Holes for the Rare Thin-Leaved Peavine!
When middle school students from Eugene, Oregon were asked what they liked most about helping plant new populations of a rare plant, many enthusiastically replied, “digging holes is the best thing ever!” IAE’s Habitat Restoration and Ecological Education Programs teamed up on a project to not only teach students about a rare plant that occurs […]
Willamette Daisy Planting at Baskett Slough NWR
This spring IAE staff and volunteers, as well as many folks from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, helped over 1700 Willamette daisy plants find a new home at Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), located about 10 miles west of Salem. It was a perfect day for planting – not too hot, not too cold, […]
Put a Bird on It!
Do you ever get the feeling that you are being followed? That there’s something out there watching your every move? Well, on the last Crater Lake seed collection trip, the team discovered that was exactly the case. As they harvested seed from marumleaf buckwheat (Eriogonum marifolium), they discovered they were being shadowed by a tiny […]
Natural history of checker-mallows of western Oregon
If you rode your horse or walked through western Oregon grasslands on a late May day 200 years ago, chances are you would have seen checker-mallows aplenty among the many wildflowers. Today these grasslands are few and far between, but in some habitat remnants checker-mallows still make a showy spring bloom. There are over 20 […]