By Rolando Beorchia January 2020 Restoration work at IAE is often like a multi-headed hydra (we’re talking the cute cousin to anemones type of hydra, not the scary monster that Hercules killed). Each project has multiple “arms,” including property owners, staff, funders and sometimes researchers, who all have to come together to make the magic […]
Oh, the places seed goes…
By Laynie Saidnawey and Maria Mullins February 2020 By the time seed arrives at the IAE Southwest Office Seed Studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to be processed and cleaned, some collections have traveled close to 300 miles from their source populations. However, this move is temporary; the seed will eventually make its way back […]
2019: A Better Year for Fender’s Blue Butterfly
By Carolyn Menke January 2020 Since 2016, IAE has coordinated annual surveys for the endangered Fender’s blue butterfly (Icaricia icarioides fenderi) across its range in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The total number of Fender’s blue butterflies fluctuates on an annual basis, driven by variation in individual populations, which sometimes double or halve between years. We are […]
How does IAE get all of those plants in the ground?
By Andy Neill December 2019 Fall is planting season, which means IAE’s restoration ecologists are in the midst of their busiest time of the year. Most of the restoration work that takes place the rest of the year is in preparation for planting and seeding each fall. This year, nearly 116,000 plants were planted and […]
Much more than a Handful of Seed – Highlights from a Season with the National Park Service Crew in the Desert Southwest
By Melanie Gisler, Lindsay Jaeger, and Meredith Prentice December 2019 IAE has been collecting seeds from native plants since we opened our doors in 1999. Our first seed collections were from rare plants for use in recovery efforts. In 2005, we initiated a seed crew dedicated to collecting species to increase for use in restoration, […]
Rebuilding Habitat and Empowering Hope
By Stacy Moore November 2019 Carefully putting ten sagebrush seedlings into a plastic bag, inmate Jessie Downing places his bundle of plants into a box with 110 other plugs to be picked up by the Winnemucca Bureau of Land Management (BLM) field office in Nevada for planting on land scorched by wildfire. “The Sagebrush in […]
Celebrating 20 years of IAE
By Michel Wiman November 2019 In a standing-room-only crowd of Institute for Applied Ecology supporters, IAE staff shared innovative projects and stories from their field season on a recent fall evening at the Corvallis Arts Center. This year’s Stories from the Field was a special Annual Meeting for IAE, celebrating the accomplishments of 20 years […]
Prints for sale: Stilwell’s Oregon Botanicals Series
The Institute for Applied Ecology is very fortunate that Oregon artist Frances Stilwell has donated prints from her series titled “Oregon Botanical Landscapes: An Opportunity to Imagine Oregon Before 1800” to support our restoration, research and ecological education work. Ms. Stilwell is a scientist and artist whose love of Oregon ecosystems shines through in her […]
¡Unidos por el Amor de Aves!
por Dionné Mejía Octobre de 2019 Click here to read this blog in English. Este es el segundo año del programa llamado “Aves Compartidas Willamette-Laja” el cual une a estudiantes de primaria de dos naciones a través de la educación ambiental y el idioma compartido de español. Los estudiantes en el valle del río Willamette […]
United by the love of birds!
By Dionné Mejía October 2019 Haga clic aquí para leer este blog en español. This is the second year of the Willamette-Laja Migratory Bird Youth Education program, which unites elementary school students bi-nationally through ecological education and the shared language of Spanish. Students in the Willamette River Valley in Oregon and in the Laja River […]
Finding hidden gems among a sea of lava rocks
By IAE Seasonal Technicians Erika Stewart and Ed Cope September 2019 Field work can be unpredictable, especially in Southern Idaho’s Shrub-Steppe ecosystem, and our 2019 season checked all of the boxes, from crazy weather (snow, hail, thunderstorms, and unrelenting sun) to ever-changing hitch schedules and roads that do not seem to exist. This year, the […]
Rare orchid fading fast, and climate change may be part of the problem
About half of the known populations are likely extinct in the western US October 17, 2019 A rare orchid is losing ground in the western United States. Researchers from the Institute for Applied Ecology, a nonprofit organization that conducts habitat restoration and ecological research, partnered with government agencies to revisit previously reported populations of the […]
Restoring prairies: making a home for butterflies takes time!
By Ian Silvernail October 2019 Prairie habitat once existed extensively along the Oregon coast, most commonly occurring on stabilized dunes, headlands, salt-spray meadows, and on some coastal, montane peaks. Today, the few remaining coastal prairies are significantly degraded, and the loss of this habitat has resulted in a significant reduction in many of the animal […]
How IAE harvests native plants
By Michel Wiman October 2019 The United Nations General Assembly recently declared 2021-2030 the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, to “massively scale up the restoration of degraded and destroyed ecosystems as a proven measure to fight the climate crisis and enhance food security, water supply and biodiversity.” For the U.N. to recognize the importance of restoration […]
Federally threatened bird successfully hatched
By Meghan Dugan, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife October 1, 2019 Habitat created just for streaked horned larks on Herbert Farm and Natural Area (HFNA) successfully produced its first juvenile larks. Three eggs were laid in early June with chicks hatching in mid-July. Biologists banded the chicks which fledged their nest successfully, a significant […]