Chel Anderson has spent more than 30 years studying the small plants of the Quetico-Superior forest. A Plant Ecologist/Botanist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources by day and an advocate, on her own time, for preservation of the natural communities she studies, Anderson has witnessed changes to the eco-system from a unique perspective. Wilderness News contributor Charlie Mahler talked to Anderson about her work and her concerns.
Chel Anderson has spent more than 30 years studying the small plants of the Quetico-Superior forest. A Plant Ecologist/Botanist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources by day and an advocate, on her own time, for preservation of the natural communities she studies, Anderson has witnessed changes to the eco-system from a unique perspective. Wilderness News contributor Charlie Mahler talked to Anderson about her work and her concerns.
WN: When people think of the Quetico-Superior region they probably think first about trees and, of course, the water, but your focus is on the smaller plants of the forest. What prompted your interest in them?
I think my interest is an extension of the innate interest every child has in every aspect of the world around it. I was very fortunate to spend my childhood in places that still had lots of natural qualities – oak woods, savanna, even a small patch of native prairie, as well as northern forests and lakes. I was given the freedom to play, explore and discover in these environments. My native curiosity, my wonder, was captivated by the plants and animals of all kinds that I experienced. The astonishing diversity of form and color in plants amazed me, and still does. Once I learned plants lived by ‘eating light’; could reveal some of the story of the earth beneath them and of plants and other life that preceded them; and that each species’ story (life history) involved marvelously elegant relationships, I was hooked. I couldn’t imagine limiting my interest to just the most obvious.
WN: What larger concepts can small plants tell us about the health and nature of a forest?
Each forest type is a specialized community of native plants (and animals) that reflect fundamental local conditions such as landforms, soil and water chemistry, hydrology, nutrients and their availability and natural disturbance regimes. The members of the community interact with each other in complex relationships and predictable cycles of change, which in a healthy forest are mutually sustaining over time – a predictable and gradual shift of species through different growth stages as conditions such as light and moisture conditions change. In northern Minnesota most native trees and shrubs will grow in a wide range of conditions, are part of many different forest communities and are wind pollinated. Many herbaceous (non-woody) plants are more particular about the conditions they will grow in, and so can better define forest communities, and many are dependent on insect pollination. Changes in their distribution or range and/or patterns of occurrence or abundance in a forest community more closely follow change in local conditions. They can be the earliest indicators of a disruption of forest community relationships and cycles of natural change as a result of altered natural disturbance regimes, inappropriate forest management, fragmentation, introduction of exotic species, climate change or some combination of these.
For example, loss of some herbaceous plants in northern Minnesota’s forests is an early indicator of changes in the litter layer due to the introduction of exotic earthworms. Where trees and shrubs may suggest a healthy forest, the absence of some native herbaceous species, and presence or uncharacteristic dominance of others in a community can reveal a history of management that was a poor imitation of the forest’s natural disturbance regime, diminishing its native flora and severing relationships. These activities can range from timber harvest practices to fire suppression to intentional introduction of non-native plants to ‘cleaning-up the woods’ or ‘improving the view’ by removing snags, and woody debris or the shrubs and understory trees. The invasion and dominance of non-native species following a natural disturbance in the forest speaks volumes about their pervasive and expanding presence in the landscape and the threat they pose to our native flora – both common and rare species – and to the viability of forest and nonforest communities in the future.
WN: Based on your work, what is the condition of the Quetico-Superior forest?
In general, their condition has deteriorated since I began living and working here 33 years ago. To date, this is principally the result of forest and habitat fragmentation (the former primarily in the southwest, the latter throughout); forest management based on an industrial agriculture model instead of an ecological model that reflects an understanding of Northeastern Minnesota’s native species, native plant communities and their
pattern of occurrence in the landscape mosaic; fire suppression and limited use of fire as a management tool; the proliferation of roads and the introduction and spread non-native invasive species.
Despite this reality, the greater Quetico-Superior area still has the luxury, at least in the short term, of opportunities that are gone in much of the rest of the state for conservation of native plants and plant communities. However, without significant changes in land management, including a high priority on the identification and conservation of the remaining areas where native biodiversity of plants and plant communities still flourish, those opportunities will slip away here too.
WN: Lee Frelich at the University of Minnesota has written extensively about the changes occurring in the ecology of the area. Do you see those same changes taking place?
Yes, many of the landscape and plant community-scale changes Lee has described resulting from forest management and other land uses, fire suppression, earthworms, non-native invasive plant species, deer browsing etc are apparent in my work as well. Given the scale of the greater Quetico-Superior landscape and the state as a whole there is very little research focused on detecting or monitoring change at the species or plant community level in both terrestrial and aquatic systems. The focus of the County Biological Survey of the Minnesota DNR, which I work for, is as the name suggests, a survey to document and evaluate current species and community conditions. To the extent that we have the benefit of objective information of past abundance, distribution and condition of species or plant communities we can observe changes up to this point in time, but we do not monitor change into the future. Minnesota is the envy of most other states because we have a biological survey program (and have had one for nearly 20 years). The Natural Heritage Program of the DNR does monitor populations of a few plant species that enjoy both federal and state protection. However, the fact that identification of the state’s natural heritage is still incomplete, there is limited knowledge concerning the life history of most plants, and no comprehensive and coordinated monitoring speaks volumes about how comparatively little priority i.e. funding, this kind of work/knowledge has had in our society.
WN: Are the changes that are taking place preventable, and if so, how?
Many are, and require actions both individual and collective that acknowledge and reflect the intrinsic connection between our own well-being and that of the whole earth. As Gaylord Nelson put it, “The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment.” Some actions that would contribute to preventing, slowing or reversing changes happening in this landscape and elsewhere are:
1) Recognize and reflect in personal choices the finite nature of the land and all it supports. Take personal responsibility to reduce and be conservative in your consumption, including forest products. Adjust your own consumer choices, land use and recreation to reflect the importance of sustainable forestry and development practices, and ensure that you do not contribute to the spread of exotic species. Advocate and support with your voice, vote and choices ecologically sound forest, wildlife, recreation and land development policies, practices and decisions on public and private land that put conserving our life support system ahead of our consumptive use of it, and on par with issues like education, and health care when it comes to investing our collective wealth.
2) Identify and conserve, using passive and active stewardship strategies appropriate to the native plant community, the remaining forests, lakes, rivers, and non-forested communities where native biodiversity still flourishes.
3) Protect or create where necessary corridors of undeveloped land linking these areas.
4) Apply ecologically based, adaptive forest management that seeks to sustain native plant communities and their natural pattern in the landscape on all public lands, and continue to offer incentives and assistance to private landowners to do the same.
By Charlie Mahler, Wilderness News Contributor
This article appeared in Wilderness News Fall 2007