The morning fog still hid the sun when Josh Horky and Jamie Johnson pulled into a parking lot above the Brule River.
Pulling on vests and grabbing their gear, the pair headed down a wooded trail leading toward the sound of rushing water.
The recent University of Wisconsin-Superior graduates were not on a fishing trip. Rather, they are part of an effort to take an inventory of non-native, invasive plant species in Wisconsin's state forests.
UWS's Lake Superior Research Institute is conducting the survey under contract with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
"Invasive species are one issue we are going to have to continually deal with," said Colleen Matula, a DNR forest ecologist working on the project in Wisconsin's 18 northern counties. "Our first step is to inventory them, because up north here we really don't know what's out there."
Once the DNR has a better idea of what invasive species are out there, and of where they are, it will develop plans to control the plants, which can crowd out a forest's native species.
The DNR is spending about $150,000 this year for inventory efforts in six northern forests. It hired the Lake Superior Research Institute to conduct surveys in Brule River and Governor Knowles state forests.
The plant survey is a change of pace for the institute, which usually deals with aquatic ecosystems. But the DNR had worked before with Kurt Schmude, a senior scientist at the institute. They asked Schmude if the institute had anyone who was good with plants.
He did, and four people with the institute, including Horky and Johnson, both recent graduates with biology degrees, went to work on the survey.
Walking down the trail toward the river, the pair continually looked for the roughly 60 species of invasive plants that concern the DNR.
"Most of these trails down to the river have things like thistles and forget-me-nots," Horky said.
Reaching the river, Horky and Johnson split up, searching for invasives.
"Finding anything, Josh?" Johnson called.
"Yes, could you come down and mark this wild cucumber?" he replied.
Each time the team finds invasive plants, they record the species, its numbers and acres covered, habitat, location, land ownership and use in a hand-held data logger. The information will become part of a statewide database.
"It's time-consuming marking everything," Horky said. "We've been finding a wide variety of things, but there are five or six species that are the biggest problem out here -- European buckthorn, forget-me-nots, pansy, honeysuckle."
At some riverside locations they have found astronomical numbers of buckthorn and honeysuckle, Horky said.
"They are absolutely devastating to the native vegetation because they crowd everything out," he said.
Other species they are seeking include Canada thistle, big leaf lupine, reed canary grass, burdock, valerian, purple loosestrife, tansy, hawkweed and garlic mustard.
They don't bother logging non-native species such as yellow iris and dandelions, which long ago became part of the landscape.
"They are so widespread now, control would be hopeless," Horky said.
They do record several rare native species -- including calypso orchids, rams head and lady slippers -- when they are lucky enough to find them.
As part of a separate Lake Superior Research Institute project, Horky also is working on the Apostle Islands this summer, trying to relocate rare plants that were recorded on the islands in the past.
"My job is to go out and verify their presence and the approximate health of the population," he said. "I am finding most of them. There are a few places where deer have decimated the rare species we are looking at."
Horky and Johnson began their work on the Brule in mid-May. Until fall's killing frosts they will spend 10- to 12-hour days in the field, visiting and revisiting locations across the forest.
"You have to do it several times during the year in order to catch everything," Schmude said. "If more survey work is needed, we'll do that next year."
This year's efforts are concentrated on disturbed areas where invasive plants often gain a foothold in a forest -- places such as trailheads, parking lots, trails and boat landings. While flowing water, wind and birds can all transport invasive plant seeds, many are spread by people and their vehicles -- clinging to clothing or stuck into the treads of hiking boots or tires.
"We've been finding some interesting correlations out there just with this first effort," Matula said. "Campgrounds -- right on tent pads -- is where we're finding a lot of garlic mustard."
Many people thought northern Wisconsin doesn't have a problem with invasive plants, Matula said.
"We're finding isolated patches where there are problems," she said. "Hopefully, we can gain control of these isolated patches in the north so it doesn't become a problem like the southern forests."Duluth News Tribune
