Service Learning Project Bender Park Spencer Walesh & Tyler Pletz Milwaukee County Parks 4/29/2009
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Pletz, Walesh 4 Spencer Walesh & Tyler Pletz Geography 125 DIS 603 Service Learning Final Project April 29, 2009 When we were deciding which group we wanted to work with earlier this semester, we decided that we wanted to work outdoors and somewhere outside of the UWM area. We were able to find that Milwaukee County Parks would be able to meet both of these criteria by working at Bender Park in Oak Creek, WI. According to their Mission Statement, Milwaukee County Parks works to provide quality of life experiences to Milwaukee County residents through environmental and community stewardship and through the operation and maintenance of parks by reliable, divers and well-trained workforce/management team. Bender Park is located on the eastern edge of Oak Creek, WI along Lake Michigan. Covering approximately 302.7 acres, Bender Park provides a boat launch, beachfront, beech-maple forests, hiking trails, geochaching, and a planted prairie. The Northern hillside near the boat launch has a storm water drainage ditch that runs towards the lake. Unlike the North, the southern hillside has slowly been eroding into the lakeside, creating high cliff-style viewpoints along the parks edge. Our group worked with other park workers to map out several invasive plant species throughout the park in order to show the depletion, spread, or the complete removal of those species. These species included the Multiflora Rose, Reed Canary Grass, Canada Thistle, Giant Reed/Phragmites, Common Teasel, and the Cut-Leaved Teasel.
Pletz, Walesh 5 Originally, the multiflora rose was introduced in the United States in the late 1800s for ornamental purposes. Since then, these plants have spread to Wisconsin with the help of birds, like the American Robin. The multiflora rose has a geographic range in 19 counties in southern Wisconsin and in the Door Peninsula. It can be typically found along roadsides, pastures, woodlands, prairies, fields and power line corridors, but typically prefers deep and fertile soil that is well drained with a mild climate. Throughout our map, we found that this invasive plant was located in two locations; the northern and south-eastern sections of the park. The damage that can occur from this plant s inhabitants can range from inhibiting growth of competing native plants and crowding out desirable grasses, to reducing diversity of the herbaceous layer and creating dense impassable thickets. Ways of controlling this plant can be mechanical, biological, and chemical. Some control methods can be repeated mowing three to six times per year for four years, applying herbicides, and even allowing the spread of a disease named rose rosette that has the potential of eliminating over 90% of the species. Along with the multiflora rose, the Reed Canary Grass is a noticeable plant that is found at Bender Park. Reed Canary Grass is distributed widely throughout Wisconsin, with a geographic range across temperate North America. This plant has been introduced for erosion control and forage since the 1830s. This plant typically invades open and semi-open areas usually along with disturbances of the soil. Habitats that commonly have this plant are floodplains, irrigation ditches, roadsides, and fencerows. Bender Park shows has these types of habitats that allow it to grow in abundance. In the south-eastern portion of the park, there is an off-road trail that has numerous ditches in it, allowing the grass to invade and take over the areas to the east of the road, due to the rain runoff that travels towards the lake. This plant is extremely competitive when the nutrient supply and light availability is high, allowing it to exploit soil disturbances
Pletz, Walesh 6 rapidly. Also, environmental effects of this plant include lower carbon and nitrogen sequestration compared to diverse wet prairies, as well as reducing the amount of bird perches that are available in wet meadows. Prescribed burns have been found to be effective, as well as controlled prolonged flooding manipulated by land-owners and herbicides can be effective. Phragmites, also known as the Giant Reed, is a perennial plant locally abundant and distributed throughout Wisconsin in aquatic emergent wetlands. This plant can be found along roadside ditches, storm water wetlands, marshes, and increasingly along Great Lakes shores due to the dropping lake levels. At Bender Park, we noticed that this invasive species is primarily located near storm-water runoff ditches inland from the lake, as well as near the boat launch on the edge of Lake Michigan. While this plant can be dispersed intentionally as an ornamental plant, it can be unintentionally dispersed by wind and water, humans, vehicles and in birds and animals when the seeds often can lodge in the fur or feathers. Once this plant has been established, its dense growth at the top of the plant can preclude and exclude the native species in the area. The environment has been effected when the Phragmites invades an area, species diversity and density has declined. Typically, the ways to control this plants spread are mowing, burning, herbicides, and water level manipulation are used most commonly to control this plant. The Canada Thistle is native to southeastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, but in Wisconsin it is widely distributed, existing in approximately 58 counties. This plant can thrive in a variety of soils, but it tends to invade disturbed areas with newly restored sites with bare ground. Commonly, it can be found in agricultural lands, road sides, fencerows, and in abandoned fields among others. The dispersal of this plant is typically unintentional, usually due to wind and humans and vehicles. When it comes to competition of native plants, this plant is effective at competing for light, nutrients, and moisture. Many kinds of Thistles decrease crop
Pletz, Walesh 7 yields, along with the fact that they become an annoyance to recreation of people makes this plant quite irritating. The main way to control this plant is can be burning, mowing, tilling, and even herbicides if used in June when its roots are weak. When it comes to Bender Park, the most effective way to control this plant is to do a burn in the cool months because of the amount of grasses in the areas where it is found. This plant was not found unfortunately, because we feel that it was due to the recent controlled burns that took place earlier this spring. The cut leaved teasel is an invasive species that is originally native to Europe. This teasel is found in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. The cut leaved teasel is a perennial plant that only bulbs once in its existence, but through pollination the plant s seed will spread fairly easily causing an abundant growth of the invasive species. The teasel blooms from July through September and are usually grown in open habitats that provide plenty of sunlight and moist conditions. The teasel is usually found along highways and open prairies, which provide a perfect habitat for germination. The usual practices of mowing are detrimental to the surrounding habitat due to the spreading of teasel seeds spit out of the lawn mower. Recommended removal processes of the cut leaved teasel include the cutting of the flowering stems, digging out of the roots or controlled burnings in the late spring. The common teasel is a European plant that came to North America in the 1700 s where they were used in flower arrangements and horticulture. They have been expanding for the last 30 years, aggressively germinating in several Midwestern states, especially in southeastern Wisconsin. The species in itself is very similar to the cut leaved teasel in appearance and its abundance with slight variations. This common difference in the appearance is that the common teasel has a purple bulb along with a slight difference between the leave shapes. The common teasel is usually found along highways and open prairies and spreads fairly easily with mowing
Pletz, Walesh 8 and forces of wind and rain. The controlling of this invasive species is through mechanical and chemical tactics. The most effective way for controlling this teasel is with the use of spring prescribed burns that eliminate the chance of seeding. With our site mapping of the invasive species it was evident that we didn t find large amounts of both cut leaved teasel and common teasel. We have come to the conclusion that the prescribed burnings cleared most of these species and proved the effectiveness of the method. At Bender Park, some of these invasive species were very prominent, while others were extremely scarce. While we were mapping the southern area of the park, parts of the northern park were burnt earlier in the year in a prescribed burn. Burns of these types are used every few years as a way to control the spread of certain invasive species. It is our view that when the field was burned it removed most evidence of these invasive species that would make them identifiable. This is the main reason as to why we were unable to document the locations of Cut- Leaved Teasel and Canada Thistle on the map that we designed. Fires occur naturally throughout the world, both when they are purposely set and when they occur naturally. Using controlled burns in the earlier months of the year, usually when it is cooler outside, helps diminish the chance of the fire being fueled by excess materials and reduce to possibility that the fires are hotter than necessary. Even though these fires that are set purposely scar the landscape, within a few weeks new growth starts to renew the area. Two months ago, the last burn that took place at Bender Park covered a large area. If you were to go to the park now, you would see green fields in their place. The mapping that we have conducted at the park is a way for the Milwaukee County Park Service to determine what methods they can use in the future to eradicate the invasive species that are overtaking the native plants of Southeastern Wisconsin and the Milwaukee area.
Pletz, Walesh 9 The community service we put in at the Milwaukee County Parks Service has been a great learning experience about what goes into maintaining the ecosystem in our community and at these parks. Hands-on experience was the key to understanding how certain species of plants have been introduced into our community and what they have done to the ecosystem with their socio-economic effects and their environmental effects in the alteration of the ecosystem and community s composition, structure, and its functions and processes. It is our hope that the work we have done for the Milwaukee County Parks Service will aid them in maintaining Bender Park, and keep one of Milwaukee County s largest parks an attractive and healthy place for the community to enjoy.
Pletz, Walesh 10 Works Cited Department of Natural Resources, "Invasive Species." Invasive Species: Plants. 2008. D.N.R. Web.28 Apr 2009. <"Mission Statement." Milwaukee County Parks. 27 Apr. 2009.>. "Mission Statement." Milwaukee County Parks. 27 Apr. 2009 <http://www.county.milwaukee.gov/router.asp?docid=17806>.