Friday, November 13, 2015

Big Water, Big Grass (or...when ignorance really is bliss)

During the first weekend of November, my parents, my aunt, my cousin, and I headed up to Maumee Bay State Park and Lodge near Toledo, Ohio to kick off the winter. It's been a tradition of ours to head north for the last hurrah of fall so we can experience Big Water, go hiking, and do a lot of laughing. Each year we tend to focus on a piece of natural history in the area, and this year it was the tall grasses or reeds that line the boardwalk in the marsh...

Behemoth grasses (Phragmites australis) line the boardwalk in the wetlands at Maumee Bay State Park. The reeds are outrageously beautiful, but the beauty comes at a price...a non-native monoculture that is choking out native plants.

Non-native Phragmites (Phragmites australis), the common reed
We had no idea what this sea of grass was as we walked through it. Down in Cincinnati we're not exposed to grasses that live near Big Water, so when we were walking through the towering reeds with their feathery plumes backlit in the late-afternoon sun, we didn't know it was a bad thing. We just knew it was breathtakingly beautiful, especially when the autumn breezes swept through the fronds, tossing them, and swirling them in one fluid motion...but unfortunately, the 15-ft tall plants are a non-native, invasive species that is slowly choking the life out of biodiverse coastal marshes and wetlands. As phragmites rushes through a wetland, it creates a monoculture in its wake, creating dense thickets that squeeze out native plants such as cattails.

A sea of common reeds is beautiful from the observation deck on the boardwalk in the coastal wetlands of Lake Erie.
If only it were supposed to be there... 

Phragmites australis, the common reed, along the Lake Erie coast.

We loved walking the boardwalk at Maumee Bay State Lodge. It winds through a wet woods that was filled with migrating White-crowned Sparrows and then pushes through an expansive marsh where Red-winged Blackbirds were gathering.

Even though the reeds have squeezed out many of the native plants, a small flock of Black-capped Chickadees didn't mind, and it melted my heart watching them flit back and forth in the reeds, chittering and calling out to each other. I wish I had had my "real" camera with me and not just my cell phone so I could have captured some of their antics.  


Native phragmites
Not all phragmites is bad. Native phragmites hugs the coastal and interior wetlands in the Great Lakes region as well. It supports our native wildlife and lays the foundation for a biodiverse habitat, but it can easily be squeezed out by the non-native form. The invasive form creates dense thickets that kill wild rice, cattails, and wetland orchids, which all grow well around native phragmites.

Click here for a post by the Great Lakes Phragmites Collaborative to help you tell native and non-native phragmites apart.

Click here for a wonderful video created by the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council that shows how to differentiate between the two types.

Click here for another site with information on phragmites and other Great Lakes Restoration projects.

Goats to the rescue?
In an article titled "The Goats Fighting America's Plant Invasion," by Joanna Jolly in BBC News Magazine (January 13, 2015), Jolly writes that marine biologist Brian Silliman of Duke University in North Carolina has been working over 20 years to figure out how to eradicate invasive phragmites. He tried insects and other forms of bio-control, but had no luck. Then after a trip to the Netherlands, he saw the plant wasn't a problem there because it was constantly being grazed by animals. Cue the goats! Silliman got to work and found goats can get the job done. In one study, 90% of the phragmites in the test area was eliminated. Click here to read the entire article.

Normally, we look for deer hiding along the boardwalk, but I would love to look for goats...


Click here for more of our Big Water (November at Maumee) posts.

10 comments:

Bob Bushell said...

Perfection, the grasses and rushes, lovely to go in.

Roy said...

Phragmites is the scourge of coastal New England, but there have been some successful efforts made to curb it. Salt marshes along coastal Connecticut, Rhode Island, and southeastern Massachusetts were being overrun with it, squeezing out the native salt marsh grass and depleting oxygen levels in the water. In Newport RI a successful effort at rehabilitating Gooseneck Cove eliminated the Phragmites and re-introduced the native salt marsh grass as well as commencing construction measures to increase the flow of salt water farther up into the cove. Within a year the numbers of Blue Crab increased and the Summer-visiting Egrets, Herons, and Ibises were flocking to their new feeding grounds. The place is gorgeous now compared to what it used to be, and it's a far livelier environment.

L Livingston Studio said...

Great post Kelly. And no photograph could ever capture the beauty it was to see with the on land waves the wind caused. I was truely lost in it for those moments and grateful to have seen it. It did the heart good specially with those with me. Those November winds were blowing in. But invasive of the cattails takes away from my youth. And im not driving 4 hours with a goat in the car.

Kelly said...

@Bob - It's definitely cool to walk through.

@Roy - That's wonderful, Roy. There is hope yet. I like the idea of bringing in goats to eat it up! It will be interesting to see what happens. It looks like a lot of organizations are studying it on the Great Lakes.

@L Livingston - I know......that rush of wind through the fronds was spectacular. We had a great trip! Hahaha....no goat in your car eh? It will be interesting to see what happens there.

Sue said...

What a great post, Kelly. I did not know those were invasive.

When I first moved up to Northern Michigan, I always was so impressed with the beautiful Lythrum that was in all the marshes.....and then I learned their ugly secrets. Man has certainly altered the ecosystem, and not in good ways..........

Kelly said...

@Sue - thanks, Sue. Oh yeah....loosestrife...another beautiful plant that shouldn't be here. You are so right.

Diane said...

What an interesting story. We certainly had a wonderful time though, didn't we! And the beauty of the 'grass' was overwhelming, especially when blowing in the wind!

Kelly said...

@Aunt Diane - it was the best. So much fun....and a much-needed break. I can't wait until next year!! I love kicking off the winter (or shutting down the fall) with Big Water! :-)

Tammie Lee said...

So lovely that your family does these things and chooses something to explore and learn about. As I read about the invasive grasses and as Thanksgiving nears, it dawned on me that some might see us, Europeans as invasive grasses in this country. Kind of a perfect comparison.

I have seen people graze goats here as well for invasive knapweed.

Your photos are lovely.

Kelly said...

@Tammie...I've always thought the same thing! Thanks, Tammie!