Hi, my name’s Alexis and I’ve been stationed at Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. I’ve been doing Reed Canary Grass surveys and forest inventory for about a month now. In the Reed Canary Grass survey we go to meadows infested with Reed Canary Grass-an invasive species-and compare different treatment methods for getting rid of it. The meadows have been sprayed with different types of chemicals and burned in some areas; when doing the survey we go to the burnt areas and determine how much Reed Canary Grass, other invasive species, and native species are left.
When we’re doing forest inventory-we being my fellow interns, Becky the Biotec and myself-we note the different types of trees there are in a given area in addition to their size and health. We’ll also note what is in the mid and understory of the forest. The purpose of the forest inventory is to look for the Emerald Ash Borer beetle and also to take stock of the different species and overall health of the forest.
I’ve been told that we’ll be doing other projects this summer in addition to the ones I mentioned, but it’s been flooded here so we haven’t been able to get to them yet.