Intecol 9, Day 2

Dr. Brij Gopal spoke about the experiences from Wetland conservation in India. He pointed out that human dependence on wetlands has been highest in the tropical and subtropical regions, and that wetland restoration for waterfowl, although a recent trend in Europe and the U.S. occurred already in the 10^th century. Sri Lanka has more than 10 000 human made water reservoirs that can be seen as artificial wetlands. In India wetlands first became known as a nuisance to human health during the British colonization. He voiced criticism against how the Ramsar convention is followed, since countries who have signed the convention has pledged to also conserve wetlands that they have not listed as Ramsar sites, and this is not occurring.

Dr. Karin Kattenring had an interesting presentation about the problem of a European genotype of Phragmites australis that has become invasive in the U.S., although Phragmites australis is indeed a problem in European wetlands as well. Genetic analysis shows that the species although capable of spreading clonaly is spreading sexually at their site. They have found that the viability of the seeds is linked to cross fertilization, and they are now attempting a conservation strategy by spraying Glycophosphate (The thing in Roundup) on Phragmites australis to reduce the population, and thereby the genetic diversity, which should make the seeds less viable. Personally the idea of spraying Glycophosphate in a wetland is not very appealing to me, but there are indeed culture differences between Europe and the. U.S. when it comes to conservation and restoration (we don´t get to play with flame throwers for example). Dr. Kattering told about that she introduced Phragmites australis into a wetland for an important experiment, and brought down a lot of laughter when she added. “Yes, I admit, we did introduce Phragmites australis into a wetland, and I don´t always sleep very well when I think about it.”

Dr. Chris Joyce spoke about the effects of rewetting as a part of the E.U. agri-environmental schemes, and his groups results show that sedges benefited from rewetting, and that the change in hydrology had a much higher influence than management regime.

Dr. David Growing and Professor Norbert Hölzel both presented information about restoration of wet grasslands, were Growings experience showed that restorations should be done several years in a row to avoid to high founder effects which sounds logical. Hölzel was of a different opinion as he presented results that showed that seeds that don´t germinate the first year after top-soil removal with subsequent hay-transfer often germinate the following years. A discussion about the invasiveness about top-soil removal followed, since it is not very common in the U.S. It should be said though, that in sites were the nitrogen level, the phosphorous level and the unwanted seed bank is high, and the water table is to low, then top-soil removal is a good way to restore both wet grasslands and fens. Compared to rewetting it also releases far less methane emission as Lukasz Kozub´s poster at this conference showed. It is however a method that is invasive (you do not conserve the soil), and expensive. 

Intecol 9 Arriving, pre-conference trip and day 1

After 12 hours on the plane I had reached Orlando, and was ready for the 1 hour line at the US Custom and Border control. Clearly there has been a change, because compared to previous times, the staff were very welcoming, and not the “How dare you stand in line and create so much work for me”-attitude that has been the previous experience. Someone clearly told them that they are the face of the nation, and they listened.

The following day was the pre-conference trip, and I was heading to Wekiwa springs for canoeing on the spring run. Alligators, turtles, Leather-fern, alligator lily and a splashing otter were seen, although I never saw the alligator, but I take the other peoples word for it. After the pre-conference trip I put up my colleagues poster that I am presenting in his absence. It is at board 166 and has attracted some attention at least.

Today was the first day of the Intecol 9 conference, and 1400 people are attending from what I have heard. It started with welcoming speeches by among others the Florida Senator Bob Graham, who got a spontaneous applaud from the 1400 scientists when he said that cutting funding for the environment is not the way out of the economic crisis. He also commented on the denial of climate change and evolution that has been heard from other politicians. He said that “I will give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume that they are not so stupid that they don´t know that it is a fact, but that they deny it for political convenience. “

When the parallel presentations started it was a constant running from room to room, if one wanted to hear the presentations that sounded interesting. This is dependent on that everybody in all rooms follow the time limit, and most of the time it worked very well. Information I picked up the first day.

Qianxin Lin showed how Juncus is much more sensitive to oil exposure than Spartina is, and this was demonstrated both by monitoring the effect of the Deep-water Horizon oil spill, and experimental testing of oil exposure of the two plants at various concentrations of oil.

Micaleila Desotelle spoke about a major oil-sand spill from a pipeline that transports tar-sand oil. It occurred in Michigan right after the Deep-water Horizon oil spill, and therefore got limited media coverage. Birds, turtles, mammals and vegetation were affected.

Sylvie de Blois presented information on how climate models can predict very accurately the current distribution of wetland species in Quebec, but not the distribution of abundance. The models show that species will shift their range 2 degrees (300 km) north somewhere between 2071 and 2100.

Among the posters there was one comment on a poster by Cimon-Morin et al. that I found interesting. The poster presented information regarding how to use ecosystem services for wetland conservation planning in remote areas. They conclude that the economic value of ecosystem services decrease the further away a site is from populated areas, but at the same time the regulating functions (e.g. high biodiversity) increases, which raises the question of the value of evaluating ecosystem services in this way.

There were plenty of more that was presented, but these are my highlights of day 1. 

On Thursday 11:20 is my presentation about using Functional Diversity analysis to analyze environmental constraints in restoration.