FCNA Fall Newsletter

What is the Biocore Prairie?

The Biocore Prairie, located in an area of abandoned fields between Picnic Point and Frautschi Point (see map), provides an opportunity

to introduce undergraduates in the Biology Core Curriculum (Biocore, a four-semester introductory honors biology sequence at the University) to prairie restoration and gives them practical field experience in environmental sciences. Specifically, the purpose of the project is to enable students to study different prairie restoration techniques. Eventually the Biocore Prairie will become a site for research on viable tall-grass prairies.

The Biocore staff chose the old fields in the CNA because the site seemed ideal for a multi-year restoration project and is readily accessible to laboratory classes. In 1996, the staff proposed to restore the Picnic Point Base Orchard Field, except for the Eagle Heights garden plots, to mesic prairie under the Kline/Bader plan. In the summer of 1997, the University approved Biocore's application to study and restore one acre. The permit has since expanded to include a total of five acres.

Who is involved?

The process of combining an ongoing prairie restoration with teaching scientific methods for controlled experimentation to undergraduates requires collaboration among many groups at the University, including students and staff from Biocore and the Department of Landscape Architecture, CNA, Arboretum, Physical Plant, and CALS West Side Experimental Station.

Curt Caslavka, Biocore's laboratory manager and the co-chair of the laboratory course that focuses on the site, has prepared demonstration plots. These plots contain some of the species that the team hopes will become established.

What work has been done?

Students began field work in the fall of 1997 by performing baseline plant and insect surveys, collecting seeds at Curtis Prairie in the Arboretum, and deciding on research plans for the site, including experimenting with different site preparation and planting techniques. The students' initial survey revealed that the land supported mainly weeds.

During the next three years, students and staff experimented with three different methods for weed reduction. These were: (1) mulching; (2) mowing frequently and then treating the area with herbicide shortly before planting; (3) plowing in the spring and rototilling frequently during the summer and fall. The undergraduates sowed 61 species of prairie plants on the treated 0.6 acre in November of 1998, but weeds proved harder to remove than expected. Accordingly, Biocore students and staff decided to try the weed control methods on the adjacent 0.4 acre for two years before planting. That area was planted in November of 2000 and students will be assessing the results this fall.

The expanded site includes nearly one acre located south and east of the original one-acre plot. A large dirt pile covered this land, but the University Physical Plant staff removed it and graded the soil for Biocore in the spring of 2000. To prevent erosion, staff first planted oats, then mowed the field frequently to control annual weeds. Prairie seeds were planted with a drill in the spring of 2001. This area does not have the same large seed bank of weeds as the one-acre field and already has more prairie species.

In 2001, the Biocore Prairie Project again expanded. Three acres above the Prairie were treated with herbicide to eliminate weeds. Future Biocore students will plant this area. In addition, as part of the long-term plan to study population dynamics, Mara McDonald will begin to band birds in the fall of 2001 in order to monitor any changes in migratory and nesting birds that occur as the prairie restoration continues.

Where can I learn more?

For more information about the Biocore Prairie, see the website at http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/biocore/