Badger Insider Summer 2014

Summer 2014

BADGERinsiderTree HuggersBadgers love the greenery in the UWs scenery.

Plus, the Arboretum: 80 years of burning and learning.

The Magazine for Wisconsin Alumni Association Members

BADGERinsider

Departments4 Badgering6 Badger Notes

10 Its Our NatureThe UWs school colors may be red and white, but campus is suffused with green. Readers share their favorite natural spots.

by Badger Readers

15 Stein CapsulesFor thirty years, student employees at the Stiftskeller have quietly kept a tradition alive. Were blowing the lid off the secret of the Union steins.

Ask Abe

16 Trial by FireSometimes, the best way to protect something ancient is to burn it to the ground. The UW Arboretum is celebrating eighty years of prairie restoration.

by Sandra Knisely 09, MA13

14 Buckys Wardrobe22 Badger Families

23 Badger Pride28 In Memoriam

Find more about these stories and past Buckys Wardrobe outfits at uwalumni.com/insider.

The UW loves its natural areas unnatural as they may be.

Of the 936 acres of area on central campus, 325 of them are classi!ed as natural areas. "ese include Muir Woods, the Lakeshore Path, the Class of 1918 Marsh, Picnic Point, University Bay, Frautschi Point, the North Shore Woods, Eagle Heights, and the Lake Mendota Footpath. "en theres the UW Arboretum, which adds up to 1,262 acres more. "at totals 1,587 acres of parkland out of the 2,198 that the UW owns in Madison: 72 percent of the land area on campus. But as youll see in Trial by Fire, it isnt easy to take care of the UWs natural spaces and its not a task the university leaves entirely up to nature. "at article discusses e#orts to tame the prairie through the art of external combustion. And the Arb is hardly the only campus natural area that has relied on human intervention. Take Picnic Point, the wooded peninsula below Eagle Heights on the far west side of campus. Seventy years ago, it was a farm and orchard. "e UW purchased the land in 1941. University o$cials talk about the Native American burial mounds that dot this bit of land, but other, less ancient things are buried there, as well. "e UW has interred the carcasses of a gira#e, an elephant, and a rhino there. And in summers, an anthro-pology class has met on the Point to study how to make stone tools. Students chip away at %int rocks to make axes and arrowheads, then discard their work in a heap, for future archaeology students to unearth while studying excavation techniques. So next time youre in a campus natural area, keep your eyes open theres a lot going on beyond nature.

On, Wisconsin!John AllenEditor

Paula Bonner MS78 WAA President, Publisher

Mary DeNiro MBA11 Chief Engagement Officer

Jim Kennedy Senior Managing Director, Marketing and Communications

Kate Dixon 01, MA07 Managing Director,

CommunicationsJohn Allen

EditorColleen OHara

Art DirectorSandra Knisely 09, MA13

Assistant EditorPaula Apfelbach 83

Editorial AssistantBrian Klatt

Senior Writer

Notes are the second-most-popular thing to find in a stein. Beer is number one. When was beer first sold in the Memorial Union?

A) 1908 B) 1928 C) 1933 D) 1943

Email [email protected] for the answer.

Wisconsin Alumni Association650 North Lake Street Madison, WI 53706(608) 262-2551Fax (608) 262-3332Toll-free (888) 947-2586 (WIS-ALUM)Email: [email protected]: uwalumni.com

Alumni Address ChangesToll-free (888) 947-2586, or email [email protected]

2014 Wisconsin Alumni Association

Badger Insider is published triannually as the community forum for the members of the Wisconsin Alumni Association. For information on membership, visit uwalumni.com.

Cover photo by C&N Photogra-phy. Special thanks to the UW Arboretum for hosting our shoot, even though six-and-a-half-foot-tall, bipedal badgers are a non-native (not to say fictitious) species.

Badger Insider is produced at a facility that contains nuts.

16 BADGER Insider Where Badgers Belong

Trial by FireTo the casual observer, Curtis Prairie is a peaceful place. !e central (and original) land tract at the UW Arboretum is a seventy-three-acre oasis for tall grasses and the wild"owers tucked among them species that have been growing on Wisconsin prairies since the Ice Age. Yet the chirping birds and sweeping grasses conceal a warzone. For more than a century, native plants have been under siege, and sometimes the best, and only, way to protect these ancient inhabitants from their creeping enemies is to burn them all.

For eighty years, the UW Arboretum has blazed new trails in prairie restoration by Sandra Knisely 09, MA13

uwalumni.com/insider SUMMER 2014 17

Dawn breaks over the UW Arboretum.JEFF MILLER, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS


An ecosystem in ashesArboretum researchers believe that certain natural processes are as much a part of the prairie ecosystem as are plants

and animals. Fire is one of the most fundamental of these processes, and many prairie species have evolved to thrive in an environment that regularly experiences large, intense wild#res.

However, even though prairie plants can do things like grow #re-resistant bark or germinate in scorched soil, they were unable to cope with the rapid land-scape changes wrought by agriculture. By the early 1930s, the land that is now Curtis Prairie was an abandoned farm overrun by Kentucky bluegrass, an invasive, non-native plant used for livestock grazing and often found in lawn and turf mixes. !e bluegrass roots had turned the soil into a dense sod that had all but choked out the native plants. When the UW acquired the #eld in 1934 to establish the Arboretum, no one not even founding director and famed conservationist Aldo Leopold quite

This year marks the UW Arboretums eightieth anniversary. One of the lasting scienti#c contributions from the countrys #rst restored prairie is a series of experiments showing that controlled burning is absolutely essential for helping native plant life to survive.

We only have one-tenth of 1 percent of native prairie left in Wisconsin, says Arboretum ecologist Brad Herrick. Its a vital resource that is very rare, and people are understanding more and more that once these communities are gone, theyre gone forever. !ough modern Arboretum land managers and volunteers know much more than their predecessors about how to use #re for conservation, they also face an increasing number of man-made barriers to burning and native species could end up in the cross#re.

Volunteers complete entry-level firefighting training and wear fire-retardant outfits during burns.


knew what to do with it. Over the course of the next decade, Arboretum leaders began to transplant native sod from other Midwest prairie remnants and to dabble with controlled-burning techniques. Prior to European settlement, American Indians had regularly burned prairie in the area, and conservationists suspected that native plants just needed a little room to breathe and bounce back. In 1948, plant ecology professor John T. Curtis, the prairies eventual namesake, and Max Partch PhD49 published the #rst scienti#c paper to directly attribute a reduction in an invasive-species popula-tion to controlled burning. In this case, the researchers were able to signi#cantly

decrease the abundance of Kentucky bluegrass, which allowed native species to better compete and even take hold in certain areas of Curtis Prairie. After the paper, #re became a core tool for generations of Arboretum researchers and land-care managers. !ey burned the prairie regularly at the beginning of each spring and later carried the practice to additional land acquisitions. A lot of whats known about #re started here, says Herrick. Anyone who utilizes burning in their management has been indirectly impacted by the studies that happened here. Even if they dont know the research was done [at the UW], theyre bene#ting.

Burn practices remained fairly unchanged until the 1980s, when a new invader swept into Curtis Prairie. White sweet clover, a biennial legume, was proliferating, and it had #re to thank in part for its success: early spring burns always missed the clover blooms. Botany professor and long-time conservation advocate Virginia Kline 47, MS75, PhD76 decided it was time to mix things up. She found that alternat-ing the schedule to burn in early spring one year and in late spring the next made a major dent in the abundance of sweet clover. In the #rst year, the #re stimulated germination, depleting the seed bank in the soil. In the second year, the #re killed

BRYCE RIC

HTER (2), U

NIVERSITY C

OM

MU

NIC

ATION

S


o$ the "owering plants before they could seed again. If you burn the same way over and over, decade after decade, a #re will start to help certain plants and harm certain plants, says Michael Hansen, the Arboretum land manager who heads the #re crew and oversees every burn. If you mix it up, then your actions are having a more diverse e$ect. Youll favor and harm a di$erent suite of species.

No job for blue jeansFor Hansen, a successful #re is, quite simply, a safe #re a concept that has evolved gradually at the Arboretum. In the early pictures, the people doing #res were usually university researchers, wearing what they wore to teach class, or women in dresses, he says. Even more recently, maybe from the 70s, 80s, or early 90s, you would see them wearing "annel shirts and blue jeans. No gloves, no helmet. You would never see that today. Todays #re crew is composed of approximately eight Arboretum sta$ and select volunteers who have completed entry-level #re#ghting training. !ey wear special out#ts, comlete with #re- retardant pants and shirts, eye equipment, and gloves. !e general burn seasons run from late fall until it snows and again in spring, usually from April to May. !e crew tries to get in as many burns as possible, but some seasons, such as the overly wet spring of 2013, conditions never allowed for even a single #re. Hansen and his colleagues write up burn plans months in advance with clearly outlined objectives for each #re. !en they wait for the weather to cooperate. If a good forecast holds true on the morning of a scheduled burn, Hansen will go through a checklist and make sure #rebreaks are in place. !ese are either natural features, such as water courses, or man-made elements, such as roads or strips of razed land. !e team will then test a small portion of land to make sure the #re behaves as expected. If the "ames are bigger than the crew anticipates or the wind shifts, they must reschedule. But

if the test goes as planned, the team will split into two groups of three or four. !eyll light the #re downwind and move it slowly into the wind, with each group moving in opposite directions around the burn land. Every member of the crew carries a backpack #lled with water that is sprayed to guide the #re along its intended path. By the time the #re makes it to the op-posite side of the land unit, its typically small enough to be put out simply by stepping on it.

Flames against a !oodHansen bears the responsibility of keeping a long-time Arboretum practice alive, but unpredictable weather isnt his only obstacle theres also bureaucracy. I got into this line of work to protect the plants and animals that need land set aside and actively managed to protect them, Hansen says. I know #re is only going to get harder to use as a tool to restore land. I realize I have to do a good job, do it safely, and be an advocate so that [#re] can continue to be used. Curtis Prairie is surrounded on all sides by signs of urban life, as its borders are close to hospitals, schools, public parks, and several homes. !e Beltline, a major highway, slices through its middle. !is tricky location means that Hansen has to look at a complex menu of factors before even scheduling a burn. Each year the Arboretum receives a permit from the city, which speci#es a narrow range of temperatures, humidity levels, wind speeds, and wind directions during which a burn can take place. For instance, Hansens team cant burn with any sort of north wind, which would drive smoke in the direction of the thousands of cars on the Beltline. In addition to the rules, urban structures also complicate burn practices. !ree storm sewers from Madison-area suburbs drain into Curtis Prairie, carrying in outside soils and excess nutrients. Further, runo$ keeps the ground wetter than it would be naturally. In fact, some acres in the nearby, smaller Greene Prairie are now so saturated that wetland vegetation is taking hold, and its begun spreading to Curtis Prairie.

Reed canary grass is a particularly aggressive species. It seems to bene#t from the open spaces created by #re, so land managers have had to turn to other strategies to control it, with limited success. But Hansen, Herrick, and their colleagues are far from surrender in their ongoing war against native and non-native invasives. !ey are currently exploring plans to try burning during the summer months. !ough the logistical challenges of burning during the hottest time of the year are substantial, they anticipate that burning during growing season could kill o$ signi#cant numbers of invaders.

A canary with petals One of the Arboretums core goals is to maintain species diversity and, where possible, to expand it. But for Herrick, biodiversity is more than a research agenda. Its an ethical imperative. I think we have a moral obligation on some level, he says. Who are we to do things that would make or allow these plants to go extinct? We dont fully understand what we have yet [to know] what we are losing. Preserving the right balance of species is an ongoing challenge for Arboretum sta$, but the presence of a particular and very popular plant family indicates that their e$orts are making a di$erence. In 1938 the Wisconsin State Journal published a scathing letter by Leopold addressed to an anonymous wild"ower enthusiast who appeared to have dug up the Arboretums last remaining yellow ladys-slipper orchid. !e University of Wisconsin has got the notion, perhaps a foolish one, that the privilege of seeing a ladyslipper [sic] in the woods has got something to do with education, Leopold wrote. For this reason, it is acquiring an arboretum Perhaps, after all, our students would learn a lot if we took them out there and said: Here is where we used to have a ladyslipper. !e Arboretums orchids continue to evoke strong public interest and the protective instincts of its scientists.


Several small orchid populations can be found on Arboretum lands. However, to prevent wildlife vandalism, sta$ members are careful not to publicize their exact locations. !e de#nitive guidebook to plant life in the Arboretum, Prairie Plants of the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, lists six orchid species as being present, including the eastern prairie fringed orchid, a "ower as fragile as the snow"akes its "ared, white petals resemble. !e orchid was once a common sight on Midwest prairies but is now on the federal threatened-species list. In 2005, only a single specimen was found in the Arboretums Greene Prairie. Wisconsin is home to almost #fty orchid species. !at may seem like a lot, but orchidaceae is actually one of the largest plant families in the world, with around 25,000 species. !e incredible diversity of orchidaceae has inspired generations of researchers interested in plant diversity, from Charles Darwin to Ken Cameron, a botany professor who

directs the Wisconsin State Herbarium and runs a lab at the UW that is dedicated to orchid biology. In a recent survey of orchid populations across Wisconsin, Cameron and his graduate students found that Dane County is home to around thirty species, making it the #fth most diverse county in the state. He says preserved land areas serve as refuges for the "owers. !ere is just so little native prairie left in North America that these orchids are barely hanging on, Cameron says. Were fortunate that in Dane County, we have quite a lot of protected land [managed by the Arboretum] that gives more places for these orchids to grow. Native orchids are a #nicky bunch overall. !ey are dependent on fungi in the ground to help them obtain nutrition from the poor soils they typically inhabit. !ats partly why digging up and transplanting orchids often dooms them; they cant survive for long without the fungi nearby. In general, prairie orchids arent as showy

as the tropical varieties depicted in movies and books. Unlike those tree-dwelling cousins, Wisconsin orchids grow on the ground, and #re is an important element for encouraging their growth. Many species are short but need direct sunlight, so they bene#t from periodic burns that clear o$ surrounding, taller plant life. Because they are so delicate, the presence of orchids at all is taken as a sign of a balanced ecosystem. Cameron says that these "owers often serve as the canary in the coal mine in terms of gauging the health of their environment. Orchids tie together this web of life, he says. !ey need fungi, insects and other plants around them to create an ecosystem. Break that web and it collapses it cant survive. We cant protect the species without protecting the whole ecosystem.

Sandra Knisely 09, MA13 probably shouldnt be allowed to manage a candle, much less a wild!re.

IISTOC

K PHO

TO

An orchid species native to Wisconsin, the yellow ladys-slipper blooms during morel mushroom season. Hikers may discover them while exploring woods and fields.

Documents

Badger Insider Summer 2014