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Volume 50, February, 2014 !
In this issue: Announcements Chapter News Awards Night 2013 New Class Chapter Projects
Native Plants & Prairies Day Big Thicket clean-‐up Twelve Hills Mosasaur Book Reviews What a Plant Knows
Bringing Nature Home Letters to the Editor Chapter Information
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Herbarium Catalog Online In just one year the NTMN Dallas County Herbarium is operational. There are over 200 specimens which have been collected, pressed, identified, mounted, catalogued and filed. The collection is listed in a database which can be found on the NTMN website under Members and then under Links and then look for NTMN Dallas County Herbarium. Searches can be made to find specimens by common or scientific names. If the specimen is in the permanent collection then it can be viewed at the Extension Office in the herbarium cabinet. Members who may want to identify a plant they have found and want to see if it matches our specimen of the same name are welcome to come and check out our collection. In addition to the permanent collection of plants there is an educational book of specimens, which will be used for outreach education.
Continued on page 2 Thanks to Carolyn Rozier for the story and photos.
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Find us on Facebook www.facebook.com/ northtexasmasternaturalists or join our group “North Texas Master Naturalist” (members only)
Volume 50, February 2014
Speakers for upcoming chapter meetings March 5 Carol Clark, President of the Collin County Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas
“Planting for Bluebird Success” will explore the relationship between native plants and bluebird habitat.
April 2 Jim Peterson, creator of “Birds of North-‐Central Texas” website, co-‐author of Birds of the Trans-‐Pecos Longtime birder Jim Peterson will share his experience with birding in North Texas. Chapter meetings are open to the public, and held on the first Wednesday of the month at the AgriLife Extension Office, 10056 Marsh Lane in Dallas, suite B-‐101 (downstairs). Social time and refreshments at 6:30pm, announcements and speaker at 7:00pm. Looking ahead… Michael Warriner has rescheduled his presentation on Texas Native Bees to June 4th. In the meantime, you can learn more from his website http://texasbumblebees.com and the Texas Native Bee Co-‐op Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/texasnativebees
Announcements
Save the Date for the Annual Meeting The 2014 Texas Master Naturalist Annual meeting and Advanced Training will be the weekend of October 24 – 26 at Mo Ranch in Hunt, Texas. This year all accommodations fees will be included in your registration, which will begin in late July/early August.
Big Chapter Project for Spring Our chapter will gather on Saturday, March 22, starting at 9:00am, at John Bunker Sands Wetland Center to work on trail development, including clearing deadfall, leveling the trail by the river, and installing trail signs. Bring gloves; other equipment will be provided. At noon we’ll enjoy our sack lunches (BYO) together. Big Chapter Projects are created to strengthen our friendships and community partnerships. John Bunker Sands Wetland Center 655 Martin Lane Seagoville, Texas 75159 www.wetlandcenter.com
Planning is underway for our second annual Native Plants & Prairies Day on Saturday, May 3 at White Rock Lake. This free event will include walks on the prairie, speakers every half hour, storytellers, kids’ activities, and many demonstration and information booths at the Bath House Cultural Center, 521 East Lawther Drive in Dallas. The theme of this year’s event is “Inviting Nature Home” and will focus on what we can do to find a place for native plants in our own yards. (See the review of the book Bringing Nature Home on page 10 for the ideas behind the theme.) This will be a collaborative effort with a variety of organizations, including:
The Native Plant Society of Texas Native Prairies Association of Texas Dallas Organic Gardening Club Texas Discovery Gardens
Trinity River Audubon Center Audubon Dallas
Nature Conservancy Sierra Club
Texas Honeybee Guild Butterflies Unlimited
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Chapter Projects
Volume 50, February 2014
Native Plants & Prairies Day May 3, 2014
10am – 4pm at the Bath House Cultural Center at White Rock Lake
John Bunker Sands Wetland Center Texas Stream Team
Dallas County Master Gardeners Friends of the Bath House Cultural Center
For the Love of the Lake For more information or to get involved in the planning, contact Jim Folger at [email protected].
The photos are of the same spot on the same day at the Big Thicket at White Rock Lake. Citizen Foresters were among the volunteers who removed privet from around the trees January 11 in this ongoing clean up effort. Thanks to Jim Bagley for the photos.
Before and After at The Big Thicket
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Chapter Projects
Volume 50, February 2014
Once again we have a full class starting their training to become Texas Master Naturalists. Brett Johnson, Urban Biologist for Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and our chapter advisor, gives an introductory presentation on “Ecological Concepts” to the class for their first session, left. The class also got an unexpected lesson in emergency preparedness as the Dallas Fire Department responded to a false alarm at the county government building that night.
Work continues at Twelve Hills Nature Center After our Big Chapter Project last November there has been lots of progress combating invasive plants at Twelve Hills, but prairie restoration is an ongoing process throughout every season of the year. So each Sunday in February and March volunteers can spend the afternoon (1:00 – 4:00pm) removing invasives, planting seeds, and other restoration tasks. The public is welcome to join in, so Master Naturalists are needed to help identify plants and show others what to do, even lead walks on the prairie. A recent Sunday brought out the crew above. The photo below shows a good turnout for our Big Chapter Project last fall. The group photo originally published in the December Dragonflyer did not accurately represent the size of the group, so here’s the bigger one!
Thanks to Dana Wilson and Bruce Stewart for the photos.
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Chapter News
The Dragonflyer Volume 50, February 2014
Awards Night 2013 In early December our chapter celebrates the year’s accomplishments and recognizes our members who have earned their certification through service and advanced training. Our speaker was Rudolph Rosen, Ph.D., research professor at the Meadows Center for Water and a research associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A & M Corpus Christi. He spoke about his project called H2O – Headwaters to Ocean which engages students in water conservation, and his website TexasAquaticScience.org. The website provides students and educators access to the curriculum on everything aquatic, “from molecules to ecosystem,” and is a great example of how to use technology to reach out to students. Examples of careers in aquatic science and projects that allow children to make an impact in conservation are featured in the curriculum. As an educator, Dr. Rosen had a lot to share with Master Naturalists.
We also recognized Mrs. Eugenia Fritz, left, with the first-‐ever Dragonfly Award for her conservation work in the Dallas area for many decades. Outgoing President Stephanie Timko selected three members to receive the President’s Award for Excellence bottom left: Linda Ford, outgoing Education Chair and one of the organizers of Love Our Native Plants & Prairies Day, Jim Folger, also an organizer of Love Our Native Plants & Prairies Day, and Pauline Schafer, outgoing Public Relations officer, Newsletter Editor, and organizer for our chapter’s participation in Earth Day Dallas. In 2013 our chapter had 100 members who recertified, completing at least 40 volunteer hours and 8 advanced training hours. 32 members of the Class of 2013 reached their initial certification, and 7 of those received double certification for completing 80 volunteer hours and 16 advanced training hours in addition to their class work. And many members celebrated milestones of 250 and 500 lifetime hours. Judy Meagher, right celebrated 1000 hours! Our chapter, as a whole, reported 13,188 volunteer hours and 2374 advanced training hours for the year. This volunteer work is valued at almost $292,000. Thanks to Carroll Mayhew and Linda Cooke for the photos.
Unearthing Dallas’ past: the mosasaur By Jane Manaster The photograph appears to show an operating theater with a patient awaiting attention. In fact, the image displays a slab of limestone encasing bones of a mosasaur, a prehistoric marine reptile. In 2008 a man enjoying a hike along Duck Creek in Garland happened on the fossilized remains of the predatory lizard-‐like creature which is almost 40 feet long. It had lain there, shattered but identifiable, since the late Cretaceous period more than 85 million years ago. After a short spell of indecision about where the prehistoric find should go next, it was transferred with considerable effort, principally by members of the Dallas Paleontological Society, to the Heard Museum in McKinney. North Texas Master Naturalists are among the groups invited to help restore the remains of the Tylosaurus proriger so they can be exhibited in the museum. Volunteering on this project is awesome! According to mosasaur expert Mike Polcyn from SMU, “Mosasaurs were lizards that entered the oceans about 100 million years ago. Over millions of years, they evolved numerous marine adaptations, including streamlined bodied, fish-‐like fins, and tail flukes. The group was very successful, occupying many ecological niches, including that of top predator of the world’s oceans for about 30 million years, until their extinction at the end of the age of dinosaurs, about 65 million years ago. “ Darlene Sumerfelt is volunteer director of the project that is partially funded by the Dallas Paleontological Society and the Heard Museum. Richard and Joan Sheppard and Fletcher Wise are lead preparators. Richard and Joan retired from their profession as engineers and volunteer regularly at the laboratory freeing not only bones, but also other fossils such as shark teeth, fish vertebrae, shells and mineral fragments. Continued on next page
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Chapter Projects
The Dragonflyer Volume 50, February 2014
Mosasaur drawing courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
What a Plant Knows by Daniel Chamovitz Scientific American/Farrar Strauss, 2012 The author is director of the Manna Center for Plant Biosciences at Tel Aviv University. Have you ever wanted to know if plants can see, hear, smell or even communicate? Are some plants tattletales or gossips? Who are the bullies of the plant world? This book will answer those questions. The subtitle of the book is “A Field Guide to the Senses.” As an organizing tactic for the book the author reviews the five senses and compares the human sense to the way a plant senses. For instance, in the chapter What a Plant Sees the author reviews the human anatomy of sight and then the anatomy of how the plant sees. Research has shown that plants do recognize color, they know how much light there is or how long lights have been on or if another plant grows over them. It is the tip of the plant that reacts to light and if the tip end of a seedling is cut off the plant will go blind and the plant will not move to the light. Research has shown that a plant uses light to determine when to germinate, bend, flower, make food. Green algae have an organelle called an eyespot, which is the closest thing to an eye that has been found in plants.
Continued on next page
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The Dragonflyer Volume 50, February 2014
Mosasaur, continued After clear instructions on how to operate the air scribe carefully, I donned a nose-‐and-‐mouth mask and glasses to prevent harm from flying dust and chips. The small electrically powered tool, the main implement used to extract the bones, is like a miniature jackhammer though it looks like a dentist’s rotating drill; it needs just gentle pressure to work at the right pace. It is important to hold it at the right angle and not be disconcerted by the noise of the compressor that provides the electrical power or the dust collector resembling a do-‐it-‐yourself car vacuum. It is quieter though not necessary to wear ear covers. Chunks of the mosasaur bones in different stages of preparation are housed in different rooms at the laboratory. Beside the separated bones there are large pieces of conglomerate which take extremely careful handling to determine their precise separate place in the skeleton. SMU professor Dr. Mike Polcyn is the paleontological lead consultant. As work proceeds, he and other specialists identify more features. The small indentations along the 18-‐inch pieces of the double-‐hinged jaw ideal for trapping and killing prey, are now believed to be where nerve endings were located that assisted mosasaurs in locating prey. Mosasaurs breathed air and gave birth to live young. As Master Naturalists in the Dallas area we have an exceptional variety of volunteer options. For sure I’ll be heading back up the North Central Expressway to take part in the mosasaur project again. Over the next few months, the lab will be closed to new volunteers as preparation for some of the bones to be displayed will be underway. As soon those tasks are complete, a volunteer schedule will be sent out again. If you would like to be on the list to receive a schedule of available dates, please email Richard Sheppard at [email protected].
Book Review
What a Plant Knows, continued Plants also react to chemicals in the air. In other words they can smell. Plants know when a neighboring plant is attacked by insects, when fruit is ripening, which host to choose, when to attract beneficial insects. Plants know when they are touched but touching inhibits growth. Some plants send out chemicals to discourage the growth of other plants and these are termed allelopathic plants. Allelopaths can send these toxins through the air, roots or leaves as they fall. Plants that are notorious bullies are black walnut, blackberry, purple loosestrife, and knapweed. Carnivorous plants are covered related to how they respond to and remember touch. How growers are able to manipulate crops with light to time flowering is covered well. The parasitic dodder plant is described with its preference of certain host plants and its rapid movements. I recommend this as a very entertaining way to learn about the fascinating life of plants. Carolyn Rozier
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Bringing Nature Home by Douglas Tallamy Timber Press, 2007 Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens by Douglas W. Tallamy, 2007 and updated 2009 was described by William Cullina, Director of Horticultural Research for the New England Wild Flower Society as “This important work should be required reading for anyone who ever put shovel to earth.” We humans have done a remarkable job in altering the ecosystems of the world that sustain us. Tallamy presents estimates that in the U.S. we have taken and modified for our own use between 95 and 97 percent of all land in the lower 48 states. As he states: “When extinction adjusts the number of species to the land area that remains for plants, mammals, reptiles, birds, and invertebrates of North America, we will have lost 95% of the species that greeted the Pilgrims.” The extinction of species can be averted if we take action to design our living spaces to accommodate them. This means eliminating some of the 40 million acres of sterile lawn environments and adopting more of the native plants that are suited to our environment. By introducing alien plants that are less attractive to insects that have evolved over thousands or millions of years, we have inadvertently reduced their numbers along with the animals that depend on them for food. As a Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology at the University of Delaware, Tallamy presents strong arguments for biodiversity, and presents detailed information on the plants and insects that rely on them. It is up to us as Master Naturalists to help lead the way by education and example if we are to alter our march toward extinction. Yours in the pursuit of knowledge, Jim Folger
Book Review
Volume 50, February 2014 The Dragonflyer
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Aerial Spraying for West Nile Virus Maybe okay for people, not so good for animals
At the November 2013 General Meeting, Dr. Robert Haley and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins discussed the rationale behind the decision to do aerial spraying with DUET to kill the mosquitoes that carry West Nile Virus. The session was facilitated by our own Shelley Kofler from KERA. Dr. Haley did an admirable job of discussing the way the mosquitoes spread the virus and recapping the cases in the state and in Dallas County over the last several years, and Judge Jenkins described how the decision was reached to use aerial spray in Dallas. Unfortunately, there was not enough time to address the issues of the impact of the spraying on insect, bird, fish, and honeybee populations. While Dr. Haley assured us all that the spraying was safe, he had little to share in the way of research to prove his point. As an MD – Epidemiologist, and former CDC employee, Dr. Haley is logically most concerned with upholding the EPA standard: “no insecticide should pose an unreasonable adverse effect on people or the environment.” As Master Naturalists, many of us are concerned about the impact on the animal populations. I have spoken with several members of the Texas Honeybee Guild, and they reported up to a third of their bees were killed during the recent 2013 aerial spraying. Additionally, John Watts, entomologist at Texas Discovery Gardens, has told me that there are many bees that do not return to the safety of the hive at night, thus exposing them to the spray. In researching the issues here, I have uncovered information about DUET. As an adulticide, it is in the class of sprays designated as synthetic pyrethroids, and contains Sumithrin and Prallethrin, which are broad-‐spectrum insecticides. Pyrethroids are chemically altered and designed to duplicate the action of the botanical pyrethrins, which are the active chemicals in pyrethrum, extracted from the flower of certain species of the chrysanthemum flower. As reported in the Journal of Pesticide Reform Volume 23, No.2, Prallethrin as an insecticide “is highly toxic and fatal for insects, fish and honeybees.” Further, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2004 suggested that “In general, there are few studies that have examined the non-‐target effects… As all of these chemicals are broad-‐spectrum insecticides, they are potentially lethal to most insects.” The comments here do not address the effectiveness of aerial spraying on mosquito populations or the potential adverse effects on humans who are exposed. A CBS 11 News segment on August 14, 2012 reported that warnings about DUET had been issued in NY, MA, and VA, but health officials in Texas say it is “safe and effective.” In conclusion, more research is needed, and should be done, before we can conclude that aerial spraying is safe for the animal populations. Yours in the pursuit of knowledge, Jim Folger Views expressed here are of individuals and may not represent those of the North Texas Master Naturalists. Please send responses, comments, and questions to [email protected].
Letters to the Editor
Volume 50, February 2014 The Dragonflyer
Master Naturalist Mission To develop a corps of well informed volunteers, to provide education, outreach, and service dedicated to
the beneficial management of natural resources and natural areas within our local communities. Primary objective: develop a Texas Master Naturalist volunteer network that can be self-‐sufficient.
North Texas Chapter Administration *President Judy Parsons [email protected]
Programs & Special Events Jim Shouse, Rob & Laurie Tranchin [email protected]
Hospitality Karla Pollock & Ellen Guiling [email protected] Goals Jim Folger [email protected] Speakers Bureau Janet Smith [email protected] Audit Committee [email protected] Technology Committee Richard Grayson [email protected] Policies & Procedure Guidelines Committee Jim Varnum [email protected] *Vice President Bruce Stewart [email protected] *Secretary Barbara Judkins [email protected] Historian Natha Taylor [email protected] *Treasurer Louise Smith [email protected] *Public Relations Jim Folger [email protected] Website Rick Murphy [email protected] Newsletter Editor Pauline Schafer [email protected] Chapter Resource Manager Ellen Guiling [email protected] *Special Events/Outreach Julie Collins & Melissa Martin [email protected] *Volunteer Activities Mary Mamantov [email protected] Advanced Training Jim Varnum [email protected] *Membership Nelda Reid [email protected] *Education Doug & Ellen Guiling [email protected] *Volunteer Representative Tim Allsup [email protected] Past President Stephanie Timko [email protected]
* executive board member (officer)
Meetings are held at the Texas AgriLife Extension Service 10056 Marsh Lane, Suite B-‐101, Dallas, Texas
Chapter Meetings: first Wednesday of each month at 7:00pm, refreshments and fellowship at 6:30pm
Board Meetings: Monday before the first Wednesday of each month at 6:30pm
