Mis bebes

Yesterday, with Juliana, we toured my field sites for the first time. Our first site was where the contractors were building the first exclosure. My project is studying the vegetation in forests and grasslands either with or without grazing, so at each site we will have plots in grazed grassland, grazed forest, and inside the exclosure for ungrazed grassland and ungrazed forest. It was awesome to see the fences actually being built, and my sites coming together. Juliana may have been perplexed at my excitement, but we explained to her that these were like my babies. Not sure if she completely understood their importance for me, but she got a good laugh all the same.

Here is the exclosure in action. They are basically a big rectangle (100 x 50 m) with a 50 x 50 m square in the grassland and 50 x 50 m in the adjacent pine forest. All the forests we'll be studying were planted in 1998-1999. They look slightly different than the 10-11 year old trees back in the northwest.

Here is another site, showing typical grassland and adjacent 10-11 year old pine forest. The ground looks almost like a park or lawn from the grazing, which is pretty incredible. I don't quite understand how the vegetation looks so consistently affected by grazing, since the cows and sheep can't be at the same place all the time. Apparently the plants have adapted to grazing, and the same species that are fairly tall inside exclosures are incredible short, almost creeping along the ground, out in the open. It's nature at work...