Trabajamos en el campo!

We built the exclosures 4 years ago now, and the last time we sampled the vegetation in them was 2.5 years ago. In that time, there's been incredible changes. This is one of our sites - on the left is the grassland that is still grazed, and what the entire area looked like before we built the fences, and even before trees were planted in the stands.

And inside the fences, the vegetation is now completely different. It's completely dominated by a few different shrubs, which are at least shoulder height. The tallest shrubs are taller than we are - and the only change has been removing the cattle.

Within the exclosures, we're even seeing changes in the forest after so many years without cattle. Usually the cattle use the plantations more for sheltering than for grazing, but we're definitely seeing a change without cattle for so long, and now that the forests have been thinned and are allowing more light to reach the understory plants. What I find interesting, is that the most recovery seems to be on the areas where soil was built up when they dug the tree furrows - you can see lines of soil mounded up on either side of the tree rows, and that's where most of the vegetation is now. I'm guessing it's because there are more seeds in the turned up soil that were laying dormant, and now that there is greater light availability, these seeds have now germinated.

That's all the science for today. :)

We're hunkering down for what we expect to be a fairly good storm system coming through tomorrow. If it really storms, I hope it's a good one. It's been a long time since we've all witnessed an impressive thunderstorm.