Projects and Activities

Since 1996 course participants and student volunteers have worked with the members of the Environmental Studies Program and the Biology Department to restore native vegetation to the site. To date, hundreds of students have worked at the site. Beginning during January, 2002 the students implemented a major adaptive management experiment involving nine fields and three replicated experimental treatments. The three treatments are January burning, Winter and early spring grazing followed by mowing, or alternating between burning and cattle/mowing in successive years. Students enrolled in Ecology (Biology 58) and Fundamentals of Environmental Studies (ENVS 35) will monitor the progress of the restoration effort. Click to see other pictures from Sneed.

Much of the work has been done by participants in the Jan-term course Hands-on Conservation: Restoration of a Native Prairie, but two groups of volunteers, the Alpha Delta Chi sorority and the student environmental group ECOS, have also been instrumental in the progress of this effort. Beginning in 1999 the site also became a work location for the Austin College Great Day of Service. The Biology Department and the Center for Environmental Studies are grateful for their valuable assistance. During 2001 and 2002 this project received support from the Meadows Foundation, the Thomsen Foundation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. This support has facilitated the management work at the site and funded an environmental education program in which Austin College students lead field trips for elementary and secondary schoolchildren at the Sneed property.

Illustrated Texas Floras Project

Dr. R. David Baker, Assistant Professor of Physics at Austin College, has received a three-year grant from the NASA Solid Earth and Natural Hazards Program to investigate the impact of soil moisture and topography on extreme precipitation and flooding. The ultimate goals of this research are to understand the physical processes that influence extreme rainfall and to ensure that these processes are included in numerical weather models.

One specific flood event that has been studied is the historic Missouri flash flood of 2000. On May 7, thunderstorms produced heavy rainfall in east-central Missouri with up to 14 inches of rain in less than 8 hours. The weather forecast for this day predicted less than 0.5 inch of rain. With colleagues at NASA Goddard Space Center, Dr. Baker is investigating atmospheric and land-surface conditions that helped produce these intense storms. The adjacent figure shows rainfall at 2:30 am local time (07:30 UTC) on May 7 measured by Doppler radar (left panel) and simulated rainfall with a sophisticated land-atmosphere computer model (right panel). This new computer simulation reproduces the observed rainfall quite well, in contrast with the original computer forecast for this day. The improved results can be largely attributed to strong interaction between land and atmosphere which was not accounted for in the original computer model. Rainfall rate (mm/hr) during peak flooding of the May 7, 2000 Missouri flash flood event as estimated by radar (left panel) and by an improved land-atmosphere computer model (right panel). Arrows in the right panel indicate wind speed and wind direction approximately 1.5 km above the surface.

Lake Texoma is a 350 square kilometer reservoir on the Texas - Oklahoma border. Roughly 10 miles from Sherman, the reservoir is an important component of the region's economy. In fact, this area is often referred to as Texomaland.

The lake is interesting from both a fundamental ecological perspective and a management perspective. The lake has unusually productive fish populations and experiences heavy competing demands as a water supply, a source of hydropower, a recreational resource, and a flood control impoundment. The Lake Texoma Association estimates that people make 10 million visits to the lake each year. The Army Corps of Engineers expected 500,000 visitors during the year 2000 4th of July weekend alone. There are more than 5,000 boat slips on the lake. Despite the importance of the lake to the region, there has been relatively little study of the lake and its watershed.

An anonymous donor to the Environmental Studies program provided funds that were used to purchase a 21 foot, 150 horsepower, aluminum v-hull boat with capacity for 10 people. That boat is ideal for research and teaching on a large reservoir. A local marina (Eisenhower Yacht Club) donates a marina slip for the college's use. As a result, Austin College has ready access to the lake. The boat is used both in regular coursework (BIOL 68 and BIOL 72) and especially for student-faculty research.

Peter Schulze and his students have investigated two aspects of the Lake Texoma ecosystem, the effect of suspended sediments on zooplankton, and the distribution and abundance of E. coli in the lake water. Schulze and his students have developed an in situ (in lake) incubation procedure that enables them to examine the effects of different concentrations of suspended sediments on various species of zooplankton. During the summer of 2001 Schulze and A.C. biology major Russ Womble used the incubation procedure to compare the egg production of zooplankton in upstream and downstream regions of the reservoir. Upstream regions are highly turbid while downstream regions are relatively clear. In concert with field sampling and a review of data from other sites, this study will examine published hypotheses about the effect of sediments on zooplankton.

This study is not merely of academic interest, but is also relevant to the management of Lake Texoma. Over the years there have been various proposals, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, to divert salty tributaries away from the lake, but salt hastens the sinking of sediments. Salt diversion could increase the lake's turbidity, with potential consequences for a variety of ecological processes. Debate to date has suffered for lack of data (see for example Briny Brouhaha by L. D. Hodge, Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine, May 1996). Dr. Schulze and his students hope to provide data that will be useful to future discussion of salt diversion.

Other students have worked with Dr. Schulze to study the distribution and abundance of Escherichia coli (E. coli) in Lake Texoma. Escherichia coli is an indicator of sewage pollution. The lake has four potential sources of sewage pollution, boats, septic tanks, wastewater treatment systems, and livestock. The most recent analysis by honors student Nichole Knesek identified an area of high E. coli counts that subsequently led to detection of operational problems at a municipal wastewater treatment facility in the lake's watershed.

Students enrolled in ENVS 35 (Fundamentals of Environmental Studies) develop proposals to reduce the college's environmental impact. To be successful a proposal must clearly document the environmental and financial implications of the proposed change, discuss the proposal's various advantages and disadvantages, evaluate the consequences for the workloads of affected individuals, and describe the proposal in sufficient detail that the responsible college officer could make a decision whether or not to implement the proposal without the need to make further substantial analyses.

College administrators have been very receptive to these suggestions. Several proposals have been implemented, either exactly as proposed or after slight modification. These include:

Based on the initial reactions of College administrators it appears that at least three additional proposals will be implemented shortly.

Research on Endemic Hawaiian Animals

Dr. Steven Goldsmith of the AC Biology Department is conducting research at Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge, on the slopes of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. His research is an ongoing investigation of the ecology of Hawaiian montane wet forest, especially on the ecological relationships of endemic longhorned wood-boring beetles (genus Plagithmysus), whose larvae feed on the stems of Koa, an endemic forest tree, and are the primary food of 'akiapola'au, an endemic and endangered Hawaiian honeycreeper. 'Akiapola'au feeds like a woodpecker by chiseling into the wood of Koa and extracting beetle larvae with an extraordinarily long and curved beak. 'Akiapola'au (Hemignathus munroi) occurs only in montane wet forest on the Big Island; its population size is measured in the dozens of individuals.
	'akiapola'au Endemic Hawaiian bird	Wet montane Hawiian forest

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Last Updated 17 November 2003