Lakeside News Summer 2001

Lakeside Professor Donates Award
Building on Mcbride's Vision
The Wehrspann Report
The Phycological Legacy of John D. Dodd at Iowa Lakeside Lab
William Frank Danforth
Water Sampling
Prairie Restoration
Nature Mapping
Larry Eilers

Lakeside Professor Donates Award

By Arnold van der Valk, Director

On September 12, 2001, Dr. Michael J. Lannoo will be presented the prestigious Parker Gentry Award for conservation biology.  This award is given annually by The Field Museum in Chicago.  This is the first time this award has been given to someone working in North America.  He plans to donate to Lakeside the $5,000 in prize money that comes with the award.  The money will be placed in an endowment fund administered by the Friends of Lakeside Lab to fund scholarships for students taking the Conservation Biology course at Lakeside.

Through these scholarships, Dr. Lannoo wants to help train the next generation of conservation biologists.  According to him “Everything meaningful I’ve ever done in conservation biology comes directly from working at Lakeside,” and for that reason he would like to give something back.  He has been coming to Lakeside Lab since 1977, initially as an undergraduate and graduate student.  He joined the faculty in 1988.  During the rest of the year when he is not at Lakeside, Dr. Lannoo is a professor in neurological anatomy at the Muncie Center for Medical Education, part of the Indiana University School of Medicine, and in the Department of Physiology and Health Sciences at Ball State University.    He is the author or editor of several books, including Okoboji Wetlands: A Lesson in Natural History (1996) and he is featured in William Souder’s APlague of Frogs (2000).

Mike Lannoo is a major player in amphibian decline studies that are being conducted in the Midwest and the nation.  The areas of most concern to him include amphibian malformations, environmental quality, and public lands resource management.  Amphibian declines have concerned biologists for the past 15 years.  Scientific research suggests that possible causes for these declines include habitat destruction or modification, pesticides, ultraviolet B radiation, ozone depletion, disease outbreaks, introduction of new predators and commercial harvesting.  Of more recent concern is the increased occurrence of amphibian malformations.  Although amphibians with malformations have been reported for centuries, the number of locations where malformed amphibians have been found, the percentage of individual animals with malformations, and the seriousness of these malformations have all been increasing.  At last count, 33 states have reported malformed amphibians.

This problem should be taken very seriously by the public because amphibians may serve as bioindicators – warning of environmental problems that could be risks to human health.  One of the areas where a large number of malformed frogs have been found is the Upper Midwest.  “I believe that environmental health is very closely tied to human health, and prevention of these problems is cheaper than a cure,” Mike said.  This is why he takes these malformation indicators so seriously.  He also said, “Three percent of humans are born malformed, and that number is too high.”  Mike hopes that the new scholarship will help insure that there will be a new generation of conservation biologists to research these issues.

The Parker Gentry Award is named after the late Theodore A. Parker III and Alwyn Gentry, both exceptional conservation biologists.  Parker, an ornithologist, and Gentry, a botanist, were killed August 3, 1993, when their plane crashed into a mountainside as they were making a treetop survey of an Ecuadorian forest.  Established in 1996, the Parker Gentry Award honors an outstanding individual, team or organization in the field of conservation biology whose efforts have had a significant impact on preserving the world's natural heritage and whose actions and approach can serve as a model to others. The Award is designed to highlight work that could benefit from wider publicity and fuller dissemination of scientific results.  Dr. Lannoo’s was chosen as this year’s recipient for both his scientific achievements on amphibian malformations and his efforts at educating the public about this issue.  As the awards announcement put it, “Dr. Michael Lannoo losses no opportunity to go to the mat for amphibians.”

Lakeside’s faculty, staff and alumni would like to congratulate Mike Lannoo on winning this award.  It is well deserved.  We would also like to thank him for his generosity in donating his prize money to endow scholarships for students at Lakeside.  These new scholarships will be known as the Lannoo Scholarships in Conservation Biology.  Barbara Mendenhall, president of the Friends of Lakeside Lab, and Arnold van der Valk plan will represent Lakeside at the awards ceremony in Chicago.

Building on Macbride's Vision

By Jane Shuttleworth

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh !" exclaimed the little girl, her eyes shining with excitement, "I have never had so much FUN in my life!"  Her father smiled at me and squeezed her hand.  I smiled back.  It was a rewarding moment for me. I understood they had just experienced the magic part of being at Lakeside Lab, when you unexpectedly discover something new in the world around you that fills you with wonder, curiosity, and excitement.

It had been a hot, muggy July night, and approximately 40 people were gathered inside the Waitt Lab for a Wild Wednesday public nature program.  I had led the participants in a group effort to pool our collective knowledge to see if we could list all the species of fish ever known to occur in the Iowa Great Lakes.  As soon as we finished our list, I challenged the participants to show me how many of those fish they could find. Little did they know that Dr. Clay Pierce and his fish ecology students were waiting for them in the water down in Little Miller’s Bay.  Positioned around a 500 foot-wide net they had spread in the bay, they were waiting for me to lead the group down to shore as the signal to bring in the net.  And bring it in they did!  To the delight and amazement of the little girl and the other participants, the water inside the net began to boil with flopping fish as the students brought it into the shoreline.  Once on shore, the students invited participants to help grab the fish and plop them into buckets.  For the next hour and a half, the participants helped weigh, sort, identify, and release hundreds of fish.

Few of them had ever imagined there could be so many fish in Little Miller’s Bay!  What a unique opportunity it was to examine, compare, and hold so many kinds of fish up close, and at the same time to learn about how the different shapes, sizes, and colorations of fish species are related to how they live in their environment and interact with other organisms.  Children squealed with excitement, while the more mild mannered adults peppered Dr. Pierce with questions about his research as a fisheries biologist.  And nobody seemed to mind getting splashed or wet.  It was a perfect activity for a hot summer’s night.

Today modern brain research has demonstrated how the feelings of wonder, curiosity, and excitement generated by such a "hands-on" experience heighten and stimulate learning, but this fact was instinct to Dr. Thomas Macbride, founder of Lakeside Lab.  Over 100 years ago he had a vision to create an outdoor classroom to teach about nature by being in nature, and his dream became reality in 1909 when the first field classes were offered at Lakeside Lab.  Since then students have come from all parts of the globe to study the animals, flora, and ecosystems of northwest Iowa, and to experience the magic of learning at Lakeside.  However, Macbride’s gift to us is even greater, for he also understood how such a heightened sense of experience and learning in the natural world also teaches us about our relationship and interdependence with it, and to become better stewards of the environment we live in and depend on.

However, like the ecosystems that are threatened by human misunderstanding and insensitivity, Lakeside Lab is a fragile institution.  In the 1920's Macbride feared the station would shut down. Even though he was retired and in ill health, he and his prized pupil Bohumil Shimek conducted a feverish campaign to keep the station open and acquire additional land, equipment and facilities. They were finally successful, but again in the 1990's the Lab came dangerously close to being closed due to proposed government spending cuts.  In response, local citizens formed the Friends of Lakeside Lab.

The Friends were not only successful in keeping Lakeside open and flourishing, but they did so by expanding Lakeside’s mission to include the local community. The Friends raised nearly one-million dollars to build Lakeside’s first year-around teaching and research facility, the Waitt Water Quality Lab and Teaching Classrooms.

Since the completion of the Waitt facility in 1998, Lakeside has become a year-around, community resource for environmental education as well as water quality monitoring and research.  We now have a joint internship program with the Dickinson County Conservation Board that allows us to provide K-12 programming at the Lab.  Iowa Lakes Community College received a grant from the Kind World Foundation to create aquatic and terrestrial field science programs at Lakeside for middle school students in Dickinson and neighboring counties, and we now have several university-funded water quality research and monitoring projects at the Waitt Water Quality Lab that are helping us identify and address the source and solution to water quality problems in the Iowa Great Lakes.

In addition to these accomplishments, I was fortunate to receive a three-year, private grant in 1999 to create summer programming at Lakeside Lab.  Besides the Wild Wednesday public nature programs, my responsibilities also include acting as a liaison between Lakeside and local lake protective groups, leading guided nature tours, and coordinating and training citizen volunteers to participate in the Cooperative Lakes Area Monitoring Project (CLAMP) coordinated by the Waitt Water Quality Lab.  As for the latter, I am very proud of the efforts of the now over 40 CLAMP volunteers who represent 11 lakes in Dickinson, Clay, and Jackson counties.  They contribute over 800 hours of their time each summer to collect water samples for analysis at the Waitt Lab.  Their efforts not only cut the cost of lab analysis in half, but they have been instrumental to building a data base that is allowing us to evaluate and monitor the health of our lakes.  At the same time, it is very gratifying for me to see how many of these volunteers are becoming more sophisticated and involved in water quality issues.

Despite these marvelous accomplishments, the water quality research and education projects run out of the Waitt Lab still need support and face an uncertain future.  For example, at this writing, I am uncertain of the future of the summer programming and the continued development of the K-12 field science programs.  Funding for my grant ends this year, which may mean no more Wild Wednesdays next summer, and perhaps no more CLAMP!  That is why the Friends has embarked on a million dollar endowment campaign to be used to fund the community education and water quality programs at the Waitt Lab.

I believe Macbride would be overwhelmed with pride to know how his educational vision has not only survived and thrived but expanded beyond college and university students to involve the local community in learning about and protecting our environment. It is a great honor for me to be a part of this expansion of Macbride’s educational vision.  I thank the Friends for their support and wish the greatest of success to the Friend’s endowment drive to insure we have the staff and resources to continue this mission for years and years to come.

Jake Ross and his grandfather Dennis look on as Professor Neil Bernstein releases a bird caught
in a net during the " Bird in the Hand" Wild Wednesday nature program at Lakeside Lab.
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The Wehrspann Report

By Mark & Judy Wehrspann

July 1, 2001 marked the beginning of our 23 rd summer at Lakeside.  There have been so many changes over the years, and the past year and a half are no exception.  Walk with us around the Lab as we mark the changes.

The main gate with the stone pillars has not moved, but it is now adorned with majestic stone wing walls to the north and to the south of each pillar.  The marble etched signage reads LAKESIDE in very large letters with Iowa above and Laboratory below in small fonts. This generous gift of Harley Whitfield and Laura Mae Johnson is highly visible and appreciated by many visitors with complimentary comments.  Within the gates is a set of gates we lovingly refer to as the “faux gates”.  They replicate in smaller scale the entry gates, and on those gates are signs pointing out various building locations.

As we walk north from the new entrance, we notice relatively new paving.  This happened last August, 2000. The new blacktop runs from the main entrance to Waitt Lab.  This project provided hard surface access roads on all of the teaching campus and was greatly appreciated during snow removal last winter.  In the spring the school buses traveled to Waitt Lab without mud clinging to each wheel’s rotation.  We are hoping the north side will receive a new seal coat in the next few years.  Well, we have now arrived at the area between the parking lot and the office (where the Larry Eiler’s family lived for many summers).  In this area the five old green cottages given to the Lab several years ago will be removed. They arrived when the first motel was brought in from Brook’s Resort.  Now, it looks like a cemetery. Cottages are being moved out leaving block pillars in their wake.  “What’s happenin’ here?”  We’re glad you asked.  Very soon a home donated by the Tom Rierson’s will be moved onto that site.  It will be a very nice residence for faculty members to occupy along with their spouses and young family members.  The Rierson gift is another very generous gift to the lab.  We are anxious to put it in place.

Continuing past the office, we are walking north past the Wehrspann’s house and notice some pretty impressive buildings that haven’t always been there.  These new units came last August, 2000 from Spencer, Iowa.  They are the former “Grand Motel” of Spencer.  The brick façade was left in Spencer.  The Berghorst Team moved the three units with incredible precision and ease. State of art equipment allowed Mr. Van Tull to position the buildings on new foundations that Eldon Kraininger of Milford had poured.  It was a flurry of activity as parties involved attempted to coordinate moving out existing units, site preps, excavation, water, electrical and sewer taps and extensions, etc. Once the new units were in place, Mark and Harlan Christensen of Spirit Lake constructed the 235 feet of new deck. The electrical cutover was accomplished by Milford Electric and the plumbing connections were done over the winter by Marchand Plumbing.  As winter approached, Mark and Harlan sealed the exposed exterior in house-wrap; and this past spring installed cedar siding to give the units a real natural face-lift.  Phew!  It was a big job, but the new winterized units allow for Lakeside’s season to be stretched into the colder months of the year.  

Summer is almost over for the summer school sessions, but for the Wehrspann’s, it means shifting into a different life of guests arriving for weekend field trips, professional workshops, local school children and the like throughout the fall.  Two of the more significant groups attending this fall will be the Great Plains Limnological Conference in late September followed by a week-long Globe workshop in early October.  We look forward to greeting familiar faces and meeting new visitors at Lakeside.  We have become very adept at welcome greetings and waving good-bye.

We have been pleased to again employ efficient and proficient helpers – our cooks, our cleaning people, our part-time carpenters. We live in a community with so many talented and willing people. All of the Lakeside family profits.

And so, we say “good-bye” in the parking lot next to your vehicle. Thank you for your incredible interest in Lakeside and it’s future. Thank you to the director, faculty, students and staff of Lakeside that become our “second family” in the summer. Thank you to the tireless leadership of the Friends of Lakeside Lab, Inc. and to all of you who support Lakeside financially through your donations and good word. Lakeside’s best advertising campaign has always been “word of mouth”. That will never change.     

The Phycological Legacy of John D. Dodd at Iowa Lakeside Lab

March 15, 1917 - January 27, 2000

Phycology is the study of algae. In 2002, the phycological tradition at Iowa Lakeside Lab will reach the half-century mark. In a large part the strength of the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory phycological heritage is due to the efforts and commitment of Dr. John D. Dodd. His Lakeside Lab story is one of changing career directions, scientific creativity, grasping opportunity, long-term professional commitment, and exemplary teaching skills.

John Dodd’s academic training included a B.S. from the College of Forestry at Syracuse University and a M.S. from the University of Vermont. His Ph.D. was from Columbia, and his dissertation examined vascular plant cell shape and development.

In 1947 no one would have predicted his career shift to the algae. By his own words, “The study of algae was but an incidental part of my own training” (1). He joined the Iowa State faculty in the Botany and Plant Pathology Department in 1949 after two years on the University of Wisconsin faculty. Until that time Dr. Ada Hayden had maintained a life-long interest in aquatic plants and algae. However, when she passed away in 1950, Dodd was asked to develop a program of teaching and research with the algae in Iowa. I once commented to Dr. Dodd that it must have been difficult to teach the algae to himself, especially when Lakeside courses meet continuously, five days per week. In his typical genial manner, he simply smiled and quietly explained that he had spent a lot of nights with G.M. Smith in the beginning (G.M. Smith was the author of the most widely used algal text from 1950-1978).

In 1952 Dodd started teaching what is believed to be the first course on the algae at Iowa Lakeside Lab. Over the years, the course name has changed. In the 1950’s and 1960’s the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory bulletin lists the course as “Morphology of Algae.” In 1975 when I took the course it was called “Biology of Algae,” and in the 1990’s until the present it has been called “Freshwater Algae.”

If one asks about John Dodd in phycological circles, he is best recognized as a diatom specialist. However, examination of his publication records shows his early interests were in the cyanobacteria (i.e. blue-green algae). He studied movement in Oscillatoria , a fungal infection of Chroococcus that was collected from Silver Lake Fen and flake size in Aphanizomenon . Later a published student project detailed the summer algal flora in Silver Lake Fen, listing 22 species, including 13 cyanobacteria, but conspicuously omitting the diatoms. His first publication on diatoms was in 1962, “Notes on Iowa Diatoms,” and was co-authored with Eugene Stoermer. Yes, that is the same Eugene Stoermer who has taught the diatom class at Lakeside for the last decade.

An undergraduate research project on a pond in Ames lead Stoermer to propose graduate studies on diatoms to Dodd. Diatom systematics was unknown to Dodd then, so initially he balked at the idea. Then, he responded more typically in the form of gentle but persistent coercion. Stoermer was to apply for a McHenry Award at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia to study with Ruth Patrick and her cadre of diatomists. Gene tells me that the only reason he received the fellowship as an undergraduate was because he was the only applicant. He also explained that Patrick was cautious in making the award, that she promised to pay only first month's stipend and one-way travel to Philadelphia, pending performance evaluation. Stoermer started on January 1, 1959, and did stay for the entire three months of the fellowship and two additional months before returning to Ames at the Academy’s expense. Stoermer’s dissertation was a study of the diatoms in the sediments of Lake West Okoboji and provided the initial link between Dodd, Iowa Lakeside Lab, the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia, and the study of diatom systematics and ecology. That link continues to this day. It was Dodd’s ability to create opportunity for his student and Stoermer’s motivation that initiated this phycological link.

Upon completion of his Ph.D. with Dodd, Stoermer proposed to stay at ISU to expand his studies of diatom ultrastructure with the newly updated ISU electron microscopy facilities. Dodd was against it. Stoermer needed to leave the ISU nest where he had spent virtually all of his academic training and broaden his professional interests. The resolution of this issue lead to the Lakeside diatom course. Dodd agreed to support Stoermer’s National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship if Stoermer agreed to teach summer workshops on diatoms at Lakeside. Once again Dodd took a problematical issue for his student and turned it into a positive. Stoermer taught the Diatom Workshop from 1963-1965 in the model of the Moss Workshops of Henry Conard from earlier in Lakeside history. When Stoermer moved on to his position at the University of Michigan, Dodd arranged for Ruth Patrick to be offered the teaching assignment. She declined but supported one of her protégés, Dr. Charles Reimer, for the course. Reimer taught the course from 1966 until his retirement in 1989. Then, Stoermer took up the reins again and taught the diatom course from 1990-2000. This year two students who trained with Stoermer directed the course.

Dodd taught the algae course every summer from 1952-1980, except in 1955 when the course was not offered, retiring in 1981. From the mid-1960’s the algae course was taught during the first session, while the diatom course followed in the second session. I would guess that about a quarter of the students in the algae course also took the diatom course. Also, during that time Dodd had research funding for about 15 years to investigate the diatom flora of the hard water habitats that are so common in Iowa. Many of his graduate students were supported by these grants; and, of course, their emphasis was diatoms. Much of that work was done at Lakeside. Additionally, Dodd had students who worked on other algal groups including the charophytes, a group of macroscopic green algae and the silica-scaled chrysophytes, members of the golden algae, with many collecting sites in the area of Lakeside. In 1978 Dodd organized the Fourth International Diatom Symposium, holding the meetings at Lakeside Lab. The group met there again in 1995. He put Lakeside Lab on the map in phycological circles.

Dodd was a consummate teacher and viewed the Lakeside Lab experience as integral to his efforts, as exemplified in this quote, “…… Another result was that I was invited to teach a course dealing with freshwater algae at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory. The unique atmosphere of that institution both stimulated my own interests and brought me into contact with students long enough to divert the interests of some of them to a study of algae at the graduate level.” (1). He was always a gentleman and treated his students with respect. With his great sense of humor and caring attitude, he managed well the diversity of students that arrived at his Lakeside algae course, where the continuous exposure to each other and the sometimes intense learning environment occasionally magnified personality differences. The students in his Lakeside courses loved the experience, as did the plethora of graduate students in his lab that partook of the Lakeside experience from the 1950’s until his retirement.  Some of those students and even the students of his students still continue to teach courses on algae at field stations around the Midwest.

In short, for 29 years John Dodd inspired and trained students in phycology in his own quiet, competent way. He had a way of preparing them for their own needs without them realizing it, and then he confidently sent them on their way. He had a similar impact on campus at ISU but in a much broader capacity. Regrettably, there is not enough space to tell you of the educational films, outstanding teaching awards or the incredible diversity of research interests of him and some his other students. That story will have to wait for another day.
By James L. Wee
Department of Biological Sciences
Loyola University
New Orleans, Louisiana

Acknowledgements .

I would like to thank Lois Tiffany, Eugene Stoermer, Jeff Dodd, and Judy Wehrspann for their encouragement and help with the historical details.

1. Dodd, J.D. 1964. Research with Algae at Iowa State University. Unpublished manuscript presented at a conference, “Limnology in Iowa,” at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, November 30 and December 1, 1964.
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William Frank Danforth

William Frank Danforth died July 26, 2000, at his home in Camanche.  He was the brother of Helen Danforth of Mount Vernon.

Professor Danforth was born January 12, 1928, in Washington, D.C., to Frank Allison Danforth and Flora Clyde Danforth.  He grew up in Osage, Iowa.  He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Iowa, earned a master’s degree at UCLA and a doctorate in biology from Columbia University.  For many years he taught at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

Danforth was a member of several professional organizations.  He took his greatest satisfaction, however, in supporting Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, the Nature Conservancy, and the Ada S. McKinley neighborhood house in Chicago, where he was a board member for many years.  Upon his retirement to Camanche in 1986, a group home for young adults was named after him.

In retirement, he indulged his interest in economics and spent many hours on his houseboat which he used as a base for excursions in the delta of the Wapsipinicon studying wildlife.

Water Sampling

By Steve Fisher

Iowa Lakeside Laboratory has been sampling weekly the inflow sites of 10 subwatersheds of the Iowa Great Lakes since April 28, 1998.  Because it takes over two hours to sample all of the sites due to travel times, we have been limited to weekly sampling.  

I am pleased to announce that we have recently purchased two auto-samplers.  An auto-sampler is a device that is installed at the sampling site and can be programmed to sample based on time or flow.  No one needs to be present to take the sample.  Just correctly program the auto-sampler, and it will happily take samples while you are at home watching television.  One will be installed on a subwatershed of West Okoboji Lake and the other on an East Okoboji Lake subwatershed.  The auto-samplers improve our sampling method because they have a flow-meter sensor, and they can therefore be programmed to take a sample based on the amount of flow.  For example, we could program the auto-sampler to take a sample every time 10,000 gallons of water flowed by the sensor.  In low flow periods the auto-sampler might sample only every three hours while in high flow periods it might be sampling every minute.  Because the auto-sampler both records flow and takes samples, we will be able to calculate the total volume of water entering the lakes from these subwatersheds and the total mass of phosphorous and nitrate this water is transporting.

Prairie Restoration

By Krista Abels

Steps are being taken at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory in order to restore some of their land to native prairie.

It is estimated that only 0.1% of Iowa's original prairie remains.  These scattered remnants are often overlooked in the vast sea of crops and non-native species that have been planted everywhere.  Work is ongoing to identify and hopefully protect those few remnants that remain. 

Most of the prairie has been converted into farmland or grazing land and many of the native plants and animals have subsequently been destroyed. The prairie region contains some of the most fertile soil in the world and can easily be considered one of the most important elements contributing to the success of the American economy. Saving and protecting what little we have left of the region is crucial. We cannot only learn from this area, but it is also vital for many endangered species.    

Today people are trying to preserve remnant prairies through protection efforts and proper management.  People are also trying to grow new prairies through reconstructions.  These two are very different things. 

A remnant is an ecosystem of plants, animals, insects, soil, fungi, and other living things that have formed a web of interdependence. 

A reconstruction is usually a planting of a small number of prairie plants that once existed in a prairie and can be a good genetic pool of local-ecotype plants.  While important, reconstructions are not the same as remnants, as they most often do not contain the same biological components of a true prairie.  They may in time, with the proper management, develop those biological interactions, but they must be treated differently in regards to management initially.

The term "prairie restoration" is somewhat misleading though, as it would be more correctly called "prairie simulation" because it is probably impossible to recreate something as complex as a prairie on a small scale. To actually do so would require many thousands of acres and the reintroduction of hundreds of species, not to mention the removal of hundreds of exotic introduced species, ranging from bison to bacteria and oaks to molds plus a wait of perhaps several hundred years for them all to sort themselves out into their proper balance.

Dr. Arnold van der Valk of Iowa Lakeside Laboratory said, “We will be restoring about 23 acres of crop land to native prairie.  Most of it will be used as part of an experimental study of various prairie restoration techniques.  This will allow students in classes at Lakeside to examine the effects of these techniques on prairie restoration for years to come.”

Restoring a prairie is a long-term project; whether it is a backyard or a thousand acres, the time factor is really no different. As with many things, the success and reward of a prairie restoration is proportional to the effort and time spent.

“Besides restoring the area to native prairie,” van der Valk said, “a secondary goal of the restoration is to examine the effects of:  time of planting, fall versus spring; seed source, bulk collection from a local prairie versus pure seed mixture from local vendors; as well as planting techniques, broadcasting versus drilling; on the quality of a prairie restoration.”

Lakeside is also doing more prairie restoration on a smaller area of land at the Lab.  Around the Waitt Water Quality Lab, through the generous donation of the Anspach family, there is the Judy Anspach Memorial Prairie Garden.  This prairie restoration is much smaller than the other restorations at the Lab but is providing more accessibility for people who cannot get out to see the other prairie.

Nature Mapping

By Krista Abels

A workshop has been planned for September at Lake Okoboji on Nature Mapping, an Iowa State University Extension wildlife program that trains volunteers how to monitor and report the wildlife and habitats they view.

Workshops are held around the state.  Anyone interested in starting a Nature Mapping project should plan to attend one of these workshops.  The next workshop to be held in the area will be on September 29, 2001, at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory on West Lake Okoboji.

Nature Mapping is intended to give participants the fundamentals of how to collect information on common Iowa wildlife species.  “There are not enough professionals, time or funding to conduct an inventory of all the nation’s flora and fauna,” said Jason O’Brien, coordinator of Iowa Nature Mapping.  “Long-term projects are scarce.  One way to achieve the needed inventory is with help from interested volunteers.”

Barbara Tagami of the Dickinson County Conservation Board said, “This would be a great class for teachers and anyone who is interested in nature; you will help determine the population of the wildlife in the area.”

The Nature Mapping Program is a hands-on environmental education program that is growing and evolving.  Iowa is the third state in the nation to put this program into practice.  “Involving the public in finding the pieces of the puzzle is what Nature Mapping is all about,” O’Brien said.  “For now, we are concentrating on terrestrial vertebrate species of wildlife; the amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds of Iowa.  In future years, we expect to add an aquatic module that includes mussels, a terrestrial invertebrate module and eventually a plant module.”  He added that the goal is, “to keep Iowa’s wildlife common.”

“All types of people and groups can become involved.  Individuals, schools and other

community groups can participate,” O’Brien said.  “

Individuals can provide much needed data by recording wildlife observations around their home, or when hiking, watching their feeders or participating in other wildlife related activities.”

School participation can vary depending on the size and scope of the projects chosen.  “It can fulfill a valuable service to their community as well as engaging students in a related project of data collection and analysis,” he added.  

Communities may wish to preserve or restore sites.  A species diversity report card is the beginning structure on which to construct long-term plans.  “Mapping species diversity is an important early step toward progressive community planning,” he said.

For registration information for the Dickinson County workshop, contact Barbara Tagami, Dickinson County Conservation Board, by phone at (712) 338-4238, or by email at btagami@co.dickinson.ia.us.

Larry Eilers

By Daryl Smith

Lawrence J. Eilers, Emeritus Professor of Biology, died of a cerebral hemorrhage Sunday, March 26, 2000.  He is survived by his wife, Charlotte, Emeritus Professor of Communications, children, Alan, Nancy, Clark, and Linda, step-daughter Mary and eight grandchildren.  

His degrees included B.A. 1949 – Iowa State Teachers College, M.A. 1960 – State College of Iowa, and PhD 1964 – University of Iowa.  Prior to receiving his doctorate, he had taught secondary science and worked as an engineer for Collins Radio.  He taught at the University of Iowa, Syracuse University, and Indiana State University prior to joining the biology faculty at the University of Northern Iowa in 1968.  He taught plant taxonomy, plant systematics, local plants and animals and several other biology courses at the University of Northern Iowa.  Dr. Eilers taught 23 years at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory and was a long-time professor of plant taxonomy.  He retired in 1989.     Larry and Char were avid Lakesiders and delightful participants.  They spent many happy sessions at the “Eilers Cottage.”  The Eilers Cottage now serves as the Lakeside Lab Office.

Dr. Eilers was well known throughout the state in botanical and preservation circles.  He published a number of research papers dealing with vascular plants and flora of the state and a monograph, The Flora of the Iowan Area . He co-authored Vascular Plants of Iowa and portions of the book, Iowa’s Natural Heritage . He was a participant in two Iowa Public Television programs, “Iowa Wildlife Series” and “Land Between Two Rivers.”  He was a long-term member of the board trustees of the Iowa Chapter of The Nature Conservancy and chair of the board from 1971-73.  He spearheaded the move to bring professional staff to the Iowa Chapter, an accomplishment which greatly enlarged its preservation activities.  He received The Nature Conservancy’s highest award, The Oak Leaf, in 1985.

A Larry Eilers Memorial Fund has been established with the Iowa Chapter of Nature Conservancy.  Contributions can be sent to Larry Eilers Memorial, Iowa Chapter of Nature Conservancy, 108 Third Street, Suite 300, Des Moines, IA 50309.