Fieldwork Photo Essay 1: Plot Siting

 

Sign at wilderness boundary on lower Sugar Creek trail near forest road 41N14.

Despite a substantial heatwave that hit on the second day of the trip, I was able to accomplish what I set out to do on the initial visit to the Sugar Creek watershed in preparation for the August survey. The lower watershed, as I define it for purposes of this study, is the area surrounding the terminal moraine at the lower end of a U-shaped glaciated valley, upstream of the intersection of Sugar Creek and USFS road 41N14.

A recently updated (2014) USGS 7.5 minute topographic map of the Eaton Peak, Sugar Creek area can be found here: 

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/7xo2...

(Note, if you deselect the topography layer, the ground cover layer is less obscured.)

The forest in the lower watershed is montane Klamath Mixed Conifer dominated by white fir (Abies concolor), sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana), Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), and incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens).

 

Mature KMC stand in lower Sugar Creek basin.

Having some experience with the dominant forest species in the region, I concluded based on Dr. Sawyer's extensive Russian Peak forest communities research that my survey plots for mature and climax forest keyed as the Abies concolor / Ceanothus prostratus association, "described for the Russian Peak area this forest is typical of the eastern Klamath Region on dry, rocky slopes with thin soils." (Sawyer 1974).

 

Sugar Creek at the 41N14 bridge.

 

Mature forest plot for LiDAR analysis. I believe this would be classified as the Abies concolor/Ceanothus prostratus association as per Dr. Sawyer's extensive surveys of the area.

 

Ground cover in the mature, natural forest is diverse and abundant.

 

Snowplant (Sarcodes sanguinea) growing on the forest floor. Similar to the Pinkish-red pinedrops plant (Pterospora andromedea) but hopefully I did not misidentify the specimen. Very interestingly, the red snow plant (Monotropoideae) obtains all the nutrents it needs from the fir host tree (Abies) through the mycorrhizae (Rhizpogon ellenae). That is, they tap directly into the mycorrhizae network, pulling off the carboghyrates derived from the original photosynthetic plant.

It would make sense to me, that in addition to slope, aspect and hydrological aspects of the study area, forest plant associations will be used to adjust comparisons of seral forest biodiversity so that 'apples are not compared to oranges' in the attempt to draw conclusions about relative biodiversity across a landscape. Dr. Sawyer's paper, "SUBALPINE AND MONTANE FORESTS ON GRANODIORITE IN THE CENTRAL KLAMATH M0UNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA" will be reviewed for my next post so I can call out the appropriate associations in the study area. 

Additionally, a NAIP photography analysis using eCognition software will be used to break out and identify vegetation cover from USDA ortho maps so that specific plot areas can be sighted remotely prior to the next survey (foresters I have worked with in the past all did this as a matter of fieldwork protocol, although we used older instrumentation).