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ESI Interdisciplinary Field Workshop:
The Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center

On Saturday Morning of October 25, 2003, Environmental Science Institute sponsored an Interdisciplinary Fieldtrip to bring together faculty and students from different disciplines in a relaxed field setting. This fieldtrip was designed to promote collaboration among professors and graduate students from a variety of fields in order to integrate various perspectives with the intention of extending this collaboration to future
Nico Hauwert discussed the karst landscapes, groundwater flow paths, and watershed dev. and protection.
Nico Hauwert discussed the karst landscapes, groundwater flow paths, and watershed dev. and protection.
research projects.

The trip was also open to undergraduate students and K-12 teachers to give them a view of the kind of research being done at UT in environmental science and to provide teachers with potential ideas for science field trips. A 6th grade science teacher from Covington Middle School that is involved in ESI's GK-12 Program, Nancy Nixon, attended and established contacts with UT professors and researchers at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center.
Mark Simmons (Research Fellow and Lecturer, Department of Geography) and Steve Windhager (Director of Programs at the Wildflower Center) began the fieldtrip with an overview of their research: Quantifying the change in plant cover in response to various burn treatments. Next, Molly Polk (previous ESI Fellow, current staff member at the Wildflower Center) gave a brief description of future research that she will be overseeing at the Wildflower Center to build a refugium for the Federally-listed endangered species Zizania texana, or Texas wild rice.
Marcy Litvak and Mary Poteet described how ecological processes are affected by plant cover change.
Marcy Litvak and Mary Poteet described how ecological processes are affected by plant cover change.


Marcy Litvak (Asst Professor, Integrative Biology) and Mary Poteet (Research Fellow, Integrative Biology) then gave a tour of their study plots as they presented their research on how ecological processes are affected by plant cover change resulting from various burn treatments. Marcy described how to measure net ecosystem exchange of carbon and water and leaf-level gas exchange.

Mary provided an explanation of her grasshopper experiment that is designed to test whether changes in plant species composition following managed burns shift the effects of insect herbivores on nutrient cycling and net primary productivity in grasslands.

Nico Hauwert (Graduate Student, Geological Sciences; City of Austin Watershed Protection and Development Review Dept.) lead the group to a sinkhole where he described his
Mary Poteet described the effects of insect herbivores on nutrient cycling and net primary productivity in grasslands.
Mary Poteet described the effects of insect herbivores on nutrient cycling and net primary productivity in grasslands.
research on groundwater dye tracing injections and recharge to Barton Springs. He discussed the complexities of karst landscapes, groundwater flow paths, and the associated implications for watershed development and protection.

This Fieldtrip was organized by Jessica Gordon (Graduate Student, Department of Geography) as a service to the Environmental Science Institute for providing funding for her thesis research in the Summer of 2003.