WXPR Field Notes

While they're famous among anglers, few people realize that Canadian Nightcrawlers—Lumbricus terrestris—have a fascinating biological story all their own, one that stretches across continents and ecosystems.

Though it may be a nuisance in some situations, tag alder has a magic trick – it can fix nitrogen.

In this month's installment of Field Notes, Scott Bowe of Kemp Station discusses frost and roads – all part of managing our sustainable natural resources.

‘Fish' is one of those words, useful in the image it evokes but less reliable as a lineage, clearly defined.

Otters are mustelids and related to other Northwoods mammals including mink and weasels. They were common throughout North America until Europeans overharvested the animals for their warm, dense and beautiful coats.

In this episode of Field Notes, Lonnie Parry Gillis takes us on an exploration of the fish of Vilas County, Wisconsin—an area blessed with an astounding 1,300 plus lakes.

In this month's installment of Field Notes, Scott Bowe of Kemp Station discusses producers (plants) and consumers (fungi) in the forest world around us.

Seasonal blooms are common and often monitored in warm and high nutrient lakes throughout southern Wisconsin, but are less commonly reported in lakes up north. This makes it challenging to track and manage across the 1,000s of regional lakes.

One of the crops most iconic to our area is ginseng, Panax quinquefolia. Marathon County, just south of Lincoln County is the center of ginseng farming, not just in Wisconsin but it is recognized as the largest source and the best quality of ginseng in the world.

In this month's installment of Field Notes, Scott Bowe of Kemp Station discusses thermally modified wood, a chemical free way to preserve wood for outdoor use.

Salamanders, newts and mudpuppies are amphibians, and they are all salamanders, but not all salamanders are newts or mudpuppies.

In Wisconsin, opening fishing applies to certain species of fish such as walleye, trout, largemouth bass, and northern pike. However, this season opener does not apply to panfish, which are open year-round. Panfish include species such as bluegill, crappie, sunfish, and yellow perch.

There are many kinds of record keeping that scientists use to recapture recent and ancient history

Apple cultivars brought as seed from Europe were spread along Native American trade routes, as well as being cultivated on colonial farms. By the mid 1800s, United States apples nursery catalogues sold 350 of the "best" cultivars, showing the proliferation of new North American cultivars by the 19th century.

Open lakes, no snow, and sweatshirt weather was the scene this December in Vilas County. Much to the chagrin of ice anglers and cross country skiers, El Nino has taken hold and has had many implications for the local people, economy, and ecosystems.

The Common Watersnake, Nerodia sipedon, is common throughout much of eastern North America. Our local subspecies, the Northern Watersnake, is common throughout much of Wisconsin.

There are many exotic plants and animals that we don't consider to be pests. Corn is native to Mexico, soybeans are native to Asia, tulips are native to Europe. Most of our domesticated animals are exotic with domestic cattle originating in Asia. Many of these plants and animals are exotic but not extremely invasive. They have become part of ecosystem around us.

Global warming may also be affecting a global water circulation system abbreviated AMOC that includes the Gulf Stream, that river of ocean water that moves warm tropical water north along the east coast of North America before veering off toward Europe.

Gardening in the Northwoods can be challenging. Long winters, short summers, and our many whitetail deer friends all conspire against us. In recent years, we have one more pest to deal with, the Japanese beetle.

Spiny water fleas are aquatic arthropods called zooplankton. Zooplankton are small shrimp-like creatures, and most of them survive by eating phytoplankton, the microscopic photosynthetic algae at the bottom of the food chain in lakes.

By the end of last month, northern Wisconsin had already reached the ‘severe or ‘very severe' annual winter index thresholds set by the Wisconsin DNR for the first time since 2013

Most trees are either deciduous, and drop their leaves in fall, or are evergreen, and hang onto their leaves for more than one season. The evergreen trees tend to be in more stressed environments, stressed by either cold temperatures or low water availability.

In this month's installment of Field Notes, Scott Bowe of Kemp Station discusses how water temperature and oxygen impact fish activity.

In this month's installment of Field Notes, Trout Lake Station's Gretchen Gerrish takes us to Florida with a lesson about marine field research.

Whether you are a vegan, vegetarian or omnivore, plants are at the base of what you eat — even Oreos.

In this month's installment of Field Notes, Scott Bowe of Kemp Station discusses wild cranberries in the Northwoods.

If you walk barefoot in a lake or stream, your feet might slide on slippery stones. What makes them so slippery? In this month's installment of Field Notes, Trout Lake Station's Gretchen Gerrish takes us underwater to learn about life on rocks.

Swans may not be the most important factor in the decline of wild rice, but there is no doubt that the number of swans has increased on our Northwoods lakes. How did this happen?

In this month's installment of Field Notes, Scott Bowe of Kemp Station discusses how wood moves.

As we move through the season, keep your eye out for these unloved plants. They are all native to Wisconsin and belong here just as the maples and hazelnuts and lady slippers belong in our woods.

In this month's installment of Field Notes, Scott Bowe of Kemp Station discusses miner bees, important pollinators.

What it's like raising chickens through a Northwoods winter.

In this month's Field Notes, Susan Knight discusses what some Olympic athletes have in common with beer.

In this month's installment of Field Notes, Scott Bowe of Kemp Station discusses the wood we use in acoustic guitars.

While many organisms thrive solely feeding on the leaves, roots and fruits of trees, very few are capable of efficiently incorporating wood into their diets.

This attractive plant is not found in Wisconsin, and until the last few decades, was not found anywhere in North America. It is native to Australia, Asia, Africa and Europe, but it is extinct in many of those original locations due to habitat destruction.

A burl is a tree growth where the grain has grown in a deformed manner. Burls yield a very peculiar and highly figured wood sought after in woodworking.

Pumpkins hold a unique place in the hearts, minds and stomachs of Americans; and they should, considering they are one of the oldest cultivars native to North America.

Susan Knight, a scientist at UW-Madison's Trout Lake Station, breaks down a research project to understand the decline of wild rice.

In this month's Field Notes , Susan Knight of Trout Lake Station tells us about the genetics of apples and the real story behind Johnny Appleseed. Before I ever got to college, I knew I wanted to be a biologist, in fact, a zoologist, or so I thought. I grudgingly signed up for a few plant classes, including plant taxonomy. Well, the professor wasn't all that interesting, but I would have followed the teaching assistant anywhere. I was completely smitten… with the plants, of course. My class focused on flowering plants, but I was surprised to learn that included maple trees and grasses. Who knew they had flowers? Buttercups and roses, sure, but oak and birch trees? Not only that, but after that flower was pollinated (I did know about birds and bees), you got a fruit. I learned that fruits are just a handy container for seeds, those little bits of genetic recombination needed for the plant to persevere Apples are especially intriguing. Did you ever wonder why apple trees are always

Many of us have wood interiors in our homes. It is the norm rather than the exception. My home has wood doors, wood floors, wood cabinets, and wood base and window trim. It is a beautiful material, and I really enjoy living with and working with wood. Today, I would like to talk about the health benefits of wood. You might be thinking that wood is renewable, stores carbon, and uses far less energy to manufacture than non-renewable materials. It is true that using wood makes for a heathier planet when compared to using plastic, metals, or concrete. But the health of the planet is not what I mean. Using wood in our indoor spaces make our physical health better by reducing stress, blood pressure, and more. Architects call it biophilic design. Biophilic design increases occupant connectivity to the natural environment using natural materials including light, air, water, plants, and of course wood. Speaking with no authority in anthropology or evolutionary biology, humans have evolved with

Making national headlines, the 17-year cicadas were making a ruckus throughout eastern parts of the US leaving me to wonder, why don't we see cicada swarms in the Northwoods of Wisconsin? Cicadas have a limited and mostly eastern distribution in the United States, reaching as far north as New York state, down to Louisiana and Georgia in the south and barely extending into Kansas and Oklahoma in the west. They hatch on 13- or 17-year cycles and specific cohorts, which are also known as broods, hatch in offset years. The recent batch of cicadas is part of Brood X, the largest cohort of 17 year cicadas that occurs in the US. There are 12 cohorts of 17-year and 3 cohorts of 13-year cicadas. Brood X began erupting from the ground in mid-May, predominantly in Washington DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee. The next big hatch will take place in 2024 and will include a brood of 13 year cicadas that will hatch out in the central southern part of the US and a 17 year cohort

Here is an old story and a new story. Unfortunately, both involve the death of some of our favorite birds because of complications resulting from aquatic invasive species. Maybe you have heard about loons dying in Lake Michigan due to a tangled story about the lake's food web. Lake Michigan has been hugely taken over by quagga mussels, a bivalve that by now covers almost the entire floor of Lake Michigan – nearly shore to shore. Like zebra mussels, the quaggas filter water, consuming all the phytoplankton, or floating algae out of the water. This clears up the water, so that light can penetrate deep into the lake. The quaggas release quite a bit of poop and so the very bottom of the lake is rich in nutrients. This encourages a bloom of Cladophora, an alga that likes to live on hard substrates like rocks (or quagga mussels) at the bottom of lakes. After the Cladophora dies, it uses up all the oxygen as it decomposes. In the oxygen-deprived environment, certain bacteria go to town,

I spent most of my life not knowing that porcupines could climb trees. While I am a little embarrassed to admit this fact, I am also not sure I spent a ton of time in my younger years thinking about it. Now that I know, I have become obsessed with staring toward the tops of trees trying to find a bound-up ball of quills, nested in the highest branches. Early spring, before the trees fully leaf out, is an ideal time for spotting tree-dwelling porcupines who often move into the upper canopy of trees to eat and rest during the daytime. They commonly venture to the outermost or highest branch tips to break off newly budding twigs to eat. Trembling aspen and young hemlock bark are favorite foods for porcupines, but they will consume bark from a wide range of tree types and supplement their diet with fruits and ground dwelling plants and shrubs. While slow moving and lumbering on the ground, porcupines are adept climbers, alternately using their front and back claws to grasp the wood as they

As we move from winter toward spring, (a little sooner than I would have liked) I am getting excited to start biking around the Northwoods. I spend quite a bit of time road biking, which is not always compatible with one of my other favorite pastimes, looking for flowering plants. By early summer, my bike group and I will be logging 50 or more miles at a time, and there is plenty of Northwoods plant life to appreciate from a bike. We mostly ride on county and town roads out of town, so we aren't likely to see the showy Forsythia, lilac or crab apples favored by homeowners. But there is still plenty to see and enjoy. The first shrub to catch my eye is leatherwood, or Dirca palustris . This short, branchy shrub has a distinctive shape as well as yellow-brown bark that makes it easy to identify. It only grows in rich woods and is not very common but is one of the first plants to flower in the Northwoods. It has clusters of two or three small lemon-yellow flowers, and though they are not