Field guild: Tetons (Sagebrush)

            As I walked along on the trail I noticed lots of small animals as well as the difference in the ecosystems.  Mostly because of the cool breeze as well as the warm sun beating down on my sensitive skin.  As I walked further along I heard many insects chirping along with the birds in the trees.  It was rare from time to time to encounter an animal such as a small rodent or a bird in a tree but you could certainly hear them!

  Abiotic:

Soil/Geology

            When I came to see this amazing landscape I was astounded to learn that it is only 0.2% of what it used to be.  Some of the reasons why is because of erosion of the soil and the geology of the area makes it easy for large areas to come crumbling down.  The soil is rather nutritional because of all the trees, plants and wild flowers that come to grow there.  But some of the areas don’t even have soil and are just covered in rocks that had eroded there previously.  The soil is a light brown substance that is just enough to grow what is there today.  Now, how the Tetons came to this day is they were formed by tidal flats underneath the earth, they moved 1,000 miles in 30 years.  Then black and grey sediment pours down from volcanoes toward the west, with this, the land arches.  Deep miles of sediment lying over schist and granites rise and blend, then the sea drains eastward.  Finally the mountains rise to the northwest and braided rivers drain down to uncover gold.  The soil is also a very important part in the process of the Tetons, it helped start the growth of all the plants, trees, grasses and flowers that are there today.  I noticed that most of the flowers that were growing in the places we saw were on the sides of the trails and not in the middle of forest or up on hills.  Maybie because they are so used to the sun that they died out in the middle of the forests because there wasn’t enough sunlight for them in those areas.  In the Tetons, pretty much everywhere you looked you could see vegetation of all sorts.  It was amazing to think about what it would be like if you were there when the mountains were in full form and not where they are now, to think of the size of them is just amazing! 

            Some of the other organisms in the Teton area include the following: Bacteria, Archae Bacteria, Protista, Fungi, Plantae and Animalea.  The roles they all have in the flow of energy in the Tetons are that they help in the food chain.  They help by doing their part in how things flow, for example…………………….. 

            As I continue on walking on the path I continue to learn about the origen of the Tetons and how they came about.  They are very unique as to how they came about and where they used to be on the scale of the world.

Weather:

            As I walk I am not mistaken for the weather is cool but the sun makes you feel like it’s the end of spring and summer is on the way, but no, it is the beginning of fall and all of the animals are going into hibernation and you keep on walking thinking about how nice it would be to go take a swim in a pool.  But when it is night you come to realize that it is winter and it’s cold outside!  The weather is a very big movement when it comes to the trees and plants in that area.  Most of the trees are year round, otherwise known as coniferous, or trees that don’t lose their leaves, they are important because they don’t give off leaves every year, which would be a drag if they were because of all the leaves lying around, and of course, nobody has that much time on their hands to get rid of all those leaves! 

            The physical caristeristics of the Teton weather is also a big part of the vegetation and how it grows and lives.  The annual high is 52 degrees F, the annual low is 21 degrees F, the annual precipitation is 21 inches, the annual snow fall is 176 inches and the average snow depth is 11 inches.  Most of what happens with the weather effects what and how the vegetative responds to it, most of the time it gets a growth spurt and sometimes it gets overflowed with nutrients as well as oxygen that goes right to the food chain.

Biotic:

            We learned at the Teton Science School that geology forms ecology.  We also talked about how important the vegetative cover is to animals and well as other plants to help them grow.

            All of the trees I saw in the Tetons were coniferous.  One of the trees I saw was the sagebrush tree.  The sagebrush ecosystem is a tree and also used as a bonsai tree in earlier stages.  Its Binomial name is Artemisia tridentata.  It is also called sagebrush/common sagebrush, big sagebrush, blue/black sagebrush or mountain sagebrush.  It is a shrub or a small tree from the family Asteraceae.  It is a rough,  silvery-grey bush with yellow flowers and grows in arid sections of the western United States.   It is the primary vegetation across areas of the Great Basin desert.   Along rivers or in other relatively wet areas, sagebrush can grow as tall as 3 m (10 feet), but is usually 1-2 m tall. 

            Sagebrush leaves are wedge-shaped 1-4 cm long and 0.3-1 cm wide, and are attached to the branch by the small end.  The wider end is generally divided into three sections (although leaves with two or four sections are not uncommon).  The leaves are covered with fine silvery hairs, which are thought to keep the leaf cool and minimize water loss.  Most of the leaves are carried year-round, as sagebrush tends to grow in areas where winter precipitation is greater than summer precipitation.  Sagebrush flowers in the late summer or early fall.  The flowers are yellow and are carried in long, slender clusters.  The climates in most sagebrush ecosystems receive only 10-15 inches of rain annually, mostly in the fall and in the winter. 

            Elk, pronghorn, mountain lions and bobcats, but one of the most unusual animal in the sagebrush is the sage grouse.  The mountain lions and bobcats are a couple of the most predominant species in the sagebrush ecosystem.  They roam the intermountain grasslands in search of prey.

            The sagebrush ecosystem is very important to humans like us because of its diverse environment, research opportunities and its welcoming picture, and that is why we should preserve it for future use of other people.

            The plant is highly allergenic to humans, and can cause dermatitis if applied to the skin of sensitive individuals.  The plant's volatile oils are metabolized in the liver into toxic compounds which can cause internal blood clotting and the formation of micro-thrombi in the liver and digestive tract.

            Other trees that I saw were the pine, fir, spruce and alpine.  They are all coniferous trees that provide homes for animals and insects.  Other things that these trees provide is rich soil, they release oxygen from their roots and provide great nutrients for other plants and trees.  Although some of the trees are burned down or fallen to the ground they aren’t completely helpless, they help with decompotion of the soil and they are great homes for smaller insects and animals such as rodents. 

Fauna:

Human impacts:

            Some of the human impacts are: keeping the area clean and trash free, pollution, keeping the plants and environment natural and the population of all of the animals.

            The area is used by humans for research, simple pleasure, hiking, canoeing, rock climbing, camping, fishing and tourism.  It has a positive effect on humans because it shows us that people do care about the Tetons and the destruction of them will not be a problem for a long time.

                The value it has to us humans is that it teaches us about the geology and research that people put into the Tetons and how important they are to us and why we should value and cherish them forever and ever.  It is also cool to learn about the wildlife and animals around the Tetons and how they affect us and the environment.

            Some of the responsibilities for the Tetons are: keeping them up, keeping them clean and trash free, respecting the animals, trees and plants, and knowing that they are a growing living thing and if we take them away, they are not coming back.