Before moving to Guam, I read about how Guam has the highest coral reef biodiversity of any US state or territory. So, getting the opportunity to be a Scientist in Park (SIP) Fellow at the War in the Pacific National Historical Park (WAPA) has been the highlight of my summer. My name is Motusaga Vaeoso, and I am a graduate student at the University of Guam studying Marine Biology. Let me tell you about the exciting work that has been going on during my fellowship since I started over a month ago.

Most of my background is in coral reef monitoring, and I have had the opportunity to utilize this experience and expand it at WAPA. I have been immersed in learning about the diverse number of organisms that inhabit the reef flats of the Asan and Agat units, once scarred during the fierce battles of World War II. Reef flats are the largest parts of coral reefs, often affected by coral bleaching due to their shallow depth and exposure at extreme low tide, sedimentation from coastal settlement and development, and overfishing. This is why it’s important to monitor the health and percent cover of corals on WAPA reef flats so we can track changes over time to help inform coral reef management and future monitoring.

To establish a baseline for assessing the health of the reef flats in Asan and Agat, I will be working with an amazing group of people that make up the WAPA Marine Team to:

1. 1. create training materials to build staff capacity to conduct fish monitoring surveys which will complement the protocols for coral and invertebrate surveys
2. 2. collect percent coral cover, fish and invertebrate diversity and abundance to assess reef flat health
3. 3. and collect the percent coral cover of coral restoration sites right outside the Asan Beach unit

In addition to reef flat monitoring, part of my time as a SIP fellow at WAPA will be spent building CoralCam, which involves learning a whole new set of skills. CoralCams are a cost-effective method for converting cheap cameras into programmable time-lapsed platforms, allowing for time-series collection of photos or video in remote locations for extended time periods. Although daunting at first because I am not a mechanical engineer, I have had so much fun learning about how the CoralCam circuit board is built, how to solder, and the different soldering techniques, tinning wire, programming, etc. I will be assembling 19 CoralCams for deployment within the park to monitor coral reef processes such as recruitment, predation, competition, and mortality.

My obsession with underwater photography has grown since I started working for WAPA. I have done my best to document and identify the many marine organisms caught under my lens. However, discovering iNaturalist, a social network made of many citizen scientists and biologists (many of them experts in their field) who share biodiversity information across the globe to help each other learn about their environment, has been a game-changer for me. It allowed me to put my obsession to good use by sharing my fish, coral, and invertebrate photos to improve my species identification skills. If you want to check out some of the marine species I observe at WAPA, you can check out my iNaturalist account.

Stay tuned for more updates on the work I am doing at WAPA and if you want to start learning about your park and the animals and plants that live in it, get on iNaturalist and share your observations with other naturalists.

When we finally reached our campsite in Alaska Basin the sun had nearly dipped below the horizon, casting a blaze orange hue across the befittingly named Sunset Lake. As I sat on a rock outcropping overlooking the mirror-like water, I felt an intense flood of emotions- the bittersweet of a finished field season, the astonishment that I was backpacking the Teton Crest Trail as a farewell adventure, and a deep sense of belonging to the wilderness that surrounded me. Left to commune fully with nature in the breathtaking scenery of Grand Teton National Park, I realized that the most important thing my summer fellowship had taught me is that National Parks are not just important for keeping landscapes wild, but also for rewilding humanity.

“Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day. But if we forget to savor the world, what possible reason do we have for saving it? In a way, the savoring must come first.” – E.B. White

We are nature

As a budding botanist and ecologist, I tend to spend a lot of time with my “head in the weeds” both figuratively and literally. My interests and training lead me to think often about what threatens plant biodiversity, a list that always includes a slew of human actions and activities. I must admit that my mind has come to associate human impacts on the land as overwhelmingly negative from an ecological standpoint. I, like early preservationists, once idealized this idea of an “untouched wilderness” where humans are excluded from the landscape. “Better off without us!” I might have said back then. But the reality is that we are nature and to build such a false wall between humanity and ecology is not only scientifically and culturally detrimental, but also a major impediment to the conservation movement.

Connection is the key to conservation

In the past, conservationists have worked to inspire change by communicating problems and losses to the public- hoping to push the panic button and watch a flood of help arrive. But modern research shows that people are much more likely to support conservation when there is a focus on solutions and when connections between humans and landscapes are fostered in healthy ways. After all, not all human impacts on nature are negative. It is important to recognize that indigenous peoples have long interacted with the landscape in formative and sustainable ways, finding a harmonic balance between subsistence and stewardship. Restoration projects like the one I worked on this summer in Grand Teton are further examples of how human hands can shape the land for the better and repair past damages. When I set my eyes upon the conservation horizon, I now see a future with a flipped script- where humans are inspired to feel responsibility for wild places rather than estrangement and guilt.

A dual-purpose mission

This summer, Grand Teton experienced a record year for visitation. Simultaneously, I embarked on a journey to communicate with visitors and the local community about sagebrush steppe biodiversity and restoration in the park. As I developed and shared community outreach programming, social media posts, and a Story Map with the hope of inspiring interest in stewardship of the steppe, I witnessed mixed responses- some of which were indifference or even opposition to its preservation. More than once, I felt deflated watching visitors trample thoughtlessly over fragile steppe wildflowers as they tried to get a better photo of the mountains. But the wise words of a colleague soon set me straight. “For some of our visitors, this is their first experience in a wild place, outside of the hustle and bustle of an urban center. They don’t always know how to connect or be land stewards but this is a place they can learn.” This comment struck a chord with me. After all, if one has not felt the stinging kiss of mountain air, or smelled the perfume of sagebrush after rain, or heard the haunting bugle of the elk, how can one feel compelled to protect and heal this land? Perhaps by encouraging humans to traverse wild places (responsibly) we are actually ensuring their preservation.

Soft rain falls upon the sagebrush steppe at the Taggart Lake trailhead. Because of camphor and other volatile oils, sagebrush is very aromatic and can leave a thick, spicy aroma in the air after rainfall. Multi-sensory experiences like this can be powerful for visitors and provide the opportunity to create a real connection with the landscape that can lead to a stewardship mindset. Video: Sienna Wessel

Our National Parks offer unique opportunities for humans from many walks of life to connect to wild places through recreational experiences, acting as “America’s greatest university without walls.” Established in 1916 by the Organic Act, the National Park Service was tasked with fulfilling a dual mission with two halves that are necessarily at odds: “to conserve park resources and to provide for their use and enjoyment in such a manner and by such means, as will leave them unimpaired for future generations.” Over the summer, by publicly sharing my own personal connections to the sagebrush steppe in Grand Teton, I was able to inspire thousands of people to think about biodiversity and to generate deep discussions about land stewardship in the park. It was there, in those moments, that I realized the potential role of National Parks and recreation in inspiring conservation action. As I set sail towards the horizon of what I hope will be a productive career in the conservation of plant biodiversity, I carry with me the understanding and appreciation of the dual mission and an optimistic perspective of human interactions with wild spaces. Thank you to Grand Teton National Park and the Scientists in Parks program for this lesson of a lifetime. You can continue to follow my journey to preserve plant diversity and to get others interested in “taking a walk on the plant side” by following me on Twitter @CuttingVegBotny, Insta @cutting_veg_botany, or TikTok @cuttingvegbotany.

Tracking Biodiversity

Much of my past and ongoing work involves collecting field data to add to long-term datasets and to provide brand-new information as well. Monitoring is one of the crucial first stages in the ecologist’s life cycle because, without monitoring data, plant ecologists do not have any way to confidently know how a plant community is changing over time. By routinely visiting the same areas year after year and meticulously recording things like abundances of species, we can learn a lot of different things about a plant community and the recovery of biodiversity. As a SIP intern, I have added to this special knowledge base by monitoring new community attributes, such as the presence of early spring-blooming species, flowering times, and plant traits like seed mass. Together, each set of data provides new perspectives on what is happening to hundreds of plants species year to year and during the restoration of communities that have been ecologically degraded.

Gettin’ Down with Data

As you might have guessed, the next stage in the life cycle is data analysis! This is where we can really start to piece together the “ecological puzzle” of plant community processes and restoration. There are lots of methods and ways to look at monitoring data and we can answer a wide variety of useful questions with these data, from “Are sensitive early spring-bloomers establishing soon after restoration?” to “How does weather after restoration seeding affect community structure 10 years later?”

But what I am really working on this summer is how we can apply this analyzed data to restoration design and management action on the ground. To do this, I am looking at lots of different graphs to determine things like key times to monitor restored communities with the goal of producing a “white paper” that translates science into management ideas.

Spreading the Word

Finally, I have begun to “spread my branches towards the sun” to bring this science into the light and the public eye. A large component of my internship is focused on communicating all this valuable information to diverse audiences and inspiring others to care about the sagebrush steppe ecosystem. I have engaged future restoration volunteers by teaching a plant ID field course, started a social media campaign about the #secretsofthesage, and am currently developing a StoryMap to tell the interesting tale of the sagebrush steppe and the long-term, large-scale restoration project ongoing in Grand Teton National Park.

This final stage in the ecologist’s life cycle is arguably one of the most important because science communication truly is the fruit of many years of data collection, analysis, and contemplation. Science cannot go far without public (and internal) support. Furthermore, without people to care about ecological restoration and other management projects, funding and interest dwindle quickly. Hopefully, with some effort, my contributions will help to sow the seeds of interest and inspiration which will result in helping hands and collaborations to preserve the imperiled sagebrush steppe for many generations to come.

This summer, I am very excited to be a Scientists in Parks Fellow (SIP) for the National Park Service in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. NPS manages three parks in St. Croix: Christiansted National Historic Site, Buck Island Reef National Monument (BUIS), and Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve; all of which have their own unique natural and cultural resources. As a SIP Fellow, I will be working most closely with natural resources at BUIS.

BUIS is a marine protected area off the coast of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands that hosts a variety of tropical marine ecosystems (e.g. coral reefs, seagrass meadows, deep-water habitats, coastal beaches and tropical dry forests) and threatened / endangered species. BUIS has one of the most pristine elkhorn-coral barrier reef ecosystems in the Caribbean, and is one of few national parks that is almost entirely underwater. The park’s biological diversity and complexity offers incredible opportunities for public recreation, education, and scientific research. A hallmark of the park’s natural resource management initiative is the Buck Island Sea Turtle Research Program (BISTRP). BUIS provides critical nesting and / or foraging habitat for four sea turtle species, including hawksbill, green, leatherback, and loggerhead. The BISTRP has monitored sea turtles at BUIS since 1987, and has been recognized as one of the most intensive and successful sea turtle monitoring programs in the world, particularly for hawksbill turtles (see photo).

For my SIP project, I am analyzing 33 years of monitoring data to provide a baseline assessment for the nesting aggregation of hawksbill turtles at BUIS. This assessment will assist resource managers in adapting management plans to ensure the continued conservation success of this endangered species in the park and throughout the U.S. Virgin Islands. The majority of my fellowship will be conducted remotely from my location in Gainesville, Florida, but I will be visiting the park in July to run a workshop on sea turtles for local high school students participating in the Youth Oceans Explorers program.

Stay tuned this summer for further updates on sea turtles at BUIS! You may also find me on Twitter (@AlexandraGulick), Instagram (@alexandra.gulick), or visit my website.

Want to know more about BUIS? Check out this short video for an excellent overview of the park’s history, natural resources, and its importance to sea turtle conservation in the Caribbean.