Refuge notebook: Springing ahead - what clocks and plants have in common

03/22/13 - 10:30am

Benjamin Franklin’s original daylight saving concept centered around the idea that humans could be more productive if only we had more daylight in which to get tasks done. Remaining productive in the winter, as any Alaskan knows, can be challenging. During the dark of winter, our botanical friends also rest from their primary task of converting sunlight into productive growth. However, plants will soon green up as the first days of spring lengthen into summer.

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What goes on under the snow?

11/29/12 - 6:40pm

Subzero temperatures and a blanket of snow can make the Kenai landscape appear to be biologically quiet during the winter, aside from highlights such as the appearance of animal tracks across a frozen lake, or the swoop of an owl in the trees. Just above and beneath the snow surface, however, is a hotbed of winter activity. Physical processes, such as freezing, thawing, compaction, melting, and erosion, are referred collectively as nivation, derived from the Latin word for snow, nix.

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Aquarium plant threatens Peninsula waterways

09/14/12 - 9:39am

Interagency biologists working on northern pike control last week in Captain Cook State Recreation Area noticed fragments of a bright green, whorled-leaf aquatic plant washed up on the shore near a boat launch. This unusual plant was identified as a species of Elodea, likely Elodea canadensis, the Canadian waterweed. Elodea is known from several locations in Alaska including Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Cordova…and now Stormy Lake on the Kenai Peninsula. This is the first aquatic freshwater invasive plant species that has been confirmed in Alaska.

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Moose, fire and forest ecology

07/27/12 - 9:49am

Robert Frost quotes the 17th Century proverb “good fences make good neighbors” in his Mending Wall poem. He questions why fences make good neighbors, asking what he was walling in or walling out, and to whom he may be giving offence by building a wall. He concludes his musings by asking “Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it/Where there are cows?” — an apt nod to the prevalence of our moose neighbors roaming the Kenai Peninsula.

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Refuge notebook: Springing ahead - what clocks and plants have in common

What goes on under the snow?

Aquarium plant threatens Peninsula waterways

Moose, fire and forest ecology

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