What happens when you stop mowing along the edge of the creek? You create a Grow Zone. Yes, once you remove the disturbance that is keeping the edge of the creek from becoming a riparian forest, it will start growing back. The first plants to exercise the right over the new place are pioneers that can withstand the degraded soils and harsh conditions created by mowing. Giant Ragweed is often the most common and vigorous one! Thanks to birds and wind bringing tree seeds to the new Grow Zon…
Habitat=more fish
In aquatic systems, an important component of the ecosystem is the type and abundance of “habitat” present. Habitat, also referred to as “structure”, are things such as submerged aquatic plants, emergent aquatic plants and floating periphyton, overhanging trees, and large woody debris. These components provide the materials, surfaces, and niches upon which algae and microorganisms colonize, insects can feed and breed, and small and large fish can spawn, feed, hunt, and hide. Together, habitat supports, diversifies, and enhances the food web of aquatic systems.
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Summary: Austin needs more pollinators and you can help by taking the pollinator challenge and planting pollinator treats!
Here's the Buzz
Pollinators are crucial to the production of fruits and seeds for many plants, both wild and cultivat…
As rain runs off our rooftops and streets, it drains down into the stormdrains and is directed to the streams. This rush of water swells the stream which can then overtop the banks of the stream channel and flow into the riparian zone. The roots of the vegetation along the channel and banks help hold the soil in place and prevent erosion. As large volumes of water inundate the perennial plants and grasses, the weaker plants bend over and blanket the soil. The blanket of plant material covers and protects the soil (Figure 2) and provides shelter for young tree and shrub seedlings that have been growing in the shady nursery.
Spotted! This Neon Skimmer (Libellula croceipennis) was spotted here in Austin! A native to Texas, the neon skimmer can also be found around the Southwest including Arizona and Southern California. Known for its vivid red color and unusual mating patterns, skimmers are often seen hanging out around lakes and ponds in Central Texas. Their mating ritual is quite e…
Mosquitos are in your face again. Every year around this time a few citizens reach out to the Surface Water Team of the Watershed Protection Department because they think that droves of mosquitoes are emerging from the neighborhood creek or pond. City environmental scientists have found that this has not yet been true and that the real story is much more insidious.
Let’s start with the lowly mosquito, a little fly (Mosquito is Spanish for “l…
OMG!! What has happened to my creek? It’s chock full of some sort of horrible, green slime monster!
That’s the filamentous algae we call…
You may have heard the term “rain garden”, but many people don’t know what a rain garden looks like or how they can help restore our creeks. Basically, a rain garden is a shallow depression in the ground that collects water during a rain storm. The water that collects in rain gardens soaks into the soil and eventually makes its way to our rivers and streams as “base flow”. Without rain gardens the water from a storm would flow off impervious surfaces like roofs, driveways, streets and parking lots directly into the creek all at once. This can be very bad news for our streams, because that big slug of dirty stormwater causes…
As people migrate to a new area they intentionally or unintentionally bring plants and seeds from lands far off. Due to a variety of physical and environmental limitations many of these plants would not have been able to relocate at such great distances without the assistance of a modern biped. Whether transported to their new locations for food, medicine, aesthetics, or accidentally their arrival can be seen as an invasion on the previous plant community which is already under attack by the concurrent changes in land use (farming, ranching, urbanization).
A majority of these new plants continue to require special attention to grow and spread but a few have great reproductive succe…