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In the days before the land was plotted, plowed and paved, the patch of Palouse prairie that EWU calls home was part of a wild, magnificent landscape; a terrestrial ocean of sun-kissed rolling hills carpeted by a vast, kaleidoscopic medley of native flora.<\/p>\n
Throughout the year, grasses such as bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata), Idaho fescue (Festuca idahoensis), and Basin wildrye (Leymus cinereus) created a luxuriant carpet of green and gold. Each spring, displays of multi-hued forbs \u2014 the herbaceous flowering plants that were especially prevalent in the pre-industrial Palouse \u2014 turned the hills into great, Crayola-colored super blooms. In late summer and fall, the land\u2019s Native people sustainably harvested the berries and edible-root plants that also thrived in the rich, deep soil.<\/p>\n
\u201cIts beauty was wild and untrammeled and the undulating hills were covered with luxuriant grasses,” wrote a homesteader who moved to the Palouse about the same time that the Benjamin P. Cheney Academy opened its doors to students. Such appreciation, however, did not deter similar Euro-American arrivals from aggressively altering the landscape. First by grazing cattle, then by intensively cultivating wheat and barley, the new arrivals \u2014 often unwittingly \u2014 ensured that the Palouse\u2019s finely balanced ancient ecosystem would be rapidly and perhaps inalterably transformed.<\/p>\n
Today almost nothing of the original Palouse prairie remains. If in only a small way, Eastern Washington University hopes to change that.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, EWU administrators announced a plan to restore a 120-acre parcel of university-owned farmland to its native habitat, thus creating a \u201cliving laboratory\u201d of restored Palouse prairie proximate to the Cheney campus. This Prairie Restoration Project, to be developed in cooperation with representatives from area Native communities, is meant to advance student research and learning opportunities, to create a model for boosting regional biodiversity and to provide an education and recreational space connecting visitors to a long-lost landscape.<\/p>\n
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![\"Forbs](\"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2020\/01\/PrairieReminant.jpg\")
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\u201cThis project is the perfect example of the kind of work that we do at this university,\u201d EWU President Mary Cullinan told a crowd gathered at the project site in May. \u201cWe do research that is applied. We work to solve problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noting the partnership with area tribes, Cullinan said \u201cwe respect the fact that it was tribal land that our beautiful university is on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carol Evans, Spokane Tribe chairwoman, also emphasized the importance of connecting with the land and learning from it. \u201cWe are going to do something wonderful here together,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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As envisioned<\/strong> by Erik Budsberg, project leader and sustainability coordinator with EWU\u2019s Facilities and Planning Office, restoring Eastern\u2019s prairie will be a true multi-disciplinary affair. \u201cA big part of the project is to make it really inclusive,\u201d Budsberg says. \u201cWe want to use it to sort of de-silo things, to truly create a lot of interdisciplinary relationships and opportunities across campus.\u201d<\/p>\n The restoration effort, now in its \u201cpilot phase,\u201d has already attracted broad interest. Geography students, for example, have been using GPS-mapping techniques to provide guidance on potential land-use decisions.<\/p>\n Biology students and faculty members have taken advantage of grant funding from the Environmental Protection Agency to share prairie-related conservation knowledge with local school children and the wider community. And during a recent visit, a graduate student in archaeology was on site digging for artifacts related to previous habitations.<\/p>\n In a more general way, the site will serve as a test case for how competing institutional interests can co-exist. Can, for example, research, teaching and recreation really thrive in such a space?<\/p>\n Budsberg believes they can. As the project moves through its three-stage development plan, he says, facilities planners, research faculty and EWU students will corroborate to develop management plans, cost estimates and the identification of potential external partners that can help advance the project\u2019s three-fold goal.<\/p>\n When the actual physical restoration work begins, at a date yet to be determined, task one will be preparing the ground for native grass and forb plantings, while, at the same time, constructing a trail system. Such trails, Budsberg explains, are more than just a recreational amenity; they are crucial to making the research, teaching and recreation piece come together. Not only will trails provide EWU students and campus visitors with an interpretative education experience, they will also serve to keep enthusiastic guests from inadvertently trampling on research plots and fragile soils.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even the most generous estimates of the extent of \u201cremnant\u201d patches puts the total at less than one percent. Some ecologists believe there may be even less.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n During the project\u2019s final phase, planners envision using educational signage, strategically placed benches, outdoor classrooms, and even a mountain bike \u201cskills center\u201d to attract and instruct visitors.<\/p>\n But first things first. In the current pilot phase of the project, research will predominate. The reason is straightforward, says project advisor Kurt Merg: Surprisingly few university experts have spent much time studying the Palouse.<\/p>\n Merg, a Wisconsin farm kid who grew up to become a research scientist and vegetation ecologist with Washington\u2019s Department of Fish and Wildlife, says while other forms of prairie-related research have attracted intense research interest around the nation, \u201cthere are no academic researchers that are taking on Palouse prairie per se.\u201d<\/p>\n What interest there has been, he adds, has come mostly from what he calls \u201cpractitioners;\u201d professionals working with the Department of Fish and Wildlife and \u201cfolks in the seed business, people working on private restoration projects, and some non-governmental organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n This scarcity of academic inquiry gives an added urgency to Eastern\u2019s restoration project, especially given how little remains of the original Palouse prairie. Even the most generous estimates of the extent of \u201cremnant\u201d patches puts the total at less than one percent. Some ecologists believe there may be even less.<\/p>\n More daunting still is the lack of success with previous restoration attempts. \u201cNobody has succeeded in replicating the diversity represented in the best of the few, extant prairie remnants,\u201d Merg says. \u201cThat said, it took approximately one hundred and fifty years to destroy most of the Palouse prairie. Most of our attempts to restore it are fewer than 20 years old, and most are still slowly recruiting new species. Maybe the \u2018problem\u2019 is that we haven\u2019t been trying for long enough.\u201d<\/p>\n This glass-half-full attitude<\/strong> is typical of those involved in Eastern\u2019s prairie restoration effort, particularly among the graduate student researchers who will be doing the scientific leg work necessary to make it happen.<\/p>\n Among them is Erik Peterson, 32, an EWU graduate student studying soil biology. A native of the Tri-Cities area, Peterson did his undergraduate work at Washington State University. At Eastern\u2019s research greenhouse, a facility located atop a slab of decidedly un-prairie-like asphalt, Peterson is working with his advisor, Rebecca L. Brown, professor and chair of the biology department, to get a handle on how microorganisms native to Palouse soils have fared over time.<\/p>\n Previous research by Brown and others has shown that agriculture in the Palouse hasn\u2019t just changed the flora and fauna that we see, it has also dramatically altered the ground below. To put it most simply, the unique and diverse soil communities that sustained the original prairie have, thanks to decades of grazing and tillage, been replaced by a more limited cast of bacterial characters. The change has had a profound effect on what plants will thrive there.<\/p>\n Peterson says making the prairie bloom again will mean understanding what came before, and then recreating it.<\/p>\n \u201cJust like in our gut microbiomes, there are symbionts and pathogens in the soil,\u201d says Peterson. \u201cOne of soils\u2019 most important symbiotic interactions with plants involves a group called the arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi, or AMF. It is thought to be one of the oldest biological associations on the planet \u2014 that the AMF communities allowed plants to shift from aquatic to terrestrial communities some 450 million or so years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n In rows of six-inch planters on large plastic trays, Peterson has assembled a collection of soils from remnant Palouse prairie \u2014 those small, rare plots of land such as Whitman County\u2019s Kamiak Butte park that have never been farmed \u2014 alongside soils of agricultural sites. He then introduces both native and non-native plants into these \u201cpot cultures,\u201d taking note of their growth and nutrient uptake.<\/p>\n Native plants, researchers like Peterson have learned, are especially dependent on Palouse-specific AMF communities, and vice versa. \u201cAMF can\u2019t survive without a plant host, and any kind of tilling destroys those communities,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Rebuilding AMF communities on Eastern\u2019s restored prairie won\u2019t be easy. It will essentially involve \u201cinoculating\u201d the modern, AMF-depleted soil with fungi harvested from native prairie. The hope is that such inoculations will be sufficient to boost native grasses and forbs while impeding the spread of non-native, invasive plant species. Peterson thinks he and his colleagues can pull it off. \u201cWe\u2019re confident that we can grow, harvest and put direct transplants into the site,\u201d Peterson says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ‘One of soils\u2019 most important symbiotic interactions with plants involves a group called the arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi, or AMF. It is thought to be one of the oldest biological associations on the planet.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n Fellow EWU graduate student Sarah Hill, an engaging, voluble, plant biology specialist from Ridgefield, a small town in southwest Washington, shares this conviction. Hill, 32, earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in life science from the University of Portland, then worked at the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge as a program director at the refuge’s Cathlapotle Plankhouse.<\/p>\n Her studies at Eastern span both environmental investigation and community outreach. An example of the latter is an ongoing relationship she and the university have cultivated with the Salish School of Spokane, a private K-12 school dedicated to preserving the culture and language of regional Native American tribes. \u201cThey have been learning about different prairie communities, and helping us propagate some of the plants that are going to be used in the project,\u201d Hill says. \u201cDefinitely engaging with our Native community, both on campus and off, is an important goal of the project.\u201d<\/p>\n On the science side, Hill and her advisor Robin O’Quinn, an associate professor of biology at EWU, are working with forbs, those flowering plants that once defined the prairie\u2019s identity \u2014 at least in the minds of early European visitors.<\/p>\n Kurt Merg fills in the role forbs played in the original prairie, and possibly why they were so quick to disappear, along with fauna that depended on them, following the advent of modern agriculture. Reestablishing forbs<\/strong> is notoriously difficult. So far, no one is sure exactly why. It\u2019s a question that both intrigues and motivates Hill. \u201cHow do we get more than, say, four perennial forbs species in prairie sites; that\u2019s like the question in Palouse restoration,\u201d she says. The scope of her efforts won\u2019t be sufficient to solve the riddle, she admits. But she\u2019s doing her part.<\/p>\n Hill is looking at how soil moisture affects growth rates of Arrowleaf balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata), a flowering forb common in the Palouse, the channeled scablands to the east of the prairie and across Eastern Washington. For restoration, she says, it\u2019s perfect. \u201cIt\u2019s super drought tolerant once it\u2019s established; it\u2019s hardy, it\u2019s beautiful, pollinators love it, deer like to eat it \u2014 all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Just as Peterson\u2019s work revolves around soil health, Hill\u2019s project also starts at ground level. One key to reestablishing Arrowleaf balsamroot, as with many other forbs, involves understanding the conditions that it needs to thrive. Standing in front of her own array of plant-filled plastic pots, Hill explains the challenges related to forb renewal.<\/p>\n \u201cI was trying to establish if the timing of different levels of soil moisture would affect growth and root biomass,\u201d she says. \u201cSo, I set up this multi-pot experiment. It was working out just fine and then\u2026\u201d here Hill pauses. \u201c\u2026 we got fungus gnats.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFungus gnats eat plant roots,\u201d she says. \u201cIf I was just growing these to transplant that would be fine because a little bit of root damage might not be a big deal. But because my data are dependent on the weighing of root biomass at the end \u2014 and comparing biomass across these treatments \u2014 if the roots are damaged I won\u2019t be able to obtain reliable data from the root weights.\u201d<\/p>\n Such challenges will undoubtedly be common, and even a cursory visit to EWU\u2019s restoration site provides a visitor with a sense of the enormity of the project. Still, says Budsberg, fungus-gnat-style setbacks notwithstanding, there\u2019s every reason to be confident Eastern\u2019s restored prairie will be a success.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ‘Prairie cannot be replaced. Were we to allow the last remnant to be destroyed, we would lose forever the unique inheritance of millennia.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n With recently cut wheat stalks crunching underfoot \u2014 after more than 50 years of cultivation this year\u2019s harvest will likely be the last \u2014 Budsberg gazes out over the sun-dappled hills to the Cheney campus spread out below.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s interesting,\u201d he says, \u201chow easy it is, when you\u2019re down there on campus, to forget that Eastern is part of this beautiful, unique Palouse environment. We obviously hope to do a lot with this project, but one key outcome for me is to help the university community develop a real sense of place, that we are all a part of this amazing Palouse setting.\u201d<\/p>\n Standing next to him, Merg nods in agreement. Later he elaborates on why restoration professionals like him work so hard to help projects like Eastern\u2019s succeed.<\/p>\n There are practical reasons: Recent research suggests that the monocultures of modern agriculture, while amazingly productive, are becoming problematic for soil health. In addition, deploying prairie strips among these intensely cultivated fields can reintroduce habitat for insect predators of pests, thus reducing the need for chemical pesticides. And cultivating hedgerows of wild, flowering plants can attract pollinators that can then help pollinate adjacent crop plants, too.<\/p>\n But the full value of prairie, Merg says, transcends economics.<\/p>\n \u201cPrairie cannot be replaced. Were we to allow the last remnant to be destroyed, we would lose forever the unique inheritance of millennia. You can\u2019t recover species that are wholly lost; you can\u2019t reassemble communities when the members of those communities are extinct. Why exactly would we deliberately decline this inheritance?\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 To learn more about EWU\u2019s Prairie Restoration Project, and what you can do to support it, visit ewu.edu\/prairierestoration<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Can Eastern Restore a Long-Lost Patch of Prairie? By Charles E. Reineke In the days before the land was plotted, plowed and paved, the patch of Palouse prairie that EWU calls home was part of a wild, magnificent landscape; a terrestrial ocean of sun-kissed rolling hills carpeted by a vast, kaleidoscopic medley of native flora.…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":484,"featured_media":232,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-166","stories","type-stories","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","stories_categories-campus","stories_categories-featured","stories_categories-science","stories_tags-fall-winter-2019"],"acf":{"featured_video":"","subheading":"","display_byline":false,"display_date_published":false,"Links":false,"Resources":[{"stories_resources_link":{"title":"Support the Prairie Fund","url":"http:\/\/ewu.edu\/prairiefund","target":"_blank"}}]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/stories"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/484"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":628,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/166\/revisions\/628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n\u201cForbs contribute the greatest proportion of species diversity that we see in the best Palouse prairie remnants. This diversity likely contributed to overall ecosystem function in such myriad fashion that we can\u2019t decipher, at this point, the full consequence of their loss,\u201d Merg says. \u201cOne example often cited among our wildlife biologists is that, unlike grass, forbs do not contain very much silica, a physical defense in grasses against grazing. Forbs are essential to supporting herbivorous insects, which themselves are essential to young birds \u2014 like pheasants or our native sharptail grouse. Imagine now that the land, largely devoid of forbs, is unable to produce the seasonal abundance of insects upon which an entire food chain once depended. This is the kind of role we suspect that forbs once played here.\u201d<\/p>\n
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