Surveying for Plants

Wayne National Forest
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Surveying for Plants
Surveying for Plants

Resource assistants surveying for the rare yellow-fringed orchid (Platanthera ciliaris) after a prescribed burn.

The yellow-fringed orchid requires sunny areas. In Ohio, it’s found mostly in savannas, power-line right-of-ways, and—in the case of the Wayne—an upland site with native pines and a semi-open canopy. Over the years, this area has become more and more shaded as trees and other vegetation grew denser due to a lack of disturbance. Yellow-fringed orchids can’t live in shaded conditions, and the number of individuals were low.

This is where active management comes in! To keep the canopy semi-open—which allows more sunlight to reach the forest floor and help the rare orchids thrive—an ecological disturbance was needed. An ecological disturbance is a temporary event, such as a single tree falling or a raging flood, that changes the environmental conditions in an area. The Forest Service introduced an ecological disturbance in this site by using prescribed burning and the selective thinning of trees as management tools. The low-intensity prescribed burn helped remove some of the dense understory, and the selective thinning of trees helped open up the canopy. Together, these management activities allowed more light to reach the forest floor.

Forest Service photo by Kyle Brooks.

Taken on: July 17, 2019
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Sets appears in:   • Marietta Unit (Athens Ranger District)    • Restoring & Sustaining Ecosystems   
Camera: Nikon D5500, f/7.1, 1/250 sec, 16mm (=24mm), ISO 400 (more info) (hide info)
Camera: Nikon D5500
Lens: 16.0-85.0 mm f/3.5-5.6
Aperture: f/7.1
Exposure Time: 0.004 sec (1/250)
Focal Length: 16mm (35mm equivalent: 24mm)
ISO: 400
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program: Manual
Exposure Mode: Manual
Metering Mode: Center-weighted average
White Balance: Auto
Gain Control: Low gain up
Saturation: High
Sharpness: Hard
Color Space: sRGB
Software: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 13.1 (Windows)
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