Kicking Off Spring

Welcome back to the Berry Prairie!  After a nice, long winter, we are keeping our eyes on the ground in anticipation of the spring green up.  Last spring, our first plant that flowered was the Draba - and it flowered on March 30!  This year, it's been cooler and most plants are still dormant, not even close to flowering.

For the Newbies

For those of your new to this blog, a little background.  The Berry Prairie is a green roof atop the Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center in Laramie, Wyoming.  It was installed in June 2010 after the construction of the Berry Center, with the intent of maximizing climate control of the Vertebrate Collection below.  

Unlike many green roofs that have 1 or 2 species of sedum, this green roof was designed to mimic a native Wyoming prairie, so all of the 62 species of plants found on the roof are native to 25ish miles around Laramie.  Just like prairies around Laramie, the majority of the individual plants are grasses.  However, there are 44 species of wildflowers in the green roof - quite diverse indeed!

Class Kicks off the Visitor Season

A class at the University of Wyoming, Principle of Range Management, taught by Dr. Melanie Murphy, was one of the first groups to visit the Berry Prairie this year.  They spent time surveying the Prairie for vegetation types, signs of erosion, soil surface, and other range-type factors.  The green roof is one of multiple sites the class is surveying, and data from each year's class will be collated and appended to a long-term database of information. 

There are other groups planning to come to the Berry Prairie this spring, and of course all visitors are welcome - staying on the path is required!  Come find us in Berry Center 231 if you have any questions, we'd love to chat!

Written by Brenna Marsicek, Biodiversity Institute

Winter Adieu

The Berry Prairie has been dormant for a while now, as a result of cooler temperatures and very little precip (we still only have 6.86" for the year!  That's down approx. 5" from our average - learn more).

So despite the warmish weather we're experiencing (54.5 degrees F right now!), we'll bid you adieu for the winter.  Check back in the spring when plants start to awaken - are you as curious as we are to see what will survive the winter, after this hectic and stressful growing season?

Maybe the green roof will look something like this:

Hopefully the roof won't look something like this:

Though ideally, it will more likely look something like this:

Stay tuned!

Written by Brenna Wanous Marsicek

 

Berry Prairie Weather

In the beginning of January 2012, we installed a weather station on the northeast corner of the Berry Prairie.  We wanted to be able to measure precipitation, wind speed, temperature, humidity, etc. so we could track this information for years to come.

Holy Data!

The data is very detailed - the weather station takes 26 types of measurements every half hour of every single day!  Those measurements include wind speed, direction and highs, temperature outside, inside, highs and lows, humidity, dew point, wind chill, heat index, precipitation, degree days, and the list goes on.  The image below is a snapshot of the spreadsheet containing all of the data.  What you see is only 83 of 28,190 rows - and that's only for 10 months!  

We're able to put this data into graphic form.  The graph below shows temperature (red line) and precipitation (blue columns) for every half hour of every day of each month since January.
  

Why keep weather data?

Good question.  baseline data in case someone 100 years from now wants to know what the climate in Laramie, Wyoming was like in our present times.  And it's handy for research projects done all across campus and beyond.  In fact, we're using this data for a research project studying the microclimate on the green roof compared with other sites in the area.  More on that soon!

We're happy to share our weather data - contact berryctr@uwyo.edu if you want more information!

Written by Brenna Wanous Marsicek

Winter Wonderful

Snow!  Glorious snow!  

Like most (all?) of the country, Wyoming suffered from severe drought this year, starting with very little snow this spring and even less rain this summer.  For those of you who don't live in Wyoming, we absolutely need spring snow - our ecosystems are adapted to rely on it.  

Below Average 
 
The weather station on the Berry Prairie registered 6.29 inches of precipitation for the year prior to this snowfall.  That's 4.29 inches below our annual precipitation average this time of year... and in a place that gets only 11.5 inches of precip a year, that's a big deal! 

But if we can't get spring snow, we will take fall snow!  As you see below, the prairie is almost buried.  We have about 6 inches, which will melt over the next week and allow the parched ground to soak up the moisture slowly.

Keep your fingers crossed that this winter we can make up some precipitation ground.  

Written by Brenna Wanous Marsicek