Jeff Muehlbauer’s Research-Macroinvertebrate monitoring at a wetland/stream mitigation/restoration |
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Contact me: jeffreym [at] unc [dot] edu |
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This project takes place at Timberlake, the largest stream/wetland mitigation project in the state of North Carolina. The site has a scientific presence primarily from a collaboration between my advisor, Dr. Martin Doyle, and Dr. Emily Bernhardt’s group at Duke. The Duke folks do a lot more here than I do. My role at Timberlake is to monitor macroinvertebrate community recovery at the site post-restoration. Around 5-10 years ago, Timberlake was a corn field. The restoration involved allowing the site to re-flood, digging channels for water flow, and planting some 750,000 trees (cypress, etc.). Because the site is on the Outer Coastal Plain of the US, it is naturally flooded, so for agriculture they actually had to drain it (counterintuitive for an Arizona boy like me). Also because it is on the Outer Coastal Plain, the site resembles both a stream and a wetland. So my monitoring encompasses areas that are more channelized as well as those that are more classically wetland. We also monitor adjacent sites that are still agricultural ditches, as well as “natural” sites in a nearby preserve. I am I my 4th year of monitoring, which began roughly 1 year after the re-flooding of the site took place. Timberlake is dynamic (from a buggy perspective at least), so I have no results to mention here yet. Maybe in a year or so… However, an experimental dewatering study I carried out at this site has recently been published. |
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Timberlake, showing some riverine and wetland characteristics. Shockingly, swimming mayflies live here. |
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Mailing Address UNC Curriculum for the Environment & Ecology CB 3275 Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA |
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Physical Address 307 Whitehead Hall (Corner of Columbia St & South Rd) |
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Last update: 5 January 2012 |
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Research Projects
Wetland Monitoring
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Former undergrad Ben Bogardus, wilting in the full sun at the site in June. It can be merciless out there in the summer. |
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An agricultural ditch control site, which looked better at the time (earlier in the restoration) than the restored sites. Not so anymore. |
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Sometimes Timberlake dries and we sample more or less in the mud. The undergrads particularly enjoy these sampling events. |