Student Service Learning at Burke-Gilman Trail

My Service Learning was the Restoration of Burke-Gilman’s Trail. I volunteered from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. with the total hour of 5 hours on January 28th 2017. Ekaterina Rar was the one in charge in Student Service Learning for my work, and her email is ekaterina.rar@email.edcc.edu.

The most part of the service learning was to take out one of the main invasive plants in Washington state, which are Himalayan Blackberries and plant in various types of native plants. The main goal in this volunteer is to help create back a healthy ecosystem for the native plants and wildlife animals. It is also for the people who uses the trail every day to have the overgrown invasive plants from covering the track. It relates to Animal Biology in a way that, these plants are destroying the natural habitat for native animals in this state. Removing them will help the native animals to survive better.

During the work, everyone’s shares similar jobs, which is to remove the overgrowing Himalayan Blackberries and plant in native plants. It takes a lot of people to remove those blackberries because they have thorns and their roots can grow relatively deep underground. We were given a shovel and a pair of work gloves to easily dig the roots out, as well as protecting our hands from the thorns.

Image shows what the trail looks like.

Image shows a Himalayan Blackberry plant. This one is relatively young and small in size. There are many others which are very long and have more than one root. Also, if we look closely, there are thorns present on it. Actually, there are small thorns behind those innocent looking leaves as well.

Image shows stacked Himalayan Blackberries. For your information, there are more than 20 of these stacks.

Image shows English Ivy, which could grow up on shrubs and trees. ultimately blocking the shrub from the sunlight and kills shrubs.  

Image shows the native plant that is about to be planted.

Himalayan Blackberries are bad for animals because of its thorns. I was told that the thorns can limit the access for animals across locations, including humans. This forces some land animals to migrate somewhere with less of these plants. Like covered in the course, these blackberries can act as barrier for animals to go around and could create many isolated populations of animal species, which is the mechanism of natural selection by founder effect and speciation by allopatric. For English Ivy, they could destroy shrubs that home to certain species of animals. If less of those particular shrubs are available in the nature, that particular species of animals may have to migrate somewhere else or the species may extinct. Both of these plants basically can contribute to lesser variation of both animal and plant species in this state.

Overall, I’ve gained the knowledge of how much a simple plant can actually affect the ecosystem in a large scale. By working to remove these invasive plants, I felt satisfied that I managed to slow down the negative impact that these plants can do on the ecosystem at that particular place. By doing so, I’ve also helped in making the trail to be more accessible by anyone using it. Removing those fast-growing plants makes the trail looks healthier, which encourages people to go out and enjoy the nature.

After the service, I came out with the following questions.

11)     What would be the overall result if no one takes care of these invasive species?

22)     Which animal species experienced the most negative impact from these invasive plants?

33)     Which animal species experiences the most benefit from invasive plants?

44)     Are there any better methods of removing these plants?