Justin

Leech Lake Tribal College’s Indigenous Science program’s two longest-standing research projects are co-located near Sunken Lake in the Cutfoot-Sioux Experimental Forest near Inger. In partnership with the United States Forest Service since 2017, student interns have conducted annual vegetation surveys to assess the effects of prescribed fire on the abundance of wild blueberries. LLTC student interns have collected data on blueberry production, forest fuel loads, and tree and shrub species composition before and after fire. In 2022, we expanded our vegetation surveys to assess the effects of fire on the abundance of traditional medicinal plants such as wintergreen. These on-the-ground [...]

Before the introduction of the invasive starry stonewort in Minnesota,  little was known about the diversity of algae in our lakes. The aquatic plant survey of Leech Lake published in 2010, many species were roughly categorized as “chara spp.”  referring to a family of algae with over 600 species worldwide.  Characeae (chara) are very hard to identify down to the species level, thus only 17 species had been recorded in Minnesota prior to 2015. Now, three years into this project over 40 species have been identified, some previously unknown to science! Chara can form large underwater meadows in our [...]

Interesting Links Infested Waters of Minnesota (interactive) Survival of Wild Rice Threatened By Climate Change Protecting and Understanding Wild Rice, Sacred to Ojibwe People Leech Lake Tribal College students and the Leech Lake Division of Resource Management (LLDRM) will collaborate on a research project called Reseeding Manoomin for the Next Seven Generations. Manoomin faces many threats from climate change, pollution, and invasive species. Climate change and pollution are global issues that require collective action, but addressing the threat of invasive species can be tackled locally. This project focuses on developing a [...]