Source(s):
Tom Walker tjwalker@mail.ifas.ufl.edu, (352) 392-1901 ext. 125
Alan Long ajl@mail.ifas.ufl.edu, (352) 846-0891
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Nestled in the far southwest corner of the University of Florida campus right next to some of Gainesville’s busiest areas is a surprisingly large expanse of wilderness.
Dubbed the Natural Area Teaching Laboratory (NATL), it was set aside for teaching and research in 1994 and encompasses 45 acres of lush greenery.
“The primary function of NATL is to teach members of the UF community and the public about ecological diversity and conservation,” said Tom Walker, a professor of entomology with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. “There are 76 classes from four colleges and nine departments that use it.”
Walker, who is chair of an advisory committee for NATL, said an open, metal pavilion with tables and a concrete floor installed near the site’s east entrance this month will enhance the area’s usefulness.
“The pavilion is designed for academic use – it’s a place for people to take notes or bring back specimens and examine them,” he said. “Installing it was a big priority – unless you’re in a class from a nearby department, you didn’t have anywhere to go if it rained. And if somebody wanted to take notes they had to get down on the ground.”
Walker said NATL is useful for a wide variety of activities because it represents each of the three major ecosystems found in north Florida. One is upland pine, which is dominated by widely spaced longleaf pine trees, a few shrubs and a dense cover of grass.
“Upland pine used to be the dominant ecosystem in north Florida before most of the longleaf pines were cut down for timber,” Walker said. “It requires open, bare soil and frequent burning – at least every four or five years – for reproduction. There’s a course in forest management at the university which uses the area to practice controlled burns.”
Another ecosystem found in NATL is hardwood hammock, which is characterized by thick stands of hardwood trees and sparse instances of smaller vegetation.
“We need to get rid of some of the invasive, exotic plants showing up there,” Walker said. “Of course, the presence of these gives us another teaching opportunity.”
The third ecosystem type is old-field succession. Walker said old-field succession is a transitory ecosystem, and NATL features five different stages of it.
“If you let farmland go, it eventually returns to either of the more stable ecosystems, upland pine or hardwood hammock,” he said. “We don’t want everything in NATL to be one of those, though, because various stages of old-field succession are very diverse and have lots of animals of all sorts: insects, birds, mammals and reptiles.”
Even a nearby retention pond, designed to absorb stormwater runoff from the nearby parking lots at UF’s Harn Museum and Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, has been incorporated into NATL.
“When we got the land, the three- acre pond was flat-bottomed, shallow and dominated by cattail plants,” Walker said. “Now it’s been engineered to include several different styles of habitat, and native wetland species have been introduced. It’s great for teaching, and it demonstrates retention ponds don’t have to be ugly – they can be very ecologically diverse.”
Alan Long, an associate professor of forestry at UF, has been taking his classes to NATL since 1996. He performed the first controlled burn at NATL in 1997 to help restore the area’s upland pine, and said being able to do that in an urban area gives him a unique chance to demonstrate important principles.
“I use NATL for several classes, the main one being tree and plant identification,” he said. “I’ve also managed prescribed burning at the site, and when we do that I can involve one of the fire management classes. It’s a very valuable resource for some very different types of classes.”
The entrance to NATL, which includes a kiosk explaining aspects of the site, is located at its east border, across Natural Area Drive from UF’s Department of Entomology and Nematology. A map and additional information are also available at http://natl.ifas.ufl.edu. Walker said future plans for NATL include a picnic area for public use.
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