Progress 02/01/10 to 01/31/15
Outputs
Target Audience:The major focus of the work in the final no-cost extension year was to write up results from the study. In addition, our main target audience was anglers and publics interested in our work. We participated at the Minnesota State Fair, where we had a booth in the Natural Resources Building, associated witht the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, like we did in the previous year. We prviced educational materials about the impact of earthworms on the northern hardwood forest. We estimate that more than 1000 people saw our materials. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Humans have been unwitting and/or deliberate vectors of invasive species, moving them more rapidly than they could move on their own. Can human behavior be modified to slow the spread? European earthworms are highly destructive to north temperate hardwood forests with a low natural rate of spread, about 0.5-1 km per 100 years. The spread of earthworms into the hardwood forest is primarily caused by anglers dumping unused fishing bait. We found substantial areas of the forest remain unaffected by earthworms by mapping the distribution of earthworms at three State Parks along the North Shore of Lake Superior, and in the Chippewa National Forest in Central Minnesota. In the three parks, 35.7% of the area was not impacted by earthworms, while in the Chippewa National Forest, 76.0% of samples were not impacted. Thus, reducing dispersal of earthworms by anglers could protect substantial areas of the forest from earthworm damages. To determine the potential for reducing earthworm dispersal by anglers, we first examined how anglers dispose of leftover earthworm bait. We conducted surveys about earthworm baits of anglers at six bait shops in northern Minnesota during 2011 and 2012. During several weekends between the last weekend of May and the first weekend of September, each person who purchased earthworm baits was asked if they would be willing to complete a survey about earthworm baits. Surveys were sent out in September of each year (N = 274 and 765, response rates of 85.0%and 69.8%). Earthworms were disposed inappropriately 18.5% of the time and 16.4% of these anglers falsely believed that such disposal was appropriate. We developed a label to attach to bait containers to inform anglers about how to dispose of leftover earthworms and conducted an experiment to evaluate the effect of these labels on the actual disposal behavior of anglers. We focused on resorts on Leech Lake, Cass Lake and Lake Winnibigosh, which are large lakes (all >64.6 km2) with similar fish communities. We contacted all of the resorts on these lakes, to find ones that: 1) had a bait shop and boat launch on their property, 2) required visitors to book for weekly intervals (from Saturday afternoon to Saturday morning), 3) were willing to participate and cooperate, and 4) had a sufficient number of visitors each week. It was essential that the resort have both a bait shop and a private boat launch, as visitors tend to buy their bait and fish from the resort during their entire visit. In our case, 92.6 of the visitors fished exclusively at the resort lake. The experiment was a crossover design in 4 x 4 Latin squares with 4 time periods and 4 treatments applied to each of 4 resorts with a one week washout period between treatments to reduce the influence of the previous treatment. As people tend to take 1-2 week vacations, each treatment sampled completely different visitors. There were two Latin squares each year with 8 resorts each year, which allowed complete blocking of order effects in the among resort variance. The 4 treatments were: +/- labels on the bait containers and +/- signage next to the boat launch. The signage was standard invasive species signage posted by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources that included mention about live fishing bait. The proportion of bait containers sold that end up in the resort garbage was the measure of appropriate bait disposal. A higher percentage of bait containers ended in the trash when they were labeled than when they were not labeled. Labeled containers were twice as likely (odds ratio = 2.00) to end up in the trash as unlabeled containers. During the last year of this study, we modified the experiment by: 1) removing the bait disposal bins, which may have been a cue to put unused bait in the trash; 2) eliminating the signage treatment; and 3) retaining only resorts that kept good records of their bait sales, and had between 14-20 cabins and similar amenities. This experiment was conducted with 4 resorts as a crossover design with the order of treatments in two 2 x 2 Latin Square (2 resorts x 2 treatment times), replicated twice during the season on each pair of resorts. Again, a higher percentage of bait containers ended in the trash when they were labeled than when they were not, and labeled containers were twice as likely to end up in the trash as unlabeled containers. The label was more salient to the anglers than the signage because anglers carry the containers with them during their entire fishing experience, and the wording on the signage was small. As the label increases the odds of appropriate disposal behavior 2-fold, it might reduce the rate of spread of earthworms by anglers by reducing the rate of inappropriate disposal behavior by half. Spread of invasive species can be approximated by simple diffusion, which means that the rate of spread, s = k sqrt(rD), where k is a constant, r is the intrinsic rate of increase of earthworms, and D measures movement associated with angler movement. Only D will be affected by the bait label. As the reduction in odds of movement by half means that D is reduced by half, spread would be reduced by sqrt(2) = 1.4Thus, the bait label could reduce the rate of spread of earthworms. Finally, we conducted an experiment to determine if the bait label affected demand for earthworm bait. For earthworm baits, the label could cause anglers to decide to use an artificial lure or another kind of live bait, such as minnows or crayfish. We located 6 bait shops to conduct the experiment. The experimental design was a randomized block design with treatments randomly assigned to bait shops. Four three-day weekends were selected for running the experiments, separated by a three-week washout period. The treatments were: 1) +Label (Fig. 3) and no price change; 2) Price reduction of $0.30/dozen worms; 3) +Label and price reduction; and 4) -Label and no price change. At the start of each business day, researchers recorded earthworm bait sales for the previous day, and replenished the labels as needed. To analyze the price and label treatment effects on earthworm bait sales, we conducted an OLS regression analysis of the daily earthworm sales on the treatments, experiment weekends, and bait shops. The price treatment, the label treatment, and the price & label treatments did not affect the quantity of live earthworm bait sold in the bait shops during the summer of 2011. One explanation for this is that earthworm bait is a small percentage of the overall cost of recreational fishing. A $0.30 reduction in the price of $3.00 bait is small compared to the overall costs of a fishing trip and thus had no impact on the bait purchasing behavior of anglers. A second explanation is that anglers have a strong preference towards earthworms. Thus, few individuals may be dissuaded from purchasing earthworm bait. Environmental labels have been used in other contexts. For example, to reduce littering behavior. The average odds of not littering when provided an anti-littering message compared to no message in 16 comparisons we found was 1.85 ± 0.19 (SE), which was similar to our observed value. Thirteen of these comparisons were done at locations that subjects might visit frequently, so non-littering behavior was partially privatized. Only three comparisons were conducted at locations were the subjects would not obtain any direct private benefits. Two found reducing littering, while one did not. Our bait label provides a social, environmental benefit and does not provide any direct private benefit. This is the first demonstration that an ecolabel could be a potentially powerful and direct way to militate the environmental harms of an invasive species by reducing dispersal by humans. This result could possibly be more broadly useful for other invasive species that are vectored by human activities.
Publications
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Progress 02/01/13 to 01/31/14
Outputs
Target Audience: We had two major target audiences for this year: anglers and scientists and publics interested in our work. 1. Anglers. We contacted about 450 anglers at two Minnesota county fairs and the Minnesota State Fair. We set up a booth associated with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (which regulates fishing) at each of the fairs and provided educational material about the impact of earthworms on the northern hardwood forest. We estimate that over 3000 people saw our materials. Nearly all had no idea that worms could be bad for the environment. We asked this general public population if they would like to help and if they fished. If both answers were positive, we asked them to look at our new label designs and indicate which label best communicated the need to dispose worms properly in the trash. We obtained about 450 responses. 2. Scientists and publics interested in our work. We made three presentations to scientific meetings, published or submitted three manuscripts related to our work, and presented our work to the college of the Fond-du-lac Band of the Minnesota Ojibwe. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Results were presented to three professional publics (Ecological Society of America, Society of Wetlands Scientists, and professionals associated with tourism). Three scientific manuscripts were submitted or published. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Write up main results for publication. Estimate dispersal kernel to model spread rates using a diffusion approximation. Complete a manuscript about using GIS to characterize the distribution and impact of earthworms in northern hardwood forests.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. The data from the modified experiment (eliminating cues) showed on increase in the proper disposal response with the educational bait label as increasing from 1.3 to 2.1 times that for the unlabeled container. Started to review the wider literature on experiments to change human behaviors for conservation purposes. After an extensive review of many kinds of examples, we found almost no experimental approaches. The littering literature is the only scientific literature that has conducted experiments to determine if interventions can change human behaviors. These are similar to our study, but worms are generally not considered to be waste products, so there is no natural association between worms and proper disposal as there is with trash and litter. Nevertheless, we will be exhaustively reviewing the littering literature. 2. The surveys were conducted and entered into the computer. The analysis of these data is still pending. 3. We continued work to map the distribution of earthworms in a large geographic region of northern hardwoods forest in order to find the distribution boundaries of earthworms. However, the key GIS person left the project to take employment elsewhere, then the key earthworm expert left the University, and then the PI took a leave. These changes disrupted the progress of the team. 4. Nothing new to report. 5. A person from the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe requested the materials associated with our train-the-trainers toolbox, and we provided this to her. As noted in the “target audience” section above, we contacted about 3000 people from the general public and provided them with educational materials about the adverse effects of earthworms in the northern hardwood forests.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Hueffmeier, Ryan M. and Cindy M. Hale 2013. Internet Sales as Vectors of Non-native Earthworm Introductions in the western Great Lakes Region. Submitted to Biological Invasion.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Hale, Cindy M., Rebecca Knowles. 2013. Non-native Earthworms Transported on Treads of ATVs and Logging Equipment in Northern Hardwood Forests of Minnesota, USA. Submitted to Northeastern Naturalis.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Hueffmeier, Ryan. 2013. Invasive Earthworms and Potential Impacts for Vernal Pools Habitats. Presented at Society of Wetland Science 2013 conference, June 4th 2013, Duluth MN
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Hueffmeier, Ryan. 2013. Great Lakes Worm Watch Presentation. Presentation to Fond Du Lac Community College, River Watch Congress March 2013.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
ANDOW, David, Terrence HURLEY, Cindy HALE, George HOST, Rebecca KNOWLES and Stephan Carlson. 2013. Reducing human-mediated spread of non-native earthworms in vulnerable northern hardwood forests. UMN Tourism Center, National Tourism Week, May 6, 2013, St. Paul, MN.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Loss, S.R., R.M. Hueffmeier, C.M. Hale, G.E. Host, G.Sjerven, L.E.Frelich. 2013. Earthworm Invasions in Northern Hardwood Forests: a Rapid Assessment Method. Natural Areas Journal 33(1):21-30. 2013
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Andow, D. A., C. M. Hale, R. Knowles, E. Rosengren, G. Host, T. M. Hurley. 2013 Reducing Geographic Spread of Invasive Earthworms. Presented at Ecological Society of America, August 49, 2013, Minneapolis, MN
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Progress 02/01/12 to 01/31/13
Outputs
Target Audience: We had three major audiences that we reached: fishing resorts and their visitors, bait shops and their customers, and several organizations to test the training curriculum that we developed the previous year. Fishing resorts and visitors. We contacted and worked with 4 fishing resorts and about 1200 visitors, who provided about 200 independent survey responses. Half of the visitors were informed about the adverse ecological effects of worms in the northern hardwood forest and half were not informed as described in the experimental design. Resort owners and visitors expressed considerable concern about these effects. Bait shops and cutromers. We contacted two bait shops located strategically along the main highways to the prime fishing area in northeast Minnesota. About 1000 customers who purchased live fishing baits were interviewed. Other organizations. We tested our training curriculum with about 100 participants at 2 Americorps sites, 1 fishing resort, several summer camps, and nature ceters. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Theresa Bauer (PhD, Applied Economics) was supported on the project during 2012. Theresa developed organizational skills to have a team of people interview and survey people at bait shops. Ryan Hueffmeier was supported on this project during 2012. Ryan learned more about using GIS, and directed the research project of one of the interns.. Four undergraduate interms were supported on this project. One learned a considerable amount about using GIS. One learned about interpreting and ground truthing aerial photographs, and two learned about the scientific method and how to sample lake shores to test an hypothesis. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Three poster presentations were made at the Upper Midwest Invasive Species Conference, October 29-31, 2012, LaCrosse, Wisconsin. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? 1. We will analyze these results and synthesize them and begin preparation of a publication. 2. We send out mail surveys to customers that answered our interviews at the bait shops during 2012. 3. We will continue the GIS analysis and to use the survey of bait shop customers to estimate a dispersal kernel for angler vectored bait. 4. We will not hire additional interns. 5. We will continue investigating the value of the new lable designs.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. We modified the experiment to remove obvious cues that bait containers should be thrown into the garbage, and eliminated the signage treatment, which has been shown in our previous work to have no direct effect on disposal behavior. This allowed us to work with fewer resorts and thereby match them more closely. It also allowed us to repeat the label treatments at the same resort at different times during the tourist season. We found that the labels had a significant effect in increasing environmentall appropriate disposal behaviors, and that the measured effect size was several times greater than in our previous experiments. We still believe that this experiment underestimates the effect of the label, because visitors at resorts will tend to "clean up" before they leave, and this "clean-up" behavior will result in a higher number of unlabelled bait containers being properly disposed than for the general angler. 2. We found that a small, but significnt proportion of anglers who use live bait dispose of their left-over earthworm bait properly, however, they did not know that they were helping to reduce the spread of earthworms. We also found that the bait label increased the proportion of people who said that they would dispose of earthworm baits properly. 3. We determined that there are two approaches toward addressing spread rates. The first is to assume that spread is hommogeneous in space and using a diffusion approximation to estimate the reduction in spread. This requires information about the dispersal kernel of earthworms when dispersing on their own versus when vectored by human anglers. The second is to model spread on a GIS, taking into account when earthworms are and how anglers might use the area. For the first, we need additoinal information from the bait shop surveys, so this will be addressed next year. For the second, we need a simple and quick wasy to assess earthworm abundance so that it can be mapped. We are using the "Invasive Earthworm Rapid Assessment Technique" to map the distribution of earthworms. This "IERAT" has been verified and the impact scale corresponds to invasions by different species of earthworm. During 2012, we collected IERAT samples to determine the most appropriate GIS interpolation method to use so that we can map the distribution of earthworms. We determined that the IERAT point estimates are best for interpolating on a landscape scale, rather than using the IERAt estimates to determine average infestation of land parcels. We have defined bounding polygons to be habitat (must be hardwoods forest) and cover type (must be hardwoods forest). We have also added several topographic and anthropgenic features to the GIS. 4. We trained four additional undergraduate interns, bringing the total to 12 interns, including four Native Americans. All fourn made public presentations about their independent projects to scientific audiences. 5. We developed an worm training toolbox for use to train other interested people to train others (training the trainers) about the adverse ecological impacts of earthworms in northern hardwood forests. We reached about 100 people.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Bauer, T. 2012. Earthworms & Anglers in Northern MN ESPM 2021 - Environmental Problem Solving. 2 February 2012, St. Paul, MN
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Bray, Kelly P., Ryan Hueffmeier, George Host, Gerry Sjerven, David A. Andow. 2012. Quantifying the spread of invasive earthworms from boat landings in Minnesota's northern forests. Presented at UMISC: Upper Midwest Invasive Species Conference, October 29-31, 2012, La Crosse, Wisconsin.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Driskell, Stephanie, Jennifer Olker, Ryan Hueffmeier, and Cindy Hale. 2012. Identifying and evaluating vernal pool habitats spanning a continuum of earthworm invasion status. Presented at UMISC: Upper Midwest Invasive Species Conference, October 29-31, 2012, La Crosse, Wisconsin.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Palokangas, Claire, Laura Christensen, Ryan Hueffmeier, George Host, and
David A. Andow. 2012. Relation Between Fishing Pressure and Earthworm Impacts Near Boat Landings. Presented at UMISC: Upper Midwest Invasive Species Conference, October 29-31, 2012, La Crosse, Wisconsin.
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Progress 02/01/11 to 01/31/12
Outputs
OUTPUTS: The primary objectives for this year were to collect improved data and continue to publicize the project among scientific colleagues. In addition to the poster presentation below, the major outputs were several presentations to land managers, academics and outreach educators. PARTICIPANTS: PD: David Andow (Entomology). PIs: Terrence Hurley (Applied Economics), Cindy Hale (UMN Duluth Biology and NRRI), George Host (NRRI Duluth), Nathan Meyer (UMN Extension), and Rebecca Knowles (Leech Lake Tribal Division of Natural Resources). Assistance Elise Rosengren (UMN). Our partner Organizations: Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe are cooperating as subcontractors and providing space to conduct the research; Leech Lake Tribal College and the Environmental Education Program at UMD are cooperating by identifying undergraduate student interns to help with the project. TARGET AUDIENCES: 1. Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. Their reservation covers nearly all of the study area. They have been very supportive of the research and will be a critical partner for extending the impact of the work. 2. Fishing resort owners, via direct interaction on the research and educational efforts that remain to be developed. 3. Native American undergraduate interns. One participated during 2011. 4. Land managers in central Minnesota. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
Our main outcomes this year are associated with objectives 1, 2, 4 and 5 of the project. For objective 1, we were able to establish that bait container labels make it 40% more likely for an angler to dispose of a bait container properly. Signage had no effect on this behavior. We believe our experiment underestimated the effect of the label and are planning new experiments for this coming summer. For objective 2, in an experiment with 4 bait shops, we found that neither bait labels nor an 8.3% price reduction affected sales of earthworm baits. We plan to follow this up with targeted surveys to provide further evidence of a lack of an effect on demand. For objective 4, we hired three interns, including one native American student from a nearby college. We again implemented a mentoring curriculum for these interns. As a result, two of the interns completed independent projects and presented their results to professionals in the field. For objective 5, we worked with eight more fishing resorts and four bait shops. All expressed great interest and concern that invasive earthworms might damage the northern hardwood forest.
Publications
- ANDOW, D.A., T. R. HURLEY, C. HALE, G. HOST and R. KNOWLES. 2011. Reducing human-mediated spread of non-native earthworms in vulnerable northern hardwood forests. Poster presentation to the USDA-AFRI Planning meeting. Washington, DC.
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Progress 02/01/10 to 01/31/11
Outputs
OUTPUTS: The primary objectives for this year were to initiate the project and publicize the project among scientific colleagues. The major outputs were seven presentations to land managers, academics and outreach educators. These covered several themes and venues, including: 1) Keynote address to the Ohio Biodiversity Alliance Soil Science Symposium, on impacts of invasive earthworms on forest ecology in the Great Lakes region and potential management or policy responses, at Cleveland, OH; 2) The Cary Institute of Ecosystems Studies, invited talk on the current state of research on the impacts of invasive earthworms in northern temperate forests at Millbrook, NY; 3) the Minnesota Association of Professional Soil Scientists, invited lecture on the impacts of invasive earthworms on northern temperate forest soils and implications for forest ecology in the Great Lakes region; 4) the Stewardship & Midwest Invasive Plant Network, contributed talk on developing action recommendations to respond to the threat of invasive earthworms in Western Great Lakes forests at East Lansing, MI; 5) Cloquet Forestry Review & Technology Transfer Conference, invited talk on the development of an invasive earthworm rapid assessment tool to assess the status of invasive European earthworms in hardwood forest types for the Western Great Lakes region using visual indicators at Cloquet, MN; 6) Joint Meeting of the Minnesota Chapters of the American Fisheries Society (AFS), Society for Conservation Biology (SCB), and The Wildlife Society (TWS), invited presentation on developing action recommendations to respond to the threat of invasive earthworms in Western Great Lakes forests at Nisswa, MN; 7) the Western Great Lakes Research Conference, contributed talk on developing action recommendations to respond to the threat of invasive earthworms in Western Great Lakes forests at St. Paul MN. PARTICIPANTS: PD: David Andow (Entomology). PIs: Terrence Hurley (Applied Economics), Cindy Hale (UMN Duluth Biology and NRRI), George Host (NRRI Duluth), Nathan Meyer (UMN Extension), and Rebecca Knowles (Leech Lake Tribal Division of Natural Resources). Partner Organizations: Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe are cooperating as subcontractors and providing space to conduct the research; Leech Lake Tribal College and the Environmental Education Program at UMD are cooperating by identifying undergraduate student interns to help with the project. TARGET AUDIENCES: 1. Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. Their reservation covers nearly all of the study area. They have been very supportive of the research and will be a critical partner for extending the impact of the work. 2. Fishing resort owners, via direct interaction on the research and educational efforts that remain to be developed. 3. Native American undergraduate interns. Two participated during 2010, and we designed and implemented a curriculum to teach them about career and research opportunities in natural resource sciences. 4. Land managers in central Minnesota. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
Our main outcomes this year are associated with objective 4 and 5 of the project. For objective 4, we hired four interns, including two native American students from nearby colleges. We developed and implemented a mentoring curriculum for these interns. As a result, three of the four interns presented their results at a professional meeting, during November 8-10, 2010, at St. Paul, MN. One reviewed legislative and regulatory policy for managing invasive earthworms in Minnesota and found that current policy would not protect most of the northern hardwood forests in Minnesota, and that agencies were not willing to exercise their authority to do so in any event. This suggests that new policy approaches may be needed to protect against these invasive earthworms. This report attracted the attention of several people at the conference, and we plan develop some state-wide legislative strategies to improve the policy framework in Minnesota. A second reviewed how demand for earthworms by anglers changes over the season. This is important for determining the impacts of bait labels on bait shops, anglers and the associated fisheries. The third examined how fishing tournaments may contribute to the movement of earthworm baits. These results suggest that a closer examination of fishing tournaments is merited. For objective 5, we worked with eight fishing resorts and interviewed about 40 resorts in the Leech Lake-Cass Lake-Lake Winnebegosh region of central Minnesota. All expressed great interest and concern that invasive earthworms might damage the northern hardwood forest.
Publications
- Christianson, Drew. 2010. Effects of fishing tournaments in Minnesota's Laurentian region. MNWIISC 2010. Abstract Booklet from the 2010 Minnesota-Wisconsin Invasive Species Conference, November 8-10, 2010, St. Paul, MN, p. 6. http://www.minnesotaswcs.org/2010_mn_wi_invasive_species_conference.h tm
- Kallestad, Jenna and David A Andow. 2010. Current regulatory policy for invasive earthworms in Minnesota. MNWIISC 2010. Abstract Booklet from the 2010 Minnesota-Wisconsin Invasive Species Conference, November 8-10, 2010, St. Paul, MN, p. 62. http://www.minnesotaswcs.org/2010_mn_wi_invasive_species_conference.h tm
- Northbird, David. 2010. Demand for earthworm bait. MNWIISC 2010. Abstract Booklet from the 2010 Minnesota-Wisconsin Invasive Species Conference, November 8-10, 2010, St. Paul, MN, p. 62. http://www.minnesotaswcs.org/2010_mn_wi_invasive_species_conference.h tm
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