Wednesday, July 15, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon 15 Fossils show disturbed ecosystem By David Stauth Correspondent photo by Jodi sChneider MCnaMee Charlotte oakes displays her quilted flag, signed by Gees Bend quilters. QuILtERS: Many artists come to Sisters for inspiration Continued from page 1 made by up to four genera- tions of women in the same family. Bend quilter Charlotte Oakes was excited to sign up for their workshop for a sec- ond time. “I took this class last time these incredibly tal- ented women from Alabama were here in 2011,” Oakes explained. “This class excites me because they have a new take on what quilting is all about; they are so brilliant. They have taken something that is utilitarian, like a sim- ple quilt for your bed and have made it into an art form, and they’ve done it in isola- tion, a very rural place. They make quilting exciting, and it frees me up! I have no sewing machine or rotary cutter, I can be free to use my scissors and rip material and it’s great.” In 2011, during a Gee’s Bend workshop, Oakes quilted a flag out of bits of material and had the Gee’s Bend quilters sign it, and on her back label is a photo of her and Gee’s Bend quil- ter China Pettway with the quilt. The words on Oakes’ label are “In the Company of Americans.” She brought it back to the workshop to remind them of how incred- ibly inspired she was and still is by their heritage and bold improvisational quilts. “I put the photo of China on my label because she helped me with the quilt. I quilted the top in the class and finished the bottom of it at home. Their way of quilting is a whole new perspective of looking at things,” Oakes said. “I’m so glad China is here this time in Sisters so I could show her my finished work with her photo on the label.” Gee’s Bend quilter Mary Ann Pettway was on hand helping students in the Friday-morning workshop, and explained to The Nugget why she thinks Gee’s Bend quilting is special. “Speaking for me and all of us; we are blessed with a God-given gift that we put it into fabric. Before we start quilting, we always start out with a song and then pray,” Pettway said. “People donate fabric to us. I use a lot of bold colors that I find and cut out a bunch of strips and start from there, with nothing in mind at all, it just comes to me as I quilt. “Even if I happen to find some scraps on the floor I just pick them up and use them. Sometimes during a class someone may throw out a few scraps and I will get them, its trash-to-treasure for me. It’s just stitching three layers together and people just seem to enjoy our quilts. I will say we are so happy to be back in Sisters, we just love it here, and the people make us feel so welcome!” CORVALLIS – A collec- tion of fossilized owl pellets in Utah suggests that when the Earth went through a period of rapid warming about 13,000 years ago, the small mammal community was stable and resilient, even as individual species changed along with the habitat and landscape. By contrast, human-caused changes to the environment since the late 1800s have caused an enormous drop in biomass and “energy flow” in this same community, researchers reported today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The dramatic decline in this energy flow — a mea- surement of the energy needed to sustain the biomass of this group of animals for a given amount of time — shows that modern ecosystems are not adapting as well today as they once did in the past. While climate change is one part of this problem, researchers at Oregon State University and the University of New Hampshire have found that changes in land cover have been far more important in the last century. A particu- lar concern is the introduction and expansion of invasive, non-native annual grasses at the expense of native shrub- lands. The end result, they say, is the transformation of the Great Basin into an ecosystem that is distinct from its 13,000- year history. The study is the first of its type to track an ecosystem- level property, energy flow, over many thousands of years, and is ultimately based on the study of owl vomit – little pellets of undigested bones, hair, and teeth that owls regur- gitated over millennia into Homestead Cave near the Great Salt Lake. These pellets contain the remains of owls’ prey, mostly mammals that are smaller than a house cat. “These owl pellets pro- vide a really spectacular fossil record that allows us to track biologic changes continuously through thousands of years,” said Rebecca Terry, an assis- tant professor in the College of Science at Oregon State University. “They show a dramatic breakdown in ecosystem behavior since the late 1800s, in a way that doesn’t parallel what happened when major climatic warming took place at the end of the last Ice Age,” she said. “The current state is driven by human impacts to habitat, and these impacts have been a stronger force in shaping the mammal commu- nity over the last century than just climate change.” As the last Ice Age ended in this region, vast lakes dried up and vegetation made a tran- sition from forests and sage- brush steppe to desert shrub- lands. But throughout these major environmental changes, Terry said, the “energy flow” stayed just about constant — as one group of animals would decline, another group would naturally rise and take its place. Since the late 1800s, another episode of rapid warming is under way, but the reaction of the system has been different. “Species distributions change over time, and that’s not necessarily bad in itself,” Terry said. “But this research shows that ecosystem-level properties, which are often assumed to stay relatively sta- ble even when perturbations happen, are now changing as well. The ecosystems are los- ing their natural resilience, the ability of one group of species to compensate for the loss of another.” A major impact since the late 1800s has been the intro- duction of invasive cheatgrass that displaces native bunch- grass and desert shrub habi- tats, while increasing fire fre- quency, the researchers said. They show this invasion has also caused an observed shift in the composition and struc- ture of the small mammal community, moving it toward small, grass-affiliated species, while larger shrub-affiliated species have declined. Cheatgrass thrives on dis- turbance, and much of this region is now affected by this exotic annual grass. Many human activities have facili- tated its spread, including livestock grazing which was historically intense, establish- ment of mining camps and railroads, and an increase in fires, the researchers said. The Great Basin is now one of North America’s most threat- ened ecosystems. Research that merges both modern and prehistoric data can help inform modern con- servation biology, the study’s authors said. “For conservation and management it is important to understand when, how, and why the responses of animals today differ from times of environmental change in the past,” said Rebecca Rowe, an assistant professor of natural resources and the environ- ment at the University of New Hampshire. “The fossil record allows us to do just that.” Studies such as these pro- vide a window into natural baselines prior to the onset of human impacts in the last century. The effects of human land use on ecosystems can then be separated from the forces of climate change today.