I spent the last week with 2 fellow lecturers from Polytechnic and several students in the 4th-year Bachelors of Technology program in Nature Conservation. The students gathered from across Namibia to spend the week at the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), near Otjiwarongo (3 hours north of Windhoek). 4th-year students take their program via distance, and this is the time to get together for practical, field experiences.
There are photos on our Picasa site that detail the week. We did several types of surveys, learned from professionals at the CCF, and did hands-on analysis of data collected in the field. It was a great learning experience.
One of my contributions to the week was to introduce a method of measuring 'standing stock' or biomass of grassland habitats. For almost 40 years, range and wildlife ecologists in the Great Plains have used a range pole, or visual obstruction pole, or Robel pole (named after one of the first people to publish a paper using the method). The general idea is to see how much of the pole cannot be seen at the bottom. The more that is obstructed from view, the more grass there is. With proper calibrating, a person can estimate biomass from quick measurements with the pole.
Namibian range ecologists usually calculate biomass by physically clipping 10's or 100's of little plots and finding the dry weight. It is very precise, but takes a long time to do all the clipping! A quick internet search by yours truly found no use of the range pole in Africa. So, the Polytechnic students may have been the first people in Africa to use the range pole. After all the things I've learned from my colleagues and students, it was nice to show them something new.
1 comment:
Was looking for images of Robel Poles to update the ones I will be using at Waterberg and then I saw this image and immediately knew it was Namibia! Way to go!
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