Wildlife Wednesday Free Event: Exploring the FUNGI that Sustain the Rio Grande Bosque
By Ben Neary
NMWF Conservation Director
Rich Wagner, an ecologist at the nonprofit Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program, has made extensive study of the fungi that have evolved alongside cottonwoods and other native plants in the Rio Grande Bosque. He will present a talk on his work Feb. 11 through the New Mexico Wildlife Federation’s “Wildlife Wednesday” series.
Up until the last century or so, the Middle Rio Grande flooded every spring. The vast river flows watered cottonwoods and other plants and left fresh sediments when the waters finally receded in summer. Of course, that’s no longer the case.
A series of dams along the Rio Grande now captures spring runoff and releases it slowly to meet the needs of cities and agricultural users.
Every drop of water in the river these days is spoken for. Only the existence of the endangered Rio Grande Silvery Minnow and a few other endangered species account for keeping minimal summertime flows in the Middle RIo Grande, which nonetheless occasionally runs completely dry.
That stark change in river flows coupled with the wholesale invasion of nonnative plant species such as salt cedar and Russian olive have created challenging conditions for cottonwoods and other native plant species. All that, in addition to widespread development, has resulted in loss of wildlife habitat.
While it’s easy to see such changes on the surface, Wagner’s research shows that disturbances in the bosque also hurt the fungi that coexist with and help sustain plant roots in the soil. In working to replant areas, he said it’s important to add soil from undisturbed areas of the bosque that still retain the essential native fungi.
“There’s a huge benefit, there’s a reason why plants and fungi have been developing these mutualisms for 450 million years or so,” Wagner said of keeping native fungi in the mix when replanting.
“In reality, it’s really a pretty simple thing,” Wagner said. “Take dirt from over there, put it in the hole. You’re basically just inoculating the hole with some fungi from not too far away so they have a jump start on what they’re doing here.”
Wagner has a master's degree in biology from the University of New Mexico, where his research focused on the effect of different disturbances in the Rio Grande Bosque on different fungal communities. He’s worked as an ecologist with the Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program since 2019 and is a research lecturer on faculty at UNM.
The Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program, which has a long association with the Bosque School, now operates at UNM and enlists students from K-12 classrooms to help collect data from the bosque. Many different government agencies use research findings from the project in planning restoration projects along the bosque. Wagner said the program takes an average of 8,000 kids into the field each year.
“We have considerable impact, in addition to the science that we do,” Wagner said. Research includes monitoring ground water and vegetation.
Wagner also is director of the non-profit Isleta Reach Stewardship Association, which concentrates on bosque restoration work from Isleta downstream to San Acacia.
“Our goal is kind of bringing the community together,” Wagner said of the association. “To educate them and inform them about the bosque, about the different work that some of the different agencies are doing down here, and then get them involved in monitoring and maintaining their own bosque.”
Many of the people who live along the Rio Grande between Isleta and San Acacia are hunters, Wagner said. “Maintaining these habitats is super crucial, and this has really been an underserved section of the river in that way,” he said.
The association works to help government agencies maintain accountability for their projects, Wagner said. “In the past, it’s been easy to get a grant to move stuff around with bulldozers and plant some trees,” he said. “It’s a lot harder to get a grant for five or ten years to monitor it and see how you’re doing so you do the right thing next time. Because this is such a quickly changing environment down here – adaptive management – what we’re doing today may not work in five years. So we have to have lots of data to do that.”
Wagner cataloged about 8,000 different species of fungi in his research at UNM. That work has allowed him to gauge the effect that ground disturbances have on the fungal community.
He said his research has found that the bosque is not a fire-adapted forest, unlike mountain forests that have evolved to withstand periodic fires. As a result, he said fire in the bosque can eradicate the native fungi and allow undesirable foreign fungi to establish itself.
That finding means that there’s value in reintroducing native fungi the the bosque in areas that have been burned, Wagner said. “If we can find these ways to introduce these early on, that can really help the health of the trees,” he said.
The use of heavy equipment to rip out invasive plant species can cause equal harm to native fungi in the soils, Wagner said.
Wagner’s talk will give some history of the bosque, including what current problems exist and how they've occurred. He will also address future programs and projects and how his research can be of benefit.
There’s much that local residents can do to help the bosque, Wagner said. “We are community science-based organizations,” he said. “Everything from identifying and removing exotic species before they take hold to monitoring plants to monitoring areas for invasive species to monitoring birds, there are a lot of things a lay person can do to be involved in protecting this system.”
Bosque renovation work directly benefits waterfowl and other wildlife, Wagner said. He noted that hunting and fishing groups in the United States provide the backbone of conservation funding. He said that recreating good bosque habitat will bring in game species. “It all goes hand in hand,” he said.
Wagner’s free talk will start at 5:30 p.m., Wed., Feb. 11, at Marble Brewery’s Northeast Heights Taproom, at 9904 Montgomery Blvd., NE, in Albuquerque.
