If you ever want to see biodiversity, just step inside the Wagner Natural Area.
But watch where you step: you might tread on a rare orchid, crush an undiscovered beetle, scare a shrew or ravage a reptile.
Little surprise, then, that most visitors to the area southwest of Big Lake tend to have their eyes on the ground. Arachnologist Robin Leech points out a gossamer web next to his foot in Wagner. That's the home of a funnel-web spider, he explains, one of the more than 230 species of spider known to live in this region.
Leech is one of the few people studying this region's bugs, and he's already found 20 new species of spider. There could be more, but we'll never know for sure if development keeps pushing into Wagner. "The problem is we're clearing off our lands faster than we're learning what's there," he says.
Habitat loss is causing species to go extinct a thousand times faster than usual, according to the United Nations, which has prompted it to declare 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity. All this year, Leech and other researchers will be scouring biological hot spots like Wagner to seek out new life before it disappears for good.
An island of life
Leech, known as "Spider-Man" to some, is one of Alberta's foremost authorities on spiders and one of the few arachnologists working in Wagner.
Wagner is a roughly 260-hectare fen that teems with life. One-sixth of Alberta's plant species can be found here, as well as 16 of its 28 orchid species and thousands of birds, bugs and beasts.
"Look at this habitat," Leech says, as he steps carefully through the wood. "Every two metres, 10 metres, there's something different." He passes through willow, poplar, spruce and tamarack in the space of 30 metres, stepping over budding lilies and crawling centipedes as birds chatter in the bush. It's a textbook example of biodiversity, or life in all its forms.
One major reason for this diversity is the area's groundwater, says Ben Rostron, hydrogeologist and past president of the Wagner Natural Area Society. Sand and gravel channels flow under this region like long wet sponges. When it rains, the weight of the water squishes these sponges, causing water to come to the surface.
Different water levels create different habitats. Wetter areas host water-loving plants like marsh marigolds and bog violets, while drier ones hold spruce and currants. Some of the wettest areas form calcium-rich mud bogs called marl ponds — home to wood frogs, western toads and tiger salamanders.
Mapping the island
Rostron is in Wagner to spot orchids for an upcoming conference. Recent rains have brought the flowers out in full force: yellow lady's slippers dangle over the undergrowth, while magenta shooting stars rocket towards marshlands.
He gasps with excitement as he spots scores of finger-high stalks with tiny white bellflowers poking out of the pine needles: early coral roots. "It's the earliest flowering orchid we have in most of Alberta," he says, and also the smallest. "In a month you won't see anything. It just retreats into the ground."
With him on his search is Patsy Cotterill, a botanist. As part of the annual spring species-in-flower count, it's her job to find and count all the flowering plants in Wagner. Considering the sheer volume of greenery, this can take awhile.
"Every year we try and account for the same plants and say what stage of flower they are in," she says. Flowering times let her track shifts in climate, which could affect the kinds of plants that grow here. As she slowly works her way through the forest, her eyes are glued to the ground, checking every fern, currant and tree for buds or blossoms.
"There's a good deal of stability in Wagner," she says — she's been doing this survey for 25 years, and has yet to see any significant changes in flowering times. "It's a case of monitoring in case something happens in the future."
Leech's research is more about discovery. He arrives at one of six trap sites he set up in Wagner this May as part of a new bug survey. It's simple enough: a yellow pan for bees ("They're suckers for yellow colour," he explains) and metal pits in the ground for everything else. Each is full of soapy antifreeze that kills on contact. He sets up the trap, lets bugs blunder in, and strains them out. As if to demonstrate, a crab spider tumbles into a pit trap as he's speaking.
"Every single thing in there is a spider," he says, presenting one trap's catch. Many seem frozen in place, ready to pounce. He picks out other choice items with his forceps: big black beetles, hornet queens, butterflies, snails and centipedes. He'll take all of them back home and spend hours sorting them under the microscope, hooting and hollering whenever he finds a new one.
A 1985 spider survey identified about 230 species of spider in Wagner, Leech says, some the size of quarters, others smaller than specks. At least 20 had never been previously discovered. Since that survey just covered the parking lot, he says there are probably many more spiders to find here.
And it's important to find them now, he adds, as they might not be there later. He recalled one incident during his student years when a professor tried to show him a tropical forest full of newly discovered spiders, only to find that farmers had burned it to the ground.
"When you get to a tropical area, a species may have a distribution the size of the Wagner Natural Area," he says. "You clear off that area, they're gone."
Preserving the storehouse
Human development is the biggest threat to biodiversity in Alberta, according to Brad Stelfox, landscape ecologist with the ALCES Group (which does land use analysis) — specifically, agricultural development. Albertans have replaced about 17 per cent of the province's land with crops, he notes, transforming diverse ecosystems into food-growing monocultures. About 70 per cent of the province's prairie wetlands have also been drained, eliminating them as water filters, carbon stores and animal homes.
Wagner is under constant pressure from surrounding developments, as its groundwater recharge zone extends several kilometres beyond its borders. As recently as 2007, Parkland County officials had considered allowing industrial development just south of the region — development that could have harmed the region's groundwater.
Wagner's marl ponds have been drying up sooner in recent years, Rostron says, and some members say development is the cause. (It could also be climate change or drought, he notes — readings from the area's groundwater monitors are inconclusive.) Noisy road traffic has scared off many owl species, while clumsy feet have tracked in invasive weeds.
Places like Wagner provide us with clean air, water, carbon storage, and scientific knowledge, Cotterill says, and their beauty builds on our physical and mental health. "I was in Wagner yesterday and I felt absolutely privileged to be in such a beautiful spot," she says. "There was water gurgling, everything was green and lush, there was birdsong … it was absolutely at its peak."
By protecting and monitoring Wagner, Leech says, we protect a storehouse of life that could one day help bring more biodiversity to the rest of Alberta. "That is our legacy. We now have something that can be left for the future."
Visit www.cbd.int/2010/about/ for more on the international year of biodiversity.
