Protect Species Podcast
This podcast is a production of the Global Center for Species Survival, which is a partnership between the Indianapolis Zoo and the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission (IUCN SSC). We record all episodes at the Indianapolis Zoo in the Bedel Financial Media Studio, made possible by a generous gift from Elaine and Eric Bedel.
Protect Species Podcast
Wetland Wonders and Mayfly Missions with Conservationist Dr. Luke Jacobus
Discover the ephemeral beauty of mayflies and the pressing need to conserve our precious wetlands with Dr. Luke Jacobus, whose boundless enthusiasm for Ephemeroptera and Indiana's wetland ecosystems shines brightly in our latest conversation. As we wander through his journey from a curious child enthralled by the natural world to a professor and researcher safeguarding the state's environmental heritage, you'll be captivated by tales from the field and the dedication required to study these fleeting creatures. Dr. Jacobus's experiences underscore the importance of understanding and protecting the diverse life that dwells within our own backyards, emphasizing the interconnectedness of all species, no matter how minute.
The story of Indiana's wetlands is a poignant one, marked by loss yet filled with hope. We traverse through the history of altered landscapes, from the draining of Beaver Lake to the reshaping of the Kankakee River, shedding light on the struggle to preserve the remnants of these ecosystems. Dr. Jacobus highlights the critical roles wetlands play—beyond hosting biodiversity, they offer essential services such as water purification and flood control. Our discussion extends to the broader challenges of freshwater conservation and the significance of engaging stakeholders in a united effort to protect these environments for future generations.
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Links:
Washington Post - The world's oldest winged insect is in trouble. How frightened should we be?
Wisconsin Wetlands Association - Can wetlands and farms go together?
Indiana Wetlands
Rivers, lakes, marshes and bogs. What do they have in common? Well, they're wet and home to lots of incredible species. Today, we're joined by Dr Luke Jacobus, a professor and researcher at Indiana University, columbus, who has a fascination with freshwater, insects and ecosystems. I'm Monnie Boehm.
Justin Birkhoff:And I'm Justin Berkoff. Welcome to the Protect Species podcast, where we celebrate biodiversity and converse with conservationists. Welcome, Luke. Can you start briefly by telling us and our listeners who you are and a little bit about what you do?
Dr. Monni Böhm:I just told them who he is.
Justin Birkhoff:I mean, that's true.
Dr. Monni Böhm:But maybe a little bit more right.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Sure, my name is Luke Jacobus. I'm a professor of biology at Indiana University, columbus. I do research on aquatic insects and especially mayflies, and in my role as a professor I teach and I do lots of outreach with the community, both locally and even globally, like we're doing here today.
Justin Birkhoff:Excellent, so you know, there's this passion for wetlands, and you mentioned a little bit about what your study focuses. Where did this start? Where did you fall in love with freshwater systems?
Dr. Luke Jacobus:I don't know that anything like that happens at any one point in time. I think it's something that happens over a lifetime, and I grew up in a rural area and had to make my own entertainment, and a lot of that was being outdoors and walking around and seeing lots of interesting things close up and far away. And as time's gone on, I've seen that some of those things that I love are being challenged by some of the things that people do, and I really want to hang on to some of those things and be able to share those things with my daughter and for them to be there for future generations too.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Awesome. So you mentioned already or maybe Justin did that mayflies are your current focus. Can you tell us a little bit more about mayflies? Yeah, including explaining the word that I can never really say when I'm slightly tired.
Justin Birkhoff:Go for it I cannot do it. Ephemeral.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Ephemeral, I currently have trouble speaking.
Justin Birkhoff:Today Our producer put the word ephemeral in the notes, so how does that apply to mayflies and what does it mean to you?
Dr. Monni Böhm:Thanks for helping me, Justin.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Mayflies belong to the insect order Ephemeroptera. That's the scientific name for all mayflies, and when you break down that word you get ephemera and optora. Ephemeral wing, short-lived wing Mayfly. Adults live for a very short period of time, sometimes a few minutes to a few hours, at most a couple of days. And when something is ephemeral, it's short-lived, it's only here for a little while, and that's where the mayflies get their scientific name.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Oh, excellent. And how do you study them if they're only here for a very short time?
Dr. Luke Jacobus:You have to have really good timing. This is why I do not study them if they're only here for a very short time you have to have really good timing, excellent timing.
Dr. Monni Böhm:This is why I do not study, maidenly.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Really good timing if you want to find the winged stages, the stages that are flying around or out, perched on vegetation on land. Fortunately, the nymphal stages, the stages that are the young that look different from those winged adults, live in water, and their lifespan is a lot longer in many cases, sometimes several weeks to even a couple of years, and so if you know where to go, look and know their exact address, so to speak, within that place you can find the nymphal stages, and those are sometimes easier to find.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Within that place, you can find the nymphal stages, and those are sometimes easier to find, sometimes not.
Justin Birkhoff:How do you find the?
Dr. Luke Jacobus:exact address of a mayfly? Google it no, no. Google it no, no Phone book. That's something that comes with experience and being out in nature and getting muddy and dirty and awfully wet and splashing around in wetlands and streams and lakes and ponds, and you find mayflies living in specific places and each species tends to have its own ecological niche, its own little space in nature that it fills, its own role, that it fills certain things that it does in certain places at certain times. And as you gain experience with the different kinds of mayflies, you learn where to find them, when to find them and how to look for them.
Justin Birkhoff:So it's the growth of your experience and expertise allows for this kind of reoccurring experience, or like a longitudinal study, where you're visiting the same sites over and over again yeah, yeah, that's, that's very true.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:or even places I haven't been before. I can go in and look at the habitats and say, hey, that's where I'm going to find a certain kind of mayfly. As an example, this last summer I had a scientist from col from Columbia visiting me here in Indiana and we went out collecting together and she studies a certain genus of mayflies, trichorothodes, and we went to this stream that she obviously had never been to before, she'd never done field work in North America and certainly not in Indiana. We walk into this stream and within a few minutes she had gone and found Trichorothodes mayflies. That's phenomenal, and so that's the sort of thing with experience and with a trained eye, that you can go do. But they have to be there for you to find them.
Justin Birkhoff:Okay, and we'll dive a little bit more into some of your research Dive. I like it. Yes, Good puns. Yeah, A little bit about that a little bit later, but you know you mentioned that you're a professor of biology. So how did you, you know, how did you wander into that part of the world and what? What about it? Do you love the most?
Dr. Luke Jacobus:I like being able to do something different every day.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:I like being able to delve beneath the surface to continue our water puns here, and to really engage people in some of those things that I've found and to share some of my passion for this wonderful world around us and to provide people like me with some background and education about that world.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:I teach at a small commuter campus in south central Indiana and it's actually the area where I grew up. I certainly didn't plan on that happening and, as a matter of fact, at that stage of life I wanted to get as far away from there as I could, but I found myself back there and I'm glad I'm back there. And it's a chance to give back to that community who helped me get a start and share with some of the people there some of the things that I've learned from getting away for a while and that I'm now learning right there about this wonderful world around us, and that really invigorates me to be able to help ordinary people and people that I identify with and that I understand and that were a lot like me when I was growing up, to give them opportunities for learning about some of the same things that I had a chance at.
Dr. Monni Böhm:So I mean, I feel I know the answer to this already, because we've just been listening to you and, frankly, just listening to you is very inspiring, listening to your story. How are you inspiring this fresh water love in your students or in the community that you work with?
Dr. Luke Jacobus:We get outdoors Excellent. Four weeks out of my ecology lab class are spent at a national wildlife refuge and we spend about four hours a day there and getting muddy and dirty and getting in the water and looking for all kinds of living things, not just mayflies. They put up with me drone on about mayflies, but as mayflies are diverse, I try to keep my topics diverse and help them learn more about the natural systems around us, not just mayflies, not just water, but land and air and how land and air and water all interact to support all of life and to keep this world going.
Justin Birkhoff:I mean that's fantastic. I think back to my own undergrad experience and the classes that stick out most were the ones that had that hands-on field component. And mine was on the beaches of California, which sounds really glamorous, but it's way less glamorous in February it's very wet, it's very cold, but those Poor you.
Justin Birkhoff:I know it's terrible Poor little Justin, but those sorts of experiences, I think really do, you know, open up opportunities and allow people to kind of explore and project themselves into this sort of career path. So it's great to hear that it's something that's worked for you when you were, you know, coming up and that you're imparting on your students now.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Learn by doing Immersive learning.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Immersive in fresh water.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Immersive. There we go again.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Speaking of which, well, I happen to, like you know, wetlands and other freshwater ecosystems too which is just as well, given my job title, Otherwise I would be in the wrong job. So I've obviously only recently moved to Indiana, but as far as I hear, Indiana was once home to one of the nation's largest wetlands. Can you explain what happened to Beaver Lake great name, by the way and the Kankakee River?
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Well, northwest Indiana was about half covered with water for six months or more out of the year prior to European settlement, and when Europeans came in, we I'm speaking of that because that's my lineage here we tended to try to shape the landscape to suit our immediate needs, and what we did is we drained water so that we could put plants in the ground that we wanted to use, and beaver lake was a casualty of that process. It was a huge lake, probably between 40 and 50 square miles in size in the early 1800s, and after the drainage activities got underway in the late 1800s, by about 1917, beaver Lake was down to about a third of its size, and then by the 1960s it was gone entirely its size, and then by the 1960s it was gone entirely. Um, and you can, if you look at a map, you can see some of that history. There's a place called lake village and there's no lake around, and that's where that village got its name. Um it, um. It was named for the lake that once was nearby.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:There was another lake that was 12 miles long up in that area of Indiana, and it's all but gone now too. It was part of the Kankakee River Basin. The Kankakee River was a river that was once very slow and windy and moved through wetlands in that part of the state. And again, um in our wisdom, to, uh, to, to help the help the river be more efficient and help the river do its job more.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Um, hear the dripping sarcasm that sounds terribly german and I do apologize we must be more efficient yes, dredged and straightened said river and tiled and drained the wetlands so that we could use them and live on them and customize them for our purposes. And in the meantime, those wetland habitats are gone. Many of the creatures and plants that once called them home aren't there anymore, and it's a very different landscape than what we would have seen 200 years ago in that area.
Justin Birkhoff:So, even with all this human intervention into it and changing it, you know what are the kind of unique parts of the Indiana freshwater ecosystems that we still see today.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:You can see little relics of places as you travel through all of Indiana, little bits of what once was, and in northern Indiana there's still a few of the natural lakes left and occasional little pockets of habitat along the road, sometimes along railroads, you can see remnants of what once was, because the railroads went through relatively early and some of those habitats haven't been altered or messed with quite as much, and sometimes old cemeteries offer chances of seeing some of the plants that were there when they were founded in the in the middle part of the 1800s.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:A lot of those are prairie plants, but some of them are wetland plants too, because people like to put cemeteries at tops of hills or on the sides of hills near streams because it was beautiful, and so you can find some of those things in spaces such as that. There are a few protected areas here and there across the Indiana landscape where there were some of the original habitats that we've since recognized as important and have kind of cordoned them off and saved them so that Hoosiers can experience them and see them, and so they can be protected for the other kinds of non-human life that call it home.
Dr. Monni Böhm:So I suppose the story that you've just told about Beaver Lake and Kankakee River it's not really entirely unique to Indiana, may I say that's happened really around the world. So I'm from Germany, which is why I'm allowed to joke about it, just as a disclaimer, in case it wasn't already blatantly obvious. But obviously the same stuff has happened in Germany too. Making rivers more efficient, making them work for us. Why are wetlands so important at a global level? Why is wetland conservation so important at a global level, given what we've already done to these?
Dr. Luke Jacobus:systems. I think, first and foremost, there's a great diversity of life. There's many different kinds of things that live in wetlands, that call them home and don't have any other place to live because that's their space, that's where they live, that's what they do. Even if we set that aside and sometimes we have to do that, because we do have to think about ourselves as well and consider what the wetland habitats do for us, that gets into an area, um, that we've labeled ecosystem services. Ecosystems serve us. They do lots of things that, if it didn't happen, we'd all die, um, not to put too fine a point on it.
Dr. Monni Böhm:On that note. That was this week's episode of the.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Protect.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Species podcast.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:The ecosystems help us in many ways. They give us our clean air to breathe. They give us our clean water to drink, to drink. They provide us with processing of the nastiness that we put out into the world. Wetlands in particular do a fantabulous there's a scientifical word for you. They do an amazing job of cleaning up water, for underground water reserves, for having clean water in rivers, for having clean water available to us to use. They help to mitigate flooding events. One of the reasons that we have some of the catastrophic floods that we have now is because we have gotten rid of the wetlands. Wetlands hold water all the floodplains yeah, they.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:They hold water and when there's nothing there to hold the water, it has to go someplace, which is downstream, and if you've taken all the curves out of it, and shorten the distance it does it efficiently it doesn does it very efficiently, absolutely, or where I lived before.
Dr. Monni Böhm:If you then also build houses on the floodplain, yeah, that's also not great. Brilliant.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Because it's beautiful, great idea.
Dr. Monni Böhm:I mean it's got a water view right.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Yes, prime estate, the Riverview Shopping District is going to get underwater very quickly. It's like living in venice and so the wetlands help to to sort of modulate or keep the water levels in reasonable ranges. Another thing that wetlands do is they hold back a lot of the organic carbon that is out in nature and slow the carbon cycling down in a good way. Yeah, that, they are wonderful reserves for that carbon and, as we hear a lot of talk about carbon sequestration, wetlands are an incredible natural way of doing that.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Yeah, I could go on and on totally because they do a lot.
Justin Birkhoff:Yes, they do lots of things. One thing that's interesting you talked about, like water filtration, and you know the almighty algorithm of my instagram keeps on showing me these videos of people using like small wetland systems in their backyards for freshwater pools, so to reduce the amount of chemicals you're putting into it. So you know, even at this micro level, we're starting to see the values of it, but at the same time, it's still not being necessarily put into practice in larger ecosystem spaces.
Justin Birkhoff:Um, we're starting to have a very niche instagram, I do it's weird. The algorithm provides, as it were, um. So when we talk about, you know how protecting wetlands is really important, how do we support the wetlands that we still have and what are avenues to allow that coexistence moving forward? And we look at you mentioned ecosystem services and we live in a big agricultural state. How do we make sure that those two things can coexist and don't come into conflict with each other?
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Well, they have to coexist because as long as there are humans, we'll have agriculture to support humans and we need natural systems to help even support our agriculture and help protect the soil that we use to grow things in. If we don't try to hold some of that soil in place using plants, it washes away and if you lose your topsoil you lose your most productive agricultural land in the long term is to have filter strips that have vegetation in them near and long waterways so that any soil that might be coming off of a field gets trapped there. The plants take up some of the excess nutrients that might be added to help keep our agricultural systems going and stop them right there. Your question was multifaceted.
Justin Birkhoff:It was. They're more fun that way.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Yeah, they are more fun that way and it is a good way to get your guests to start rambling and to start thinking about lots of different things, but I do want to answer your question. So if you could track back, if you're able and put you on the spot now.
Justin Birkhoff:The second part of it was how do we allow these systems to coexist and support the rehabilitation of some of those wetland systems that we've removed from the environment?
Dr. Luke Jacobus:I think that was the direction I was going a bit with some of that answer is to find ways that protecting environmental system supports agriculture and also helping people engaged in that profession to see the value of the wetlands that are right alongside the land that they're stewards of, the lands that they're the temporary caretakers of. And I grew up in a farming community. I come from many generations of farmers. Farmers want to protect their land. That's their income now and hopefully for future generations, and so as these different groups work together, I think more and more common ground can be found.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:There's a really good project on my brain's going blank at the moment the pine creek, I think.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:It is up in northwest indiana, south of lafayette, where they've engaged the local community to help protect the stream and all the land that supports that stream, and a lot of local farmers are really buying into the idea. Engaging in no-till practices, ways of disturbing the ground less and ultimately, a lot of these things not only prevent erosion, but they keep a lot of the nutrients right there in the soil. One of the reasons that we have to add nutrients to the soil is because we take them away when we harvest, that we have to add nutrients to the soil is because we take them away when we harvest. And if we take or allow some of the byproducts from the agricultural process to disappear, get washed away, blown away, whatever, and as long as you keep those things right there, local, they can be cycled through and really cut down on some of those inputs and that saves money and that's something that I think everyone can agree on saving money sure saving money is good.
Dr. Monni Böhm:I need to get better at it this podcast is a production of the global center for species survival at the indianapolis zoo. We record all episodes in the beetle financial media studio, made possible by a generous gift from Eric and Elaine Beatle.
Justin Birkhoff:So we talked a little bit about how wetlands support massive amounts of biodiversity.
Dr. Monni Böhm:You moved from San Francisco to Indianapolis. To save money, surely yeah?
Justin Birkhoff:That's not the only reason there's jobs here.
Dr. Monni Böhm:I mean, yeah sure, Sorry Jobs equal money.
Justin Birkhoff:Yes, it's true. So wetlands support a massive amount of biodiversity. They have a huge value in ecosystem services and what they're able to provide for us from recreation and everything else we mentioned earlier. You focus in on mayflies, so you have this wealth of experience and knowledge when it comes to mayflies. Flies so you know you have this wealth of experience and knowledge when it comes to mayflies. We'll focus mostly on what you're seeing on a very you know, kind of on the local scales, like what are you observing with mayflies in Indiana? And?
Dr. Luke Jacobus:what are some of the conclusions you're drawing from that? Well, indiana is the state west of the Appalachians that has the greatest historic mayfly diversity, in other words, as far as we know, more different species at least once called Indiana home west of the Appalachians than any other state in the United States or any province in Canada.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:And part of that is because we've had some mayfly experts residing in Indiana and they've looked closely, but it's also due to the fact that Indiana actually has quite a bit of diverse habitats here. We've got Great Lakes in the north, we've got those former massive wetlands also up in northern Indiana, we've got plains throughout the central part of the state, and then you get down to southern Indiana and you've got hills and the plateaus that have been eroded over the eons by water. You've got glaciated places northern and central Indiana and you've got parts of southern Indiana that have never been touched by a glacier. Some of those areas even tie in to the Appalachian and Ozark Islands, and so we've got a long, long geological history here that has provided a lot of different kinds of water habitats. And, as've been looking through indiana over the last dozen or so years, it's actually longer than that um, probably 25 years.
Dr. Monni Böhm:How time flies, but I'm how time flies when you look for me right in with the terrible humor that exists, sigh.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:But I've been looking for some of the species that were seen in the early days of the study of Indiana waterways and sadly, about a quarter of the species of mayflies in Indiana have found themselves on our state's threatened and endangered species list and, as a matter of fact, 35 of Indiana's roughly 165 species are on those lists. That's a pretty high percentage. Again, sadly it's not unique. When I look at other states, look at other countries around the world, typically it's anywhere from about a quarter to even up to 40 percent of mayfly species fall into those categories. When I look at indiana specifically, of those 35 threatened and endangered mayfly species, I've only seen six of those in the last 10 years and I've been out looking really hard with 25 some years experience behind me and I'm simply not finding those species and that's kind of depressing one it makes.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:It was very depressing it makes me question myself am I not doing something right? But but you are, you're the mayfly. I'm, I'm, I'm trying and I am finding things that other people haven't found before, but the number of things that I'm finding that others haven't found is far less than the number of things that I'm not finding, and that's throughout the whole state that I'm seeing this, and it's obviously speaking to some changes in the world around us, and changes not for the better. Yeah.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Our producer, kelly, is waving at me frantically, because she told me the story of. She grew up in southern Indiana, guess what. She lived near a lake, not in Lake Town, though.
Justin Birkhoff:No, Santa Claus. Santa Claus Not named after a lake.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Where Santa comes from and where the elves live.
Justin Birkhoff:She remembers seeing Allegedly Obviously some global warming been happening there they do.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Santa comes from and where the elves live. She remembers seeing Allegedly Obviously some global warming been happening there?
Dr. Monni Böhm:They do. They're slowly migrating somewhere else. I don't know Now, I can't remember the story.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:She lived near Santa Claus and she saw lots of mayflies back in the day she used to see lots of mayflies back in the day.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Indeed, when she was, she was a kid, which is obviously, you know, just five years ago. Very recent.
Justin Birkhoff:Very young.
Dr. Monni Böhm:And so clearly I think lots of our listeners might also have experiences of well, similar experiences and somehow getting a sense that mayflies may be in trouble in Indiana. But one thing that I really wanted to ask you about is you're looking for species that we haven't seen in a long time species that we haven't seen in a long time lost species. One could say that why and how are you doing this? Why? Obviously, because it's great. Why, but why not?
Dr. Luke Jacobus:why not? And why are? And why are any of us doing anything? That's just these philosophical questions.
Justin Birkhoff:This is a philosophical podcast.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Are we real or are you just figments of my imagination?
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Me being the Mr Scientist person that I am and Dr, professor and all the other wonderful names that people call me to my face and behind my back.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:There's a certain level of arrogance that comes with some of that. I mean, we've all got to have some ego to get out of bed in the morning and to get in front of people and talk about things. You've got to be pretty confident. And I guess it was my ego thinking well, the reason nobody is seeing this is because nobody has looked and the right people have not looked. And I am that right person and I'm going to go out and I'm going to find all of these things and I'm going to show how wonderful I am.
Justin Birkhoff:I mean I appreciate that um and it's been very humbling. I also appreciate your internal monologue that has a different voice.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:It's great yeah, lots of voices, lots of voices, some different perspectives. But I thought I could just go out and find these things and then say, ha ha, look, nobody was looking. That's why we didn't find them all as well. But that's not what I'm finding and so I've had to adjust that internal story. Maybe I'm too honest and too vocal about some of those past internal stories, but it's very humbling and I think it's a good way to help everyone understand what is really happening here. I mean, I'm the person who was joking about a lot of these things in years past. As I see it up front in my face's hard to deny and hard to to say that all is well. And when I try to try to put explanations on it, it's a little bit like that Bob Dylan song about there's something happening here. We don't know what it is. Um, can you sing it to us? Um, I could, but that would be another podcast.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Maybe we can finish this episode with a sing-along. That would be nice. Let's think about it.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:But you know, as you look for things and you go knocking on the door and nobody's home, you have to wonder why nobody's home, wonder why nobody's home, and as I put my feet in the water and look and smell and experience those things, there's a certain amount of degradation that's happening and that's even happening in some of our forested places and some of our places that we haven't plowed under, and that raises bigger questions about why is that happening, and I certainly don't pretend to have all the answers to that, but I see a lot of algae, a lot more algae than I remember as a kid when I went wading in the streams and splashing and picking up rocks and looking underneath to see what was there, and so I wonder about things that have come in that once weren't there. But also, as you lose some of the creatures that fed on, that algae is going to build up more, and so there's kind of this vicious cycle going on um out in the water and it's.
Justin Birkhoff:it's interesting that, as you mentioned, the like even our protected spaces. So we have this, so we have this kind of idealized version that if we protect it it will be there, that we don't have to worry about that sort of loss, and that even as we look at these spaces that we have designated as protected, that we spend time, money and energy and effort to keep, quote, pristine, that we're still seeing these massive changes.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Right, quote pristine that we're still seeing these massive changes. Right, and there's some challenges with that. Because even if, for example, I find a mayfly in a protected space and I found one this spring and I was over the moon about it not all of the land that drains the water into that protected space is protected.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Yeah, the water into that protected space is protected, and so to protect the species that lives downstream, you have to implement measures to protect the water upstream. That's both the water in the channel and the land that provides the water to those flowing streams, and that's a great challenge.
Dr. Monni Böhm:I'm really pleased that you picked up on this, because I was just about to point out Well, protected areas have been established generally with terrestrial areas in mind.
Justin Birkhoff:Very true.
Justin Birkhoff:Often do not work that well for something that flows through it and is connected to and you mentioned earlier with some of the farmers and some of the practices that we're seeing being becoming more popular. Is that stakeholder engagement right? It's like generally, when we talk about protected areas, there's a, there's a community, people, often terrestrially focused people that are really bought into that. But you know, these systems are connected to each other and there's, you know, this huge, huge upstream effect that we don't necessarily think about because we haven't had that freshwater perspective that everything's been very focused on. You know, the plants that we're able to see or the animals that we, you know, enjoy, and this, you know, the fresh. There's a blind spot for freshwaters as well as for invertebrates in many regards.
Dr. Monni Böhm:And this has just come from our mammal coordinator. I've done my job.
Justin Birkhoff:You have. So actually I was going to ask one of the questions that kind of relates to that is when we talk about conservation, there's so much of it that is focused on these big species and, with my own background, a lot of it was focused on species that weren't even necessarily domestic Lions, tigers, bears.
Justin Birkhoff:Lions, tigers, bears bears, cheetahs, um, those sorts of things, and if you ask the average person to talk about endangered species, these are the things we generally talk about. Or we talk about whales and their recovery and that sort of stuff. We don't talk about freshwater mussels, um, and we don't talk about invertebrates. So how do we have these conversations and tell these stories about the conservation needs for these valuable and, in many ways, huge parts of our systems and the threats that they face and the ways that we can really focus in on making sure that?
Justin Birkhoff:we don't lose mayflies and that there is a value to having mayflies, even if you know a producer kelly from santa claus doesn't know what that is as a small child but now appreciates it as an adult well.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Telling stories is something that we all need to be engaged in, and, as we all learn and grow in our understandings, we need to share that with other people. And almost without exception, I've found that when I start talking to people about what it is I'm doing, what I'm seeing, they get interested in that on some level, and even myself. I grew up from a small child being interested in insects. I was that weird bug kid and I guess I still am. I never grew out of it, fortunately, and I've always been interested in those things, but I didn't realize what life lived in water, and it wasn't until I started college actually, and, for a class, looked in the water to see what was living there. I always took water for drainage because it was there. Sometimes it was in the way and I didn't even think about it, and that's kind of sad, and so when I went out for this class to collect some insects, I was actually on my parents' farm here in Indiana and it was just a drainage ditch, something I always thought was kind of ugly and disgusting. I got in there and I scooped around and pulled up a net and it was full of life, so this thing that I saw as this unliving kind of nasty thing was full of life, and it was life that I'd never seen before.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:And for me again, being someone engaged with nature and engaged with bugs and other creepy crawly, odd things, seeing all this wonderful new world really excited me, and when I'm out and about, people stop and say, hey, what are you doing? Are you catching anything? And I know what they mean. They wonder if I'm catching any fish, and that provides an opening to talk about what it is I'm doing, and I show them.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:And again, almost without exception, people are fascinated by this and incredibly interested by this, and yesterday I was out in the field and I visited one of those places where a certain species of mayfly had been seen 50 some years ago, but nobody has seen it since. So I went back to the site and, as time does, time had changed the space and there was a bridge with long guardrails there and there was someone's home there and it was starting to get built up, and so I had the conundrum how do I get in there, how do I get into that space and still respect the people and the uh strong suggestions of keep out that have been placed there? And so I drove up and down the road a little bit, so I'm the creepy guy in the pickup truck driving up and down the road looking.
Justin Birkhoff:I started to advertise that too much.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:No, yeah, we all need hobbies. Obviously I do because I'm here talking about trouble but I drove up and down the road a little bit and I saw someone out and I thought, hey, let's do a cold contact. So, I pulled up in the drive, jumped out and I always wear the geekiest T-shirt imaginable. I go out and do field work, and so I'm covered in pictures of mosquitoes and moths and all kinds of things.
Dr. Monni Böhm:In many ways that then also makes you look really unthreatening.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Yes, it's just a geek.
Dr. Monni Böhm:He just needed a hobby, exactly.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:He is lost.
Justin Birkhoff:I need to help him.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:I feel sorry for this child, this man-child who's walking up to my home, obviously lost and needs help finding his way. And so I stop and say hi, I'm Luke Jacobus. I'm a professor of biology and professional man child. I'm looking for. I'm going to have to put that on my CV.
Dr. Monni Böhm:But professional man, child, I think more people should.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Oh boy, now that we've totally lost it. So I walk up and introduce myself again. I tell him I'm a professor of biology, and then I'm doing a study, looking for species that people haven't seen for a long time. And, lo and behold, one of those species happened to be right here, next to your property, and you could see his face just light up. And he was immediately engaged and interested and said oh sure, you can park right there. If you want, you can drive across my lawn, you can go back there and park, help yourself. And so it always opens doors again, almost without exception.
Justin Birkhoff:And now you have a guy who's going to tell an interesting story about the professor that he met and what he's doing.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Exactly.
Justin Birkhoff:And who knows where that can take you. Where that goes, exactly, precisely.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:And he also now has an appreciation for what's in his custody that stream, that land right next to the stream and he obviously was taking measures to try to make his property look nice and to protect it. And now he's got even more to think about when he's doing that, and that's encouraging to me. That, and that's encouraging to me and it's it's getting out there seeing people, engaging people and talking to them and listening to them too, and listening to them tell about how the river has changed, how the stream has changed over the years that they've lived there, and you can learn lots of interesting things that way to help me as a biologist, but also to give them context for why it's changing in that way and what things have happened over the course of time.
Dr. Monni Böhm:I love this story. I feel in conservation, at least over the past decade or so, quite often we've been too much focused on the oh, nobody cares about our little, tiny mini species and I don't think that's true at all it's just people haven't had that experience.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Of course it's like lions and tigers and bears. Oh my, um, but um, I really don't think that's true. It's just you can only really care about what you know about, and if there's so much stuff out there that we're obviously competing against in terms of information coming in, you just need to tell people what's out there and people will get engaged and I think it's not even naturally fascinated with even creepy crawlies yeah, that's the first wildlife encounters we usually have.
Justin Birkhoff:It's true, and there's that human connection of you know that there's a passion like I am looking for this mayfly, and you know the average person's like okay, cool that, cool, that sounds great.
Justin Birkhoff:But to have a longer conversation about what the context is, why it's important, why it's important to you, like why it's important to our system as a whole is one thing, but like why it's important to you is really where that connection point happens. And I think that's a really big, valuable lesson that we see over and over again as we have these conversations, that there's so much about conservation that is the science, that it's the data you know when evaluating where these species are and what their extinct you know, extinction risk are and that sort of stuff, and we often lose sight of the fact that there's a story behind these like that there's a reason that people love these species, regardless of what it is, where it's found you, what walk of life it is, is that there's a passion point and that there is somebody out there that loves every type of species.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Yeah, and that's half the reason why I love my job because I get to work with people who are excited and enthusiastic about stuff that other people would have never even thought about, and I love that, I love that and I love that characteristic in people.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:And one of the cool things, one of the cool things which is why we love you, Luke.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Professional man, child and mayfly whisperer. I never really grew up, it's great, we can call you Peter Pan as well. No, no, no. Kelly says no, no.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:I have a feeling that's going to get edited out.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:I believe that will get edited but one of the great things about mayflies is that, even though it, mayflies fall into what I would call the non-charismatic species group the uh, not big and fuzzy, and the not huge and colorful, and the not oh, wow immediately to everybody.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:One of the the good things about mayflies is that they live in water and everyone needs water.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Yeah, most of us take it for granted, especially here in the middle of eastern north america, and we're sitting in this nice, comfortable, air conditioned room with glasses of clean, cold water right next to us that we sip from and don't even think about the rest of the world is not so lucky.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:But even if you're among those who take that for granted, it's a very short conversation to help people realize how important water is and how necessary it is and then to make the connections about. Well, if the mayflies are in trouble, if the things living in our water are in trouble, what does that say about our water? And then that opens up conversations about the land that drains that water and about the air that that water falls through to get to the land, to get to the streams and lakes and ponds, and it's really a gateway for a wider understanding and beyond that, I would hope some wider action to do some things to help care for our ecological systems this would be generally a really good place to finish this podcast, but we can't let you go until we have blown a tiny little bit of our own trumpet.
Dr. Monni Böhm:So look, you have a relationship with the Indianapolis Zoo, um around your conservation research. This is the trumpet blowing happening right now. How's that program project come about and how's it? How's it going?
Dr. Luke Jacobus:well, I have a short-term conservation grant from the Indianapolis. If I can speak, I have a short-term conservation grant from the Indianapolis. If I can speak, I have a short-term conservation grant. Now I'm going to have to say that again because everybody's going to make fun of me for enunciating.
Dr. Monni Böhm:That's a lot of words, though, isn't it?
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Yes, my daughter makes fun of me for saying such things in such ways when she listens to me. So if you're listening, you can make fun of me later.
Dr. Monni Böhm:I was going to say do kids not generally just? Laugh at their parents. I think that's just a normal thing.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:I have a short-term conservation grant from the Indianapolis Zoo to study the most endangered and threatened mayflies in Indiana so a list of about 12 to 15 species that haven't been seen in over 50 years and I've used that money to travel around the state and revisit some of these places looking for some of these lost species, some very unique habitats, some of which continue to exist and others I get there and find they no longer exist, and so the zoo is helping me understand the story of mayflies in Indiana better, and by gathering more information, by gathering current information, I can add to that continuing story and share that story with others, as I've done here today.
Dr. Monni Böhm:That's amazing. So look out for Luke and his pickup truck driving up and down the road, coming to a wet space near you. Yes, what a way to describe that wet space is probably not the right terminology. Wetland water body to a water body near you yes so look out for luke driving up and down the road in his pickup truck, coming to a. What did I just call it?
Justin Birkhoff:Water. You said wet body, which doesn't make any sense.
Dr. Monni Böhm:I said wet space. Admittedly, kelly is like please stop talking.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:The gestures in this room are definitely noticeable at this point.
Justin Birkhoff:But, Luke, thanks for joining us today. Thank you for sharing a bit about what you've been doing, what you are doing and what you hope to do, and sharing some wonderful thoughts about conservation of wetlands and mayflies.
Dr. Luke Jacobus:Thank you for having me, Thanks for the invitation and thank you everyone for listening, and I hope that by learning a little bit more about some of the wonderful, fantastic species that we share our Indiana home with, that you're able to appreciate this wonderful Hoosier state and do your little part to take care of it also.
